When I come out of the shower later, there’s a gorgeous black dress laid out on my bed. Spotting the tag, my jaw drops. It’s designer. High-end and new.
There’s no way in the short hours since asking me out Devlin managed to get this. Has he been planning tonight for a while?
The dress isn’t all, there’s also jewelry and shoes.
My eyes bulge as I tally the worth of the design labels. It’s enough that I consider selling it all on eBay. I could cover another three or four months of rent, or pay for Mom’s medicine for the autoimmune disease she’s been diagnosed with. It would be the practical thing to do.
Touching the luxurious material of the sexy dress, I sink my teeth into the inside of my cheek. It’s the nicest gift I’ve ever received, and it’s beautiful. Perfectly suited to my style, if I had one other than thrift store chic.
When Devlin asked for the date out of town, I didn’t think he meant like this.
I’m about to go question him, when I find him watching me from the door as he buttons his suit jacket. It’s tailored and his hair is combed back with some product, but still appears touchable. My stomach bottoms out at how sexy and dapper he is in the suit.
“Damn,” I drawl appreciatively, eyeing his ensemble.
Devlin gives me a crooked smile that rearranges my insides. “It’s all for you. I want to give you something nice.”
“It’s beautiful.” I gesture to the dress. “Help me figure out this zipper. I’m not used to this fancy shit.”
Devlin’s answering laugh is deep and untethered, free in a way he rarely indulges in.
* * *
In the limo ride on the way back, Devlin is absorbed in tracing my hand, palm to fingertips, driving tingling sensations up my arm. “You make me greedy, Blair.”
The way he says my name is a spell coiling around me. It doesn’t just pluck on my heartstrings, it fuses with my entire being and touches a place deep inside of me, one I’ve ignored for so long.
Our date was so utterly right. When I had been apprehensive about going out to dinner somewhere upscale in the city, Devlin had chuckled and admitted he was in the mood for pizza. We spent over two hours working our way through a huge pie, enjoying making up stories about what other patrons thought we were doing there so dressed up. My favorite was the story where we were mafia royalty and a secret spy, star-crossed but defiantly in love. I wanted to bottle the brightness lighting up Devlin’s eyes and the happy curl of his smile.
As we approach Silver Lake Forest Estates, the streetlights create intermittent pools of amber light spilling across the back of the limo.
This isn’t my life. It’s so far from my reality, where Mom and I split frozen meals for dinner and sleep in a trailer with thin walls. A life I was forced into, where it was adapt or die.
But I want it to be.
I always live with the single goal to help Mom get out of Dad’s gambling debts, to assist with the monumental financial burden, to pick a sensible college major instead of something I’m truly interested in. With Devlin, I get to be selfish. I get permission to love Mom as her daughter, have a normal teenage life. I no longer have to push aside every frivolous thing.
With Devlin, I get to be the idealistic version of myself I thought I crushed years ago. The survivor in me doesn’t have to fight so hard every day.
I turn into Devlin’s touch, kissing him, pushing all of my racing thoughts into the glide of our tongues, the scrape of teeth on skin, telling him with my mouth how much I want this. Want him.
There’s a tangible energy when we return to the house. It follows as Devlin helps me out of the limo, when he sends the driver away, and inside the house. Devlin stops me in the entrance, grasping my wrist.
O
ur eyes meet and an answering pulse of heat echoes in my core.
I can feel it before he kisses me, the steady build of arousal growing, licking higher and higher like flames as it takes over both of us. With a low growl, Devlin scoops me into his arms and carries me upstairs to the bedroom.
I bounce on the mattress when Devlin tosses me there. He’s on me immediately, attacking my mouth, biting my neck, sliding my dress up with hot hands. He grips my thighs in a bruising touch, slapping them apart. I spread my legs to give him room to fit between them.
The roughness is exciting.
Our clothes come off with the telltale sound of tearing fabric—his, I hope, because I like the dress he bought me—until we’re completely bare.
Devlin’s teeth sink into my lip, tugging it with a possessive brutality. His hard cock ruts against my slick folds.
“You wet for me?”