The image he’d created of having someone normal and nice in the girls’ life now put a frown on his face. His girls. Pain slashed across his heart again as he thought about them. It had been stupid of him to entertain any thought or dream of normalcy. Nothing could ever change his existence. He knew his place in life. The reality of never being allowed out and always having to walk the club walk turned his stomach.
He didn’t have the luxury of such foolish fairy tales.
The shackles tightened around him like the zip ties last night.
“You got yourself a hot one,” the cashier murmured, her voice in awe. The older woman currently being checked out cut her gaze to Dev then over to Cash.
“Shameful,” she muttered and buried her face in her wallet.
“Fuck you, lady,” Dev sneered, standing to his full height. His guard instantly raised. “No one asked your goddamn opinion. Did they?”
Cash walked straight up to him. The smile was still in place even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“She’s a fuckin’ bitch,” Dev stated, nodding to the lady who gathered her things while giving him a hateful look.
Cash cut his gaze to her. The range of emotion on Cash’s face tickled Dev. Those manners probably didn’t allow him to call anyone a bitch, for any reason. The confusion caused a well of laughter to bubble inside Dev that may have come out a bit hysterical. And that was one hundred percent Cash’s fault.
“What’d I miss?” Cash asked, brow furrowed.
“The chick behind the counter said my boyfriend was hot,” Dev said loud enough for everyone in the store to hear. “Which isn’t a fuckin’ lie, but that bitch old lady said we were shameful.” Dev had no way to know for sure, because he refused to ever look at that bitch again, but he felt her gaze fixed on them as she started to leave the building. He was nothing if not a showman. Dev cupped Cash’s neck and stepped into the man, drawing him closer. He leaned in to tenderly press his lips to Cash’s.
The anxiety within eased the second their lips touched. His heart gave a happy flutter.
Cash applied the smallest hints of pressure to the kiss before he opened. The tiniest parting of the lips in invitation for Dev to deepen the kiss. Dev lifted his gaze to Cash staring down at him. Cash’s hands came to Dev’s hips, tentatively testing the touch then the hold.
He should pull away. If he knew what was good for him, he needed to pull the fuck away.
At any other moment in his life, this kiss would have turned pornographic just to get under the old lady’s skin, and any other homophobe in the building, but shit had changed for Dev. All those deep feelings that had developed at such a rapid pace were now ripped open and raw. At the same time, they lit his body on fire by just having Cash’s touch again.
His body took the decision away. The tip of Dev’s tongue slipped into Cash’s mouth, met with a similar hesitation from Cash. Dev closed his eyes. All the frantic feelings that had taken root from the second he’d looked up to see that kid, Joe, holding a pistol on him, evaporated. The mounting worry for the future. The insurmountable grief of his precious children not being his. Ties to the club cinching tighter around him again. The pain of betrayal by someone he cared deeply for. They all vanished as Cash’s velvety tongue moved against his.
From the first moment he and Cash had clasped hands with one another, they belonged.
Fuck no, he didn’t believe in destiny or fate. That would mean he didn’t have a choice where Cash was concerned. By God, he had made his own decisions. Out of every person he’d ever met, his mind, no, his heart had chosen Cash and given itself freely with no expectation in return.
Last night, when he first found himself completely alone inside his bedroom, the grief of losing Cash was too intense. It took a couple of hours to examine the unstopping pain. It wasn’t for Keyes or his sweet little girls. He’d take care of all three of them. What hurt Dev the most, what made him show his ass in front of the camera, run naked around his room, jack off to the sketches he’d drawn of Cash was the knowledge he’d lost the man he wanted most in his life.
A tide of needy warmth overtook Dev. He kept the kiss slow and soft. He let the kiss show Cash’s apology, at least his soul took Cash’s sweetness that way.
How easily he forgave this man when he had never offered another human being the same consideration. Dev wrapped his free arm around Cash, circling his back, keeping the man flush against him. Cash followed the hold, wrapping his arms around Dev in return. The hand at Cash’s neck trailed to his cheek and jaw, caressing the light stubble. He let himself just be inside Cash’s strong arms.
Cash was the first to break the kiss, but not the moment. He reared back, drawing a deep breath. His hooded gaze locked on Dev’s face. Dev didn’t move. Instead, he memorized the tight hold Cash held him in and the hard as steel cock pressing near his own. Cash’s massive chest heaved in another shuddering breath. A blank canvas of flesh he’d love to decorate. The wordTakenwould be the first thing he tattooed right across Cash’s heart.
The faint buzz of the fluorescent lights penetrated his bubble. The tap of fingernails hitting the cash register buttons came in next. Reality slammed back in place. As with everything, Dev’s dark side pushed the desperate sense of love—he refused to even think the word—aside. He furrowed his brows and stepped away, giving a critical stare down the length of Cash’s beautiful body. His gaze lingered on the outline of the hard cock.
“Happy to see me?”
No. His heart begged him to ask Cash to give them another chance. To let them figure out the club problems together. To open to the idea of Dev being the man by his side.
A defiance he’d been born with wouldn’t allow his mouth to utter those words.
“About as much as you,” Cash muttered after several long moments. “How do I look?”
No matter how many buttons Dev tried to push, Cash acted like he knew exactly what Dev was doing. After several seconds, Cash dismissed Dev, turning toward the cashier, having to know Dev wouldn’t be honest.
“You look good,” she said with a giant grin and a nod. The customer being checked out nodded her approval too.
After he had their answer, Cash turned back to him and tried him again. “What do you think? Do I fit?”
