I blinked. “You read it?”
“I had two years in prison and nothing to do except stare at the ugly faces of the guys in with me. Max kept lending me books. So I read them, And, yeah, he lent me that one.”
Max. That was his friend that took over Devon’s old apartment across from me, the hot guy with the beard. “Max has trashy taste.”
“Sometimes,” Devon agreed. “He followed that one with Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, though. I think he was just trying to piss me off.” He paused. “He worried that I was going to come out of there worse than when I went in. It happens to a lot of cons. Most of them.”
I shifted my weight between his legs. “I was about to say that I can imagine it, except the truth is I can’t.”
“Then don’t,” he said. “You’re not missing anything. So you know the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You were there when it was happening.” He paused, and I knew we were both thinking of that night, of him devouring me in my bed. “Now tell me the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
It was an odd question, maybe, but I was realizing that one of the things I liked about Devon was that I never knew what he would say. “Well, my dad dying was bad,” I said, “but I was just little.”
“The worst thing you remember, then,” he said.
That was easy. “Failing art school.”
“You went to art school?”
“In San Diego. For a year. Before I moved here and got the job at Gratchen.”
“Why did you fail?”
I leaned my head back against his warm, hard shoulder, thinking back, as the water soothed my skin. “I couldn’t do anything right,” I said, trying to explain. “I’m just not an artist, not really.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. Every project I turned in got marked low. I never got it right. When I turned in my final project of my first year, I think I already knew.” I tried not to wince at the memory.
“What was wrong with it?” he asked.
I didn’t want to talk about this, but he was right. I already knew the worst about him; it was a fair exchange. “I took photos. Then I blew them up, printed them, and painted over them. I added faces, dragons, fantastical elements to everyday street scenes. And the pictures, taken together, told a story.”
Devon was quiet for a minute. “So? What was the problem?”
I shrugged, the motion making the water in the bathtub swirl. “The professors said it was too commercial. That it lacked passion.”
His finger traced the side of my neck. “I don’t think you lack passion,” he said softly.
I paused as a shiver raced up my spine. Suddenly I was very aware of my nakedness. Of his. Of the flex of his stomach against my back. Of what we’d just been doing, bent over the dresser in his bedroom. “I was passionate when I did those pictures,” I managed. “I felt passionate. It was devastating to fail. I haven’t felt that way again until—” Until I first saw you climb the stairs to your apartment, I almost said. Until I got in your car in the rain. Until I let you into my apartment that night.
“I let my mother down when I failed,” I said. “She paid the tuition. People think actors are set for life, but my mother hasn’t acted in twenty years. She did a couple of shampoo commercials to send me to school, and to pay for Gwen’s tuition to acting school. And we both failed. She was nice about it, but things just sort of felt… over for a while. I had to join the real world. Go and get a job.”
“A job you don’t like,” he said, his voice musing.
“Most people have jobs they don’t like,” I said. I pulled away from him, feeling his legs flex in an attempt to keep me, and I turned around, rising to my knees in the water of the tub. I wanted to see his face, his expression. I leaned in and traced my fingertips over his short beard, over the line of his mouth, and watched his green eyes watch me. I’d told him my worst possible thing, and nothing bad had happened. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said, running my fingers along his jaw, his cheekbones. “There are other things I want to do naked in the bath with you.”
He was still for a moment, letting me do what I wanted, and then something dark and wild flared up slowly behind his eyes. “You miss me?” he asked softly.
Fuck. Yes. Like crazy. It wasn’t possible to miss someone you’d only been with once, so I said, “I don’t know. It feels like it.”
His hand came out of the water and brushed over my nipple, making it go hard. “Did you come thinking of me over the past two years?”
Yes. Oh, yes, I had. But I said, “I’m not going to tell you that.”
“No?” His hand dropped to my waist, and his other hand came out of the water. “Then show me.”
The water sloshed as he placed me back, sitting me on the edge of the huge tub, my legs and feet in the water. He kept his hands on my hips. “Show me,” he said again.
I knew what he wanted. I wanted to do it. But I was still a little shy as I pushed my knees apart and slowly dropped a hand between my legs.
His gaze followed my hand. “Keep going,” he said.
I ran my fingers along myself, inside myself. My self-consciousness evaporated when I saw how avidly he watched me, how hypnotized he looked. “Like this,” I whispered, using my fingers to push myself open. “And like this.” I rubbed a slow, sure circle around my clit.
He made a small noise, almost like a sigh, and didn’t move his gaze. He grabbed the back of my knee and pushed it farther, dipping his head so he could get a better view. “And what are you thinking about when you do that?” he asked roughly.
I’d never had a man look at me like that before. I’d never shown so much to a man before—any man. “You,” I said, watching his dark, bent head, the hard lines of his posture. I was starting to get sweet, familiar shocks moving up through my body from where my fingers swirled. “I’m thinking of you.”
“Doing what?”
“You—” I could barely form the words. “Your mouth. On me.”
“That’s nice,” he said softly. He brushed a finger over my entrance, making me flinch with pleasure. “I know exactly how this tastes.”
“It was so good,” I said, half-closing my eyes. Now I had two equally hot images in front of me—Devon right now, watching me, and the image of the Devon two years ago, burned perfectly into my brain, putting his mouth between my legs. It had been good. I let out a breath, dropping my head back a little.
I felt his fingers brush me again, and the touch, mixed with my own, was exquisite. “And then what do I do?” he asked.
“You tell me you want me,” I said, reciting the next part of the fantasy without thinking. “You tell me you want to fuck me. That you can’t stand it anymore.”
His fingers pressed harder, touching my entrance as I stroked my clit. “And do I?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Do I fuck you?”
“Yes,” I said. I was arched back now, my eyes closed, every part of me focused on the sensations between my legs, on the fantasy. “You fuck me like you did that night—and—and it’s so good—” He slid two fingers all the way inside me, stretching me, and I lifted my hips off the edge of the bathtub. I couldn’t talk anymore. I just let it happen, his fingers and mine, both of us moving. My body took over, the hot pictures in my memory and in front of my eyes, and I came in slow, rippling waves, panting quietly.