He dropped his hands, and I gripped his shoulders. They were like granite beneath the warm fabric of his shirt. His hands moved expertly to my skirt, lifting it up, sliding up the backs of my thighs. I bit back a sound and leaned into him, taking in his smell. His skin and clean laundry and a hint of leather, maybe from his car. We shouldn’t be doing this. I wanted to sink my teeth into his skin.
He cupped my ass beneath my skirt, his palms moving over me almost reverently. “You have a boyfriend?” he said against my neck.
“No,” I said.
His fingers moved to my hips beneath the skirt, hooking into the sides of my panties. “You fuck anyone since me?” he asked.
It was a rude question. Inappropriate. Absolutely none of his business. But still I said, “No.”
He moved one hand to the front of my panties and slid it inside. “So this,” he said softly, feeling how wet I was, “is for me.”
My breath stopped. How did he do that? How was it that his hand on me felt even better than my own? I didn’t answer—I didn’t have to. He already knew the answer. He could feel it.
He moved his fingers, but I put my hand on his wrist, stopping him. If he could be unreasonably possessive, then so could I. “What about you?” I asked, still pressed against him. “Have you had anyone since me?”
“I think you’ve missed the plot,” he said. “I’ve been in prison.”
True. But how long did it take to fuck someone? Ten minutes, twenty, thirty? I knew nothing about him, really. Maybe he had a lineup of women waiting for him to get out. Maybe I was his third visit today. “How long have you been out?” I asked.
He calculated the answer, his hand still in my underwear. “Nine and a half hours,” he said.
I almost laughed, it was so precise. But I’d asked. He’d been released this
morning, and he’d come to find me. I tilted my head and looked up at him, taking in his shadowed jaw, his perfect mouth, those green eyes fixed on me. “And you haven’t had sex in those nine and a half hours?” I asked, half teasing.
“No,” he said quietly.
God, it would be so easy. I could just lean back on the table. Push my underwear down. Then I remembered we were at my work. The door wasn’t even locked; anyone could walk in here and see me with my skirt pushed up, his hand between my legs. I squeezed his wrist again and pushed him away gently. “I’ll tell you what,” I said, trying to get a grip. There was no way I could have a conversation with his hand there. He let me push it away and right my panties, pushing my skirt down. “Tomorrow, we’ll have dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yes, dinner. Like people do.” People who aren’t fucking like crazy every time they’re in the same room. “I’ll even buy. It’s on me.”
Something flashed across his expression at that. I didn’t know what it was or how to read it, and suddenly I had the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me. Not a woman, maybe, but something else. Devon Wilder’s story wasn’t as straightforward as it appeared to be. And I knew that the decision to have dinner was the right one. We needed to talk before I dragged him into bed again.
And I would drag him into bed again. That much I already knew.
“When?” he asked.
“After I’m done work tomorrow.”
“You’re working on Saturday?”
“We have a big client presentation, and tomorrow is when the client is free.” There was no such thing as non-work time in the advertising business, I was learning. The client was always king.
Devon frowned at that, but he let it go. “Meet me at seven,” he said, and he named a restaurant in North Beach that I’d heard of but never been to. It was outside my budget, and he added, “I’m paying the bill.”
“Devon.”
“I’m paying,” he said again. And then he added, “Trust me.”
What did that mean? After two years, were we going to argue about a stupid restaurant bill? Maybe when the time came I’d insist we go Dutch. “Okay, fine,” I said. “Tomorrow at seven.”
I thought he might kiss me again—maybe I just hoped it—but he only looked at me, the corner of his mouth smiling again. “Wear something easy to take off,” he said, and then he turned and left the room, and was gone.
Fourteen
Devon