Devil In The Waters // Book 9 // Chapter 7

EARLIER IN THE DAY

At lunch they split a Sake Salmon Bowl, picking up their order from the restaurant, then bringing it back to Devlin’s apartment. Sashimi salmon, served on rice marinated in sake and soy, ginger on the side and a wasabi mayo. They ate standing at the kitchen island in their work clothes. The morning had been spent down at the union office, the Shoreman Association in the Lower Don Lands by Cherry Beach. She’d stayed silent the whole time while Devlin talked to the Chief, there as intimidation to make Devlin’s words seem more palatable when compared to implied legal complications.

They alternated turns taking slices of the salmon, Devlin with a fork, her with chopsticks. She said, “You’re going back to the city after lunch?”

“I’m only here for one thing. You going back to the office?”

“Yup,” she said, slipping the cold fish past her lips.

“Big night tonight,” Devlin said, smiling to himself, eyes turned down for his turn to spear the sashimi.

“Josh is parking in the office underground, and I’m driving him to the subway.”

“Aww, that’s nice.”

Kimmy raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to be good to him tonight.”

Devlin forked salmon into his mouth, but raised two fingers. When he was mostly done chewing, he said, “Scout’s Honor.”

She showed him a look of doubt, picking up a slice of the fish between the points of her chopsticks.

Devlin said, “But I might have some surprises,” setting down his fork and wiping his hands on a paper napkin from the takeout bag.

Kimmy paused with the salmon held near her mouth, waiting to see what Devlin would say next, waiting to determine if it was a joke or some semblance of truth. “What kind of surprise?”

Devlin sighed and cocked his head, sucking his teeth and studying her through calm, narrowed eyes. “Are you worried?”

She said, “You should be worried.”

“About what?”

“What I’ll do to you if you hurt Josh.”

Devlin chuckled heartily, smiling wide, black eyes gleaming.

She said, “I’m serious.”

“I don’t doubt you are,” he said, taking up his glass of chilled chardonnay and sipping.

“Then what’s so funny?” She eyed him scrupulously, putting the salmon in her mouth and chewing.

Devlin set his wine down and faced her, not answering, but instead cupping her jaw, then easing out one of the sticks that held her bun in place. The bun loosened and fell to one side along her neck. She leaned her cheek to rest it on the cup of Devlin’s large palm. He thumbed her lower lip.

She said, “If you hurt him, I swear I’ll make you pay.”

Devlin’s eyebrows bowed at her warning, skeptical and dismissive. He said, “You’re the only one who can hurt him, Kimmy.”

She rolled her eyes—to Devlin’s amusement—but couldn’t deny there was a point to his claim. She tossed her chopsticks into their rice bowl and huffed. “You’re using me to get to Josh.”

Devlin let her cheek go and folded her arms, while she rose to stand tall in front of him and properly undid her bun.

“I don’t want to hurt Josh. I’m doing him a favor.”

“You’re so fucking full of shit,” she said, laughing, and shaking out her hair, running her nails through it.

Devlin chuckled too, and cocked his head, admiring her with her hair down. “There’s some truth in what I’m saying. You know there is.” He unfolded his arms and began to work out the top button at the collar of her black silk shirt. She slipped off her jacket and tossed it on a clean space on the island’s marble countertop. They’d danced around all kinds of dirty ideas, and she’d toyed with playing Josh’s erotic guitar strings, but the closer they got to confronting Josh with it, the more insane she thought the idea was.

With her shirt unbuttoned all the way down and untucked from her pants, Devlin traced a finger down her collarbones, between her breasts, down her stomach. She shrugged out of the shirt, eyeing him again with scrutiny.

She asked him, “So what is it we’re saying?”

Devlin tugged her closer with his finger hooked on her waistband. Her hands went to his suit lapels. “Both of us want Josh to know what we’re doing.”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “Maybe you do, but I don’t.”

His arms went around her and she melted into his determined embrace. His strong hands unhooked her bra strap. In tall heels like this, her mouth rested near his neck. He whispered in her ear, “Yeah, you do. You want him to know and you want him to be okay with it. You don’t want him to hate you. You’re so afraid he’ll hate you.”

She stepped back from him, letting him keep her bra, standing topless before him in only slate grey suit pants and high heels. Devlin wound her bra around one hand like a boxer’s wrap, then shuffled the bra off his hand and plopped it next to her suit jacket, eyeing her, sure of his words but not antagonizing her further.

“Of course,” she said, looking away. “That’s not a genius’s take.”

“I’m not trying to impress you with my perception. I’m trying to be honest with you. All three of us are mixed up in this thing you and I started, and all of us know deep in our hearts we’d rather not hide it anymore.”

She raised her chin in some small measure of defiance. “I thought Josh started it.”

Devlin smiled and stepped closer, cupping a hand to her rib cage, sliding it upward and thumbing over her erect nipple.

Her lashes fluttered, always loving the way his manly hands stroked her body. “Did Josh start it?”

Devlin’s dark expression focused on his hands as he brought them together and unhooked the waistband of her suit pants. He unzipped them, pushed them to her hips, eyes still turned down. “God, your fucking body, Kimmy.” The pants slipped below her ass, revealing her panties.

She said, “Did he ask for all of this?”

Devlin only smiled, his eyes not on hers now, but on her breasts, watching his thumb circle her nipple. She raised his chin, and he met her eyes. He said, “In his way.”

She dropped her finger from his chin and rolled her eyes, stepping back and crossing her arms over her naked chest. “Oh God, so cloak and dagger.”

Devlin held her waist on either side and lifted her up to sit her panty-covered ass on the cold marble countertop. Her fine wool pants bunched at her knees, and Devlin removed them, careful getting them over her heels. Pants tossed at her side, he began to caress her ankles and knees, opening them to stand between her open thighs. She was naked but for panties and heels; he was fully clothed in a suit and tie and platinum cufflinks.

When his mouth approached hers, she closed her eyes, let him take her kiss, touching her throat and collar. He said, “You’ve asked me all this before, Kimmy. My answer isn’t going to change. Whatever happened that night with Josh at Tiff’s cottage was all in his head. But it’s to our benefit.” His broad hand stroked up and down on her breastbone, his thumb and pinky flicking over her nipples.

She raised her chin again. “What are you going to do to him?”

“Give him everything he ever dreamed of.”

“What’s that?”

Now he kissed her neck, his voice a whisper near her ear. “Watching me with you.”

She shook her head, ran her fingers through the hair at Devlin’s neck. “He’d never agree. Never want it.”

He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “You know deep down I’m right.”

“No, I don’t. I only hope he will. He won’t ever want it.”

Devlin shook his head like he was disappointed in her. “You’re lying to yourself. It turns you on. What we’re doing turns you on. And what it’s doing to Josh is starting to turn you on, too.”

“That’s crazy, Devlin.”

“Is it? You get off on it. You’ve thought about Josh watching us. Hell, you’ve said those words to me.” His hand fell to her collar, then slid lower, down her middle to the crotch of her panties. She moaned and rolled her head on her neck at his masculine touch.

She said, “That’s just dirty talk.”

“That’s how it starts.”

As he began to knuckle-roll circles on her heat, she whispered, “Tell me what you’re going to do to him tonight.”

“Drinks, Jays game. I have some surprises planned.”

Her hands gripped his shoulders, hard muscle under expensive fabric. “Don’t hurt him.”

“I won’t. Do you believe me when I say I won’t?”

“No.”

“Aw, Kimmy. You wound me.”

“I know you.”

Devlin slipped his hand down the front of her panties and touched her slick labia. Her spread-out thighs quivered.

Devlin said, “I can’t hurt him anymore.”

“Only I can,” she finished for him.

“That’s right.”

“You want to use me against him.”

He held the side of her neck and thumbed up her jaw to get her to meet his eyes. “Come on, Kimmy. You think Josh doesn’t know what we’re doing? You don’t think he’s lying to himself? You come home late, you take a long lunch, you’re acting weird, you and me we spend so much time together . . .”

“And you’re you.”

Devlin liked that, chuckling in his throat. “And Josh knows exactly who I am.” He eased his middle finger into her wet and eager pussy. “You don’t think he knows? Let him off the hook already, you fucking bitch.”

She scoffed, offended, then jokingly grabbed his nipple through his shirt and squeezed. Devlin withdrew his finger, laughed in her face and let her do it, challenging her to do it harder if she dared. And she did dare, pinching and twisting. Devlin batted away her grip with his hefty forearm. Chortling, but wincing from her digital punishment. He smoothed it with his palm, scowling at her now. Then he brightened, grabbed his growing endowment through his pants and shook it. “Why are you so mean to Josh? Why don’t you give that man what he needs?”

“What’s your thing with Josh, anyway? You have such a hard-on for my husband.”

“I don’t give the slightest fuck for Josh Waters, Kimmy.” He returned to her, slipping his hands around to massage her back. “I swear to sweet baby Jesus that I haven’t thought of him since the last day of high school. The only thing I got for him is maybe a small amount of aggravation. That he could get you. He could get a woman like you and let her shrivel on the vine. Look what Josh made you. Then look what I made you.”

“I was happy with Josh. I am happy with Josh.”

“When I met you, you were making kitty cat baskets.”

“That was a ‘thing.’ You know it was a thing. I told you what it was. Don’t use something personal against me.”

He nodded to her in apology. “I wasn’t talking about your thing. That wasn’t the point. Even when you were working, you were making fifty-k as a polyester civil servant.”

“I was making more than that,” she muttered.

“A man would never be satisfied seeing something so fine just fizzle.”

She huffed a tiny laugh, her eyes roaming up to his. “So that’s your thing with Josh.”

“No, Kimmy. That’s your thing with Josh. It just hasn’t occurred to you yet. It’s starting to.”

Her lips wriggled, and she tested all sorts of feisty responses, but none came to her lips.

“Think back to Cayman,” he said. “You chose to take Josh. You didn’t have to. Who would you have had more fun with? Josh Waters or Devlin Stone? Whose feelings and sensibilities do you have to spare or skirt? And who treats you like a woman? Who respects you, and who fears you?”

“He doesn’t fear me.”

With condescending sympathy, he stroked her cheek, saying, “Oh honey, you make him shake in his boots.”

No more words came. Devlin was right. As she chewed her cheek and moved her mouth around, trying to formulate some defense, he gripped her waist again and lifted her off the counter. She hooked her legs around his waist and looped her arms around his powerful neck.

With her clinging to him, he walked around the island and up the three steps to the pristine living room, heading to the couch. His hands palmed her ass, and she kissed his neck. She whispered, “Where are you taking me?”

“Places you never thought you’d go.” His large finger slipped under the edge of her panties and teased at her anus, getting her gasping.

“And what are you going to do to me?”

“Give you everything you thought you’d never have.”