“What’s your answer?”
Blair slides her pouty lips together, sucking the bottom one into her mouth. “Yes.”
Twenty-Eight
Blair
We climb through the window into his bedroom. He goes first. I take his hand to balance as I hop down from the wide windowsill.
It’s a surprise he doesn’t have much in here. It barely looks like a teenager’s bedroom.
The first few years after Dad left, I would pick catalogues out of the trash, imagining the house Mom and I would get if we won the lottery. I went through a period where all I wanted was fairy lights to hang over my bed and a sheer purple curtain to drape around it.
All that money, and Devlin’s room has a big bed that’s meticulously made, a wall of modern dark wooden panels that I think are closet doors, and a stack of books on the nightstand next to a pack of cigarettes.
It looks more like a hotel room than someone’s bedroom. Clean, but impersonal. Like he can’t express himself in his own private space.
Even I have some photos, my book collection, and some print outs from the library of my favorite art pieces from around the world in my room.
I take off my hoodie, draping it on a lacquered live-edge wood bench by the closet. If I sleep in it, I’ll overheat. I’m left in leggings and my SLHS girls track team t-shirt.
Padding over to the nightstand, I tilt my head to read the spines of the books. The Social Animal, Influence: Science and Practice, and The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil are the top three in the stack.
“You really like psychology, huh?”
Devlin hovers at the bottom of the bed. “I like knowing how things work. Human behavior is…” He circles the mattress and stops in front of me. Cupping my shoulders, he pushes me to sit down. “Fascinating.”
I watch as he strips out of his gray henley with languid movements, leaving his chest bare. The sweatpants hang low on his hips.
My mouth goes dry. The cut V in his hips leads down into the waistband of his sweats. His body is chiselled like a work of art, lithe with athletic strength.
I tuck my hands under my thighs to keep from reaching out to trace his abs.
Devlin has claimed me with a kiss, but that’s as far as it’s gone between
us. Kissing me in the lake doesn’t mean he wants me.
“Scoot back,” Devlin rumbles. “That’s my side.”
A flutter tickles my stomach as I move across the mattress. “You have a side? What are you, eighty-five?”
Devlin peels back the covers and climbs into bed. “I like my side.”
Once we lay down, Devlin turns out the lights, plunging us in darkness. The only sound in the room is our out of sync breathing. Devlin breathes, then me. Inhale, exhale.
The distance between us is palpable, like a wall I could press against. It’s only several inches, but it might as well be a cavern.
I’m about to open my mouth and say something to break the awkward air, but Devlin’s hand lands on my hip. His touch is hot, seeping through my leggings.
“Okay?” Devlin’s normally authoritative voice is hushed and hoarse.
“Yeah. It’s okay.”
Devlin doesn’t just take an inch, he takes a mile. His arm snakes around my waist, dragging my back against his bare chest. He’s like an octopus, wrapping himself around me. For someone I once believed was cold like marble, his body heat envelopes me.
A rough sound chokes out of Devlin. His breathing turns tense and edgy. He slides his big hand beneath my t-shirt, caressing my belly and up between my breasts. I don’t have a bra on. His thumb traces the edge of one breast, drawing a gasp from me. My nipples pucker, the friction of my t-shirt making me squirm in a burst of oversensitivity.
“Devlin,” I breathe.