Devon was quiet. He seemed to be thinking this over.
“It was a choice, Devon,” I said softly. “To not have connections. To be alone. To have an empty house with no one in it. To be that way all the way to the end of his life.”
Still he stayed quiet. This was one of the mysterious things I loved about Devon—his ability to stay silent when he wanted without the need to fill the air with words. Silence terrified most people. I had yet to come across a single thing that terrified Devon Wilder.
I glanced at the tattoo on his hand again, visible below the cuff of his shirt. No Time. Graham had chosen loneliness; it couldn’t be lost on Devon that he could choose it, too. He could end up the way his grandfather had. He was tough, solitary, an island. I could see it even now, as he stood in front of me, this man I’d shared more with than anyone else in my life. And now the money would isolate him further. I felt a soft pulse of worry deep in my gut, along with the throb of sexual attraction that never quit when Devon was anywhere in view. I hope he can be happy. I hope he finds a way.
“Are you going to find your brother?” I asked into the silence.
He shifted, tense, and put his hands in his pockets. “I’m hiring a detective agency,” he said. “I paid the retainer this week. Cavan has been hiding long enough. It’s time to track him down.”
“He really just vanished? You have no idea where he is?”
“He split after our mother died,” he said, the words a little short. “Let’s go inside.”
We didn’t even bother ordering in. We scrounged some bread and cheese from the kitchen, and found a bottle of wine in Graham’s wine cellar, and that was all we needed. We didn’t even get halfway through the wine before we ended up in Devon’s bed, pulling each other’s clothes off.
And it started again. The heat, the madness that always came over me when Devon touched me. I just needed his hands on my skin to turn into someone else, some Olivia I wasn’t familiar with, who dug her hands into Devon’s hair and bit his lip softly. I’d been a good girl for a week, but now I had this man—this big, sexy, muscled, complicated man—in bed with me, and I was done being good. I pulled up my work skirt and he took my invitation, sliding his fingers into my panties as he kissed me hard. I moaned and arched up into him, urging him to rub me harder.
After our last time, I’d found bruises on my skin. One on my inner thigh, now turning yellow. Two on my hips, in the shape of his fingerprints. There were red marks on my breasts from his teeth, and my skin had been tender and burned from his stubble. My lips had been raw, my bones sore, and I’d had aches in muscles I hadn’t even known existed. It hadn’t been tender, sweet lovemaking. I had gone to work aching, my clothes feeling harsh on my skin.
I had never felt more alive. I wanted more.
I unbuttoned his shirt, and he pulled it off so I could run my hands over his shoulders, his chest. He kissed me again, his mouth delicious and familiar on mine, and for a second I was so overwhelmed with it that I was almost afraid. Afraid of who I was, of who we were when we were like this. When he broke the kiss and pressed his mouth to my neck, undoing my blouse, I said, “Have you been with a lot of women?”
It took him a second to process the question. He paused and lifted his mouth from my neck. “What?”
My heart was pounding, my ears ringing. I wanted to slow down the panic, but at the same time I also wanted to know. He must have gotten all of this experience somewhere. “It’s okay if you have,” I said. “I just—I’d like to know. About you.”
He pulled back and looked at me, his green eyes bemused. But instead of scoffing or telling me to be quiet and get on with it, he answered the question. I felt my heart cave a little further in my chest.
“Not a lot,” he said. “A normal number.”
I bit my lip, looking up at him. “Was there anyone special?”
A muscle in his jaw tensed. “No.”
I was watching him closely, and I could feel every line of his body. He wasn’t lying. “So, you just dated, then,” I said.
That earned a short laugh. “Olivia, the time I took you to dinner is the only date I’ve ever been on.”
He wasn’t lying about that, either. I’d been on dates—too many dates. Boring, awkward dates that never seemed to end. Dates that appeared polite but were actually a negotiation for sex, namely that the man wanted sex and I didn’t. I tried to imagine how you did it without dates and couldn’t. “So, what then?” I asked him.
On top of me, Devon grew tense. He didn’t want to talk about this. “Okay,” he ground out. “You want to know the kind of woman I usually fuck?”
I blinked at him, not sure I did anymore.
“Waitresses,” he said. “Bartenders. Women drinking alone who come on to me. Strippers, occasionally. Divorced women who want a revenge fuck, and want it rough.” He looked in my eyes, challenging me. “That kind of woman.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again. He was trying to disgust me, turn me off. But all I could think of was that it sounded lonely. And that I may not have had the same experiences, but I knew how lonely felt, even when you were in bed with someone. I knew that feeling so, so well.
“I stopped,” Devon said, as if reading my mind. “I don’t know why, but I did. When I met you, I told you I was having one-handed sex. That was the truth.”
“I hadn’t had sex in eighteen months before you,” I said in a rush. “We’d been on three dates, and I knew he expected it. I barely even remember what he looked like. I just didn’t want to sleep alone.”
Something flickered across his eyes—understanding, maybe. Because even though we were so different, he knew. He leaned down and kissed me again, and then he broke the kiss, unbuttoning my skirt. “Forget those guys,” he said.
I lifted my hips so he could get the skirt off. “I told you, I already have.”
“Forget them more.” He tossed the skirt away and pushed up my cotton camisole, which I’d been wearing beneath a light sweater I’d long ago taken off. He ran his hands over my breasts, then pulled down my bra to expose my nipples. Then he lowered his head and sucked one.
I arched my back, pressing up into him. The fear was gone. The past was gone. Everything was gone except for me, and him, and his hands on my skin. His teeth grazing my breast.
“Don’t…” I tried to form words, to say what I wanted. “Don’t be gentle,” I said.
One of his hands moved up and cupped the back of my head, then twisted powerfully but gently into my hair. He lowered his mouth to my ear. “You think I don’t know what you want?” he said to me, low and dirty. “You think I can’t tell exactly what makes you crazy? What makes you come? How you like me to touch you?” His hand twisted harder, his other hand pulled my bra down further, and I moaned, wrapping my legs around his thighs. “I know exactly what to fucking do,” he said. “I know exactly how you fucking like it. And it’s just the way I like to fuck.”
I pushed up harder into him, wrapping my legs around him, and sunk my teeth into the hard, hot skin of his shoulder. “Do it,” I panted.
He did. He took my clothes off. He pushed my legs apart. He used his big, hard, body, his expert hands, his incredible mouth. His big, blunt cock. He pulled me to pieces and made me sore all over again. And when I came, it was like white-hot fire twisting through me, burning me until I could feel nothing but flames.