Page 38 of My Cruel Salvation

Lamar shakes his head. “I’m not avoiding you, I promise. But I’m exhausted.” He’d stepped inside with a bag, and now he bends to pick it up again. “I brought a few things. If you don’t mind, right now I need sleep. And I think I need to be alone.”

“Whatever you need,” I tell him. “You’re taking my room. Devlin and I will go upstairs.” Lamar shoots a sideways glance at Brandy. “Look at you becoming a risk-taker. Letting someone else sleep upstairs.”

She rolls her eyes, but I know that’s exactly what she’s thinking.

As Lamar heads toward the room, he pauses, then turns back to look to Devlin. “You meant what you said? You’ll tell me? Whatever you learn, right?”

Devlin nods. “Of course. And hopefully there’ll be reciprocity?”

Lamar’s gaze is hard as he meets Devlin’s eyes. “Even if I have to share off-book, I will. I’ll cut corners if I have to. I want to nail whoever did this to Tracy.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes as he turns and goes to the bedroom, but I stand in shock looking after him for a moment. Lamar is the most straight-laced cop I know. Tracy’s death has hit him hard, but I’m surprised that he’s willing to share investigative information that might otherwise be confidential.

“It matters to him,” Devlin says, when I raise my brows in question. And that, I think, is the bottom line.

As Brandy follows him to make sure that he’s got clean sheets and towels, I turn to Devlin. “Did you tell him about Saint’s Angels?”

“No. But he knows about the foundation, and he knows we have an investigative arm. He made assumptions, and I rolled with it.”

That makes sense. Lamar might be willing to cut some corners to take down Tracy’s killer, but I don’t know that he’d be completely on board with an organization like Saint’s Angels. That’s not the kind of cop he is.

But at the same time, I’m learning that reality shifts all the time. What you once thought you would never be able to do, becomes easier and easier when people you love are in danger. And after that, it’s a slippery slope to helping anyone who’s in a dark path. Whether you know them or not, you still want to save them. That’s how Devlin’s been thinking for years, wanting to push all of the people he could out of his father’s dark path, and now making up for lost time for what he could never manage as a child.

When Brandy comes back, we say our goodnights, too.

It’s been a hell of a day, and thought I just want to retreat upstairs, I hate leaving her alone.

She shakes her head and swears it’s fine. “I’m taking Jake to bed with me,” she says. “He usually sleeps in his crate, and he’ll think it’s an incredible treat. And the truth is, I’m completely wiped out. I’ve never felt so emotionally empty. Unless Jake keeps me awake, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be asleep within minutes.”

“Yeah, I get it.” We hug, and I hear her stuttered intake of breath, like the precursors of tears that don’t quite come.

We’re all feeling broken, I think as we head upstairs. And Devlin most of all.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but it’s not the rough way that he grabs my arm and pulls me to him, capturing my mouth with his, his hands twined in my hair as he tilts my head back, kissing me with such wild intensity that or teeth clash and I taste blood.

He’s breathing hard when he pushes me away. “Dammit, El,” he begins. “I shouldn’t—”

I grab his collar and pull him close again. “Yes,” I say. “You should.” My body feels hot and cold all at the same time, and I know he’s just flipped a switch inside of me. I’d turned everything inside me off in order to get through the last twenty-four hours. Neither one of has really slept, not even on the plane, and the horror of Tracy’s death and the circumstances have been chipping away at both of us. I need release. I need oblivion. I need to feel something other than this numb, painful horror.

I need Devlin. And I know that he needs me, too.

“It’s eating at me,” he says, backing away from me and running his fingers through his hair. He takes off his glasses and tosses them onto the bedside table, then rubs his hands over his face as if in exhaustion.

And he is exhausted. His face is pale, making the scar that cuts down the right side of his face stand out. “I need you,” he says. “I need to dial this in.”

I nod. I need him, too. More than that, I understand what he’s saying. These last few days, the world has been unraveling around us. Around him. A man used to being in control. Used to pushing buttons and making things happen behind the scenes. A man used to saving people, not losing them. Control has slipped from his grasp, and more than anything he needs to get it back. He will, I know. Of course, he will. But he needs it now, and the world isn’t bending to his will.

But me…

I’ll bend, and willingly, too. Because I need it as much as he does. He needs to push the limits of control? Well, I need to push the danger.

I draw a breath and step closer, my heart pounding in my chest, my skin tingling with need. I start to speak, but I don’t get the chance. He takes my wrist and pulls me to him, then twists it behind me so that I’m pressed up against him, unable to move.

“I need it hard,” he says, his body pressing against mine and his erection underscoring the words. “Tell me to stop now if you want, because once I have you in that bed, I’m not stopping for anything.”

“Don’t you dare stop,” I say, then cry out when he grabs the waistband of the leggings I’m wearing and rips them right down the seam. He tumbles me back onto the bed, then tugs the remnants of the leggings off me. “Over,” he says, using his hands to indicate that he wants me on my stomach.

I do as he says, my body flat on the bed. My head is turned, and I can see him in my periphery as he undresses, then joins me on the bed. He straddles my legs, his hands on my back. He brushes my hair away, then kisses the back of my neck as his hands slip between me and the mattress to cup my breasts as his cock teases my ass.