Chapter 24 #2
Rhys chuckled. “I’m happy for you. Jace seems to be coming around about him, too. He keeps mentioning him in conversation. Devlin said this, Devlin did that. Fucking weird.”
“Fuck off!” Jace shouted in the background. “I can be friendly!”
“Jace’s idea of friendship matches Devlin’s,” I said as I stubbed out my cigarette on the balcony railing. “Probably should monitor those two when they’re together.”
He snorted. “Double trouble.”
“Yeah. We’re leaving in the morning. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Drive safe.”
“Take care.”
I hung up the phone and stared out at the ocean.
The moonlight glittered on the surface of the water, and I inhaled deeply.
We’d return to the beach. As often as we could.
Devlin had been a vision today. So radiant and happy and open.
And for the first time in a long time, I hadn’t felt so lonely, so worried about the future.
I turned and leaned back on the railing.
The light from the TV flickered over Devlin’s face as he remained on his stomach, casually bending his knees and lifting his feet before lowering his locked ankles back to the bed.
At the head of the bed, resting on a pillow, were the shark and orca stuffed animals, their faces pressed together in a semblance of a kiss.
Fucking ridiculous. I didn’t find it endearing or adorable at all.
Devlin must have felt my eyes on him, because he turned his head and smiled at me. “Everything okay at home?”
Home.
My chest pulled tight, and I scratched at it. “Y—” My voice caught, and I cleared my throat as I stepped back into the room and shut the door behind me. “Yeah.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and lowered the volume on the TV. “Tigers are winning,” he said.
“Like I give a fuck.”
Devlin just laughed, and I sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. He rubbed his head against my side, and the soft hairs tickled the skin on my ribs. He rolled onto his back and pressed a kiss to my outer thigh.
“Are you going to let me work for you? Or am I going to be a kept boy?”
I snorted. “You’re no boy.”
He grinned. “Whatever.”
“What do you want to do?”
His eyebrows lifted. “You’re really asking me? Not just telling me?”
I cupped his neck and rubbed my thumb along his jawline. “I won’t ask twice.”
“I want to work for you. In whatever capacity you want. I can be by your side with a gun drawn, or I can bus tables at O'Shea’s. I don’t care. But I want to stay busy and be productive. Your crew will talk if I don’t.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I didn’t give a shit about what my crew said, but that wasn’t quite true. I did care. They were my men, and they deserved my respect. “We’ll figure it out. You can start at O'Shea’s when we get back. Jace will show you the ropes.”
“I’d like that.”
“Rhys said Jace has been talking about you.”
His face brightened. “Yeah? Even though I beat his ass at poker?”
“Everyone beats Jace’s ass at poker. He’s terrible at it.”
“What about you?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you think?”
“I bet you’re good until you get fed up. Then you break.”
He knew me too well. “Rhys is the best out of all of us.”
“Of course he is. He doesn’t have any active facial muscles. He’s the walking definition of a poker face.”
I chuckled. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Like he doesn’t know.”
I slid my thumb down his neck to press against the base of his throat. “You’ll live with me in my apartment. I’ll listen to arguments for letting you have your own space, if that’s something you want. But you’ll always be in my bed.”
Devlin shrugged. “Why would I be anywhere else?”
My fingers flexed around his throat. “I’ll make you happy, Dev.”
He blinked once, slowly. “Already accomplished, Ci. Already accomplished.”
I loaded our bags into the back of the SUV while Devlin leaned against the side of the car smoking a cigarette. We’d checked out of the hotel and were about to head home, but Devlin wanted to visit the kitschy tourist shop across the street first.
An old woman ran the register today, and she didn’t seem to hear us when we entered. She only glanced up after we walked past the front counter, then didn’t do much more than give us a quick once-over before turning back to the magazine she was reading.
Devlin touched all the stupid shit in the store. He shook all the snow globes on one shelf, then stepped back to watch the snow inside swirl around. He rolled his eyes at the rack of frog-covered swim shorts and gestured at the sign that read Youth with a pointed look. I hid a smile behind a cough.
He picked up a T-shirt that read Feeling Fin-Tastic with a cartoon picture of a shark wearing sunglasses on the front.
It was bright yellow and ridiculous. He pulled off the plain white T-shirt he wore and tugged on the new one.
He did a stupid little twirl while grinning in a way that didn’t make my heart skip a beat.
“What d’ya think?”
“I think it’s dumb,” I said.
“Perfect. I’ll take it.”
I rolled my eyes as he stopped in front of a mirror in the back of the store.
The racks were so tall that he disappeared for a moment, and in the thirty seconds I’d lost sight of him, he’d somehow managed to gain a bucket hat with crabs on it and a pair of sunglasses shaped like two suns.
He modeled in front of the mirror. “Even better, right?”
I leaned on a rack. This place was too big. The register felt like a hundred yards away. What was the overhead cost on keeping the electricity running in this place?
“Can we go now? I’ll bring you back. Next month if you want.”
He dropped the bucket hat and glasses on a random shelf. “Fine. But I’m getting the shirt.”
“Of course you are.”
He ripped off the tag, and we paid for the shirt.
Then we headed back across the street to the hotel parking garage and entered the shaded first floor where our car was parked.
The engine of a car rumbled behind us as I dug through my pockets for the car keys.
Without thinking, I pushed Devlin toward the parked cars at our side and out of the path of the approaching vehicle.
An engine revved and picked up speed. “What the hell?” Devlin murmured. “They’re going way too fast for a parking garage.”
I turned to look at the car and spotted a black van careening toward us.
I frowned, placing a hand on Devlin’s back to slip us between two parked cars and well out of the way of the oncoming van.
I glared at the driver behind the tinted windshield as the van veered to the side, dangerously close to the parked cars we were squeezed between.
Then it came to a screeching halt, and I realized too late we were now trapped between the two parked vehicles with the van blocking our exit.
I didn’t have time to react as the doors flew open, and two figures in dark clothing jumped out.
One held up a black object, and then a rapid clicking filled the air.
Pain stabbed my chest. Every muscle seized up and froze me in place.
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t see. Couldn’t do anything but listen to Devlin shout something before more crackling filled the air.
A taser. We’d been fucking tasered. The garage suddenly tilted and my body thumped to the pavement, my head bouncing off the concrete with a sickening crack.
A shadow fell over me. Someone’s hand slapped a cloth over my mouth and nose. A sickly sweet smell invaded my nostrils, and I tried to fight the wave of dizziness that followed. But it was no use. I reached out for Devlin, but my fingers only grasped at air as blackness took over.