“I could use your advice on a game. One game.” He pointed to the kitchen where ice cream puddled on the floor behind the counter. “I have the paperwork in there.”
I was already shaking my head.
“Come on, Dev. You understand odds. You’ve always been good at this. Better than me, even when you were a kid.” Yeah. Growing up with a career gambler made me good at what I did. “One game,” he repeated. “I know you remember scores and matchups in the past. Your memory would save me looking up the stats. Help me connect the dots.”
He was right. It was all logged in my brain, organized in a way that, in a glance, I would be able to help him make the most solid winning bet. Arguably, I owed him a debt impossible to repay.
He stepped past me, ignoring the ice cream melting on the floor, and gathered together the sheets of paper strewn across the counter. “You’d think I’d be better at this since I’m an accountant.”
“You’d think,” I said drily. If Sonny caught me helping Paul, he’d throttle me. At least fire me. And I needed that relationship. Hell, half of Oak & Sage’s profits came from gamblers dining and drinking in my restaurant.
“No harm, right?” Paul’s shaky smile returned.
“Wrong,” I said. “I’m going to basically help you rob Sonny, which surprise, surprise, he will not appreciate.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Paul shuffled the papers into an order that only made sense to him. This man used to be confident, not the desperate, twitchy mess in front of me. But Dad had been like this right before he died, too. The pressure of debt and owing money to big, bad guys could turn any grown man into a sniveling kid. “There’s no more betting after this, Dev. I swear.”
It was a lie. When someone was in as deep as he was, it wasn’t as easy as saying one and done. But given the option of letting him get in trouble with Tex, what choice did I have? I didn’t know the other bookie, but I’d gotten about as up close and personal with his guys as I cared to. Letting Paul walk off Bay Bridge on Christmas Eve, with a bottle of Jack in his hand and a bleak outlook on life wasn’t an option.
I couldn’t lose anyone like that again if I hoped to maintain my sanity.
I held out my hand and accepted the papers.
Chapter 7
Rena
At work the next day, my mind was predominately focused on Devlin. More accurately, Devlin’s lips. And how his kiss, despite the industrial freezer, had left me hot both inside and out.
I’d had butterflies in my stomach the first time I’d seen my high school boyfriend so I knew what they felt like. The sweet flutter hinting at possibility. But when I entered the kitchen at Oak & Sage and started for the prep area in the back, the anticipation in my stomach felt more like gargoyles with huge, leathery wings. When Devlin dropped a knife with a clang and stalked away from the table, those beasts took flight and rattled my bones.
I followed him, trying to look as if I wasn’t following him. He stepped into the storeroom and so did I. He turned, I sucked in a breath, and waited for that heated look in his eyes or for him to give me a nod of recognition.
He did neither.
Instead, he edged by, mouth set, eyes frowning, and didn’t so much as acknowledge me when he walked in the opposite direction. I’d been blown off before. This moment didn’t feel unlike my high school’s hallway the afternoon Joshua avoided me for two entire days because my ex-friend Jackie had started a rumor that I’d kissed Carl Young.
I dumped my coat in the storeroom and tugged my apron over my head. Devlin was back at his workstation, cubing steak and tossing the pieces onto a metal tray filled with various other vegetables. I stood and watched him for a few seconds, trying to decide if I should start a conversation or be witty or—
“What do you want?” he growled.
I blinked at him. His face was stone. Angry stone. Was this the same man who had turned me inside out with an intimate kiss yesterday?
I opened my mouth to say “Screw you” or a more colorful version of it, but then I remembered he was still my boss. Sadly, I couldn’t afford to be fired for giving my tongue free range.
So, I left the kitchen, unsaid words eating my organs like acid.
Around nine o’clock, I was cut from the floor. Relieved not to have any last-minute guests or campers at my tables, and more than ready to go home.
Devlin had gone out of his way to ignore me the entire shift. Even when he’d come out of the back to do some “general managing” of the kitchen staff. Of course, I didn’t exactly go out of my way to speak to him. So maybe the fault was partially mine.
No. Screw that. It was his.
My side work duty was the unpleasant job of hauling boxes of rolls from the freezer to a shelf in the kitchen where they would thaw overnight. I grunted past him four times while dragging a heavy box, and he did a spectacular job of refusing to lift his chin and concede that I existed.
As I was huffing and puffing, I thought of Roy’s nephew, Barney, and wondered if he was a gentleman. Our kind-of-date was Sunday, and I’d begun to think I might enjoy a chance to meet a nice guy. A real boy who wouldn’t ask me to do his dirty work only to punish me for it twenty-four hours later.
It also occurred to me that I’d been used. Knowing that hurt. My first venture out of my singledom cave and I’d been caught in a snare.
So unfair.
I blame what happened next on being hopped-up on my own indignation.
Someone called for a food runner to the dining room. My arms hurt from a full shift, and the tray filled with four heavy platters of ribs and braised pork chops and surf and turf didn’t beckon me in the least. All I wanted was to restock my sugar caddies, wipe down my booths, and go home. Maybe lick my wounds a little. Draw a picture of Devlin outfitted with horns and a forked tongue.
That might make me feel better. That, and a drink.
The call came again and I ground my teeth. Other than Bess, no one was in the kitchen but me, and she was busy tallying her receipts to turn in for the night. She wasn’t wearing an apron any longer and had taken down her curly blond hair. I knew she’d swipe a few of those curls through barbecue sauce if she attempted to shoulder the tray.
Sigh. I was the only option. I’d begrudgingly walked toward the tray when a voice boomed over my shoulder. Devlin’s voice.
“If I don’t have a food runner in three seconds—”
Anger welling up from earlier, I forgot my place entirely, gestured to the tray in front of me, and boomed back, “What the hell do you think I’m doing?”
I’d screamed at him. Full-on screamed.
The kitchen fell so quiet I swore the air had been sucked out of the room. All eyes were on me. Including Devlin’s. Finally. But the heat in his eyes and the curl of his upper lip weren’t exactly the reaction I’d been going for.
Eerily calm, he pointed at the floor in front of him and spoke, his voice pure steel. “My office. Now.”
He turned and stalked away, and I felt his fury as if I were standing next to a volcano about to explode.
Melinda entered the kitchen and lifted an eyebrow. Then smiled.
Her dancing on my grave told me this was bad. Like, bad, bad. But I wouldn’t let anyone see me intimidated. Head held high, I marched to the office, where he must already be because there was no sign of him on the way. I passed the dishwasher, two other servers wheeling racks of frozen mugs to the bar, and a couple of prep guys who looked as pleased as Melinda had about my bleak circumstance.
Just yesterday Devlin asked me to do something for him and then kissed me for it. Today, he treated me like garbage. If he wanted to pull rank at this point in time, he had to know that I wasn’t going to be his girlfriend when he needed favors and his lackey at work.
I’d been single far too long to allow a man to disrespect me. Even one as hot as Devlin Calvary.
I stepped into the office, and the moment I was over the threshold, he shut the door behind me. The tiny room was choked with clip
boards and paper, a wall filled with shelves holding bottles of liquor, and a computer, desk, and chair. There couldn’t have been more than three square feet of empty floor space. I backed away from the door and my heel bumped into a huge safe, knocking me off balance.
He grabbed my upper arm, I mistakenly thought to save me from falling, until he spun me around and put my back to the door. The metal blinds covering the window crinkled under my shoulders. Heart hammering, I peered up at his angry line of a mouth and, for a scant second, felt afraid of him.
He placed his hands on the closed door at either side of my head, looking down at me with the same sexy intent I’d experienced in the walk-in freezer. Only in here I wasn’t cold. Heat poured off him in waves.
“Say you’re sorry,” he commanded.
My eyebrows slammed down, but the “Hell no” on my tongue wouldn’t come forth. He was too close, and his being near—the smell of him, the feel of him—had muddied the signal from my brain to my mouth.
“Why?” I challenged.
“Because you humiliated me in front of the staff. If I didn’t bring you back here and demand an apology, the rest of them would rise up. Then no one would respect me.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. His voice was low and sinister, but there was a certain twinkle in his eye. I could see it, because his nose was inches from mine, his blue eyes regarding me from under a fan of dark lashes.
He came even closer, erasing the distance between us. I could smell the food smearing his apron—blood from the steak and various salad dressings. Vinegar, or maybe cracked pepper tickled my nose.
“Apologize,” he said. “And walk out of here looking dejected.”
His was a game I refused to play. I met his eyes in challenge. “Why don’t you just chew me out instead and I’ll leave pissed off?” Where had my snark come from? I didn’t know, but the stronger inner me lifted her palm for a high five.
“Chew you out.” Devlin’s lips were just over mine. “Mmm. I’d like that.”
As if on cue, a thrumming heartbeat kicked to life between my thighs, making this whole situation disconcerting.
Desirable.
That, too.
It was as if I didn’t know me at all when he was around.
Nervously, I licked my lips, watching his bright blues track my tongue’s movement. Yep. I was calling his bluff. Drawing my shoulders back, I brushed against his filthy apron with my chest. See? I don’t mind getting dirty. From his clothes or from him. I could handle Devlin. I could handle a whole lot of Devlin.
“So would I,” I breathed, tempting the dragon.
Devlin
So. The good girl wanted a good fuck.
I’d seen lots of girls look at me like this. There was no other way to describe the heat in Rena’s eyes or the way she leaned close. She wanted me.
With one hand, I untied the knot at the back of my prep apron and pulled it over my head. Her eyes followed the apron’s path to the floor before leveling her gaze on me.
A good girl. I tossed the words around my head. A good girl was a new concept for me, one I’d never embraced. I’d long been a fan of the bad girl. The girl who wanted to shoot tequila, then sixty-nine, and not call me in the morning. But the thought only ushered in the visual of Rena in a number of positions underneath me and on top of me.
I liked that idea even more.
I’d been avoiding her all day. Not only had I not slept last night, unless you count the thirty-minute catnap after Paul and I had devised our plan to get him out of the epic shit pile he’d buried himself in, but I’d also realized involving Rena further wouldn’t be fair. To her or to me.
I didn’t need her around, asking questions, worrying if I was siphoning drug money through the restaurant for God’s sake. I could make a clean break. She’d picked up one payment. I’d kissed her one time. Walking away would be easy.
Or so I’d thought.
Don’t mistake my excuses for honor; that was a choice born of self-preservation. I knew a good girl would rat me out, would lose sleep over my so-called evil deeds. I knew I shouldn’t drag her in deeper.
She dropped her head against the office door, crushing the blinds behind her. If anyone walked by, they’d know she was leaning against the door. Would they think I’d pinned her there with my body and kissed her hard, my hands in her pants? I didn’t really care what they thought. Let them think and suppose and wonder.
She blinked big, bedroom eyes at me, her lashes shadowing their depths. But I saw what was there all the same. Sloppy, unorganized emotions the chicks I usually slept with didn’t have the brain capacity to catalog. Which made Rena a messy choice for me.
Also, exciting.
A long, loose lock of hair the color of molasses had come undone from her ponytail. I twirled it around the tip of my finger. She’d trapped me in here without even meaning to, and I found myself throwing away every intention I had prior to this very moment.
Voice low, I asked, “Have you imagined this, Rena?”
Her dark eyes widened the slightest bit, her pupils widening right along with them. That was a yes if I’d ever seen one. And I’d seen a lot of yeses.
Her soft, pink mouth formed the word for me anyway. “Y–yes.”
My lips pulled into a smirk. What was it about her that made me reckless? Correction: more reckless. I ran my finger down her neck and watched her pulse flutter there, even as she tipped her head back in invitation.
She wanted me. That’s what it was. Good girls didn’t want me. They thought they did, but the moment I laid it on thick, they shied away from the intensity. Yesterday in the freezer, and now against the door…hell, when I was bloody and standing in her living room, Rena should have been intimidated. She should have been afraid. But her rising and falling chest and dilated pupils didn’t echo fear. She wanted me. Me.
The idea of someone so good wanting someone like me jolted my heart into a new rhythm. Like Frankenstein’s monster, alive after being cold and dead—stray, unfeeling limbs brought together for renewed purpose. Pins and needles cascaded over me, making me uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to deal with someone quite this honest.
But that, I was learning, was Rena. She was not only beautiful, but she’d let me into her house and challenged me. Tried to give me a blanket, for God’s sake. Then she’d turned me on in the freezer when I kissed her sweet mouth. She was turning me on now, according to the steel rod between my legs.
Cock straining my pants, I leaned into her belly. Her mouth dropped open, eyelashes fluttering the second my body touched hers.
I thought of our chaste kiss in the freezer, how I’d left her in there, my fingers having destroyed her hair, the faint pink scratch on her sensitive skin from my jaw. I could use another kiss or three like that. Especially if she’d let me. Taking advantage of her dropped jaw, I leaned in and stroked the roof of her mouth with my tongue, then drew away.
She blinked at me, her eyes as heavy as if she’d been drugged. An excellent sign.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it. She responded to me differently from anyone I’d experienced. Usually I brought a girl home and she attacked me; had her tongue down my throat and her hand down my pants outside my door, and dropped to her knees to suck me off before I had the keys out of the lock.
Not Rena. She was waiting. For me. I liked that.
“I’m not what you’re used to.” I nipped her upper lip and kissed it. “But I’m what you like.”
Maybe I was a notch on her cotton-candy pink compact. A chance to check off “do the dirty with the bad boy” from her sexual to-do list. Well, I didn’t care what her motivation was. She could check off every sexual exploration with me and I’d gladly oblige.
The little hitch in her breath was enough to spur me forward. Untying the bow from her apron, I yanked it over her head and tossed it to the floor with mine. Her belt went next. I tore open her pants and ripped down the zipper as she clutched my uniform shirt with one fist, lifted her chin, and boldly met
my eyes.
Look at her go.
Trailing my fingers around her lower back, I wedged my fingers around her panties and pants and yanked them halfway down her ass. I darted my tongue into her mouth, and her lips closed over my tongue, sucking so hard I swear I saw stars.
When she freed me, I had to swallow before I found my voice. “Ever been taken against a door, Rena?”
She shook her head, her breathing growing faster. I bet she’d let me. Right here in this tiny, shitty office, with people outside the door. I liked knowing how far she’d go for me.
I breathed against her open mouth and she strained to kiss me. I backed out of her reach and a cry sounded in her throat. “Ever been taken from behind?”
Another shake.
“Would you like to be?”
A nod. My balls tightened.
“Right now?”
She bit her lip. Almost time to let her off the hook. But this expedition had taught me plenty. I should be ashamed of myself for pushing her. Might have been if she hadn’t reached down right then and stroked the length of my cock through my checkered work pants.
“Sweetheart.” My voice came out in a strangled moan, like the hitch in her breath had transferred to me during our kiss. I was rock hard. I dropped my forehead onto hers, smashed her body against mine, feeling her swells and curves through our clothes. “That’s an invitation,” I growled.
“Handwritten,” she said against my lips.
I kissed her again, my tongue tangling with hers as she clawed at my back with one hand and stroked me with the other. I was mistaken. This good girl was bad. It didn’t make me like her less. More, actually. I fisted the waist of her pants and pulled them past her thighs.
Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1) Page 7