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The rough huskiness of his question danced down her spine, trying to make her shiver at the incredible timbre. Devin curled tight around the warmth spreading through her middle, refusing to acknowledge it as she turned her eyes away in haughty disdain to the blank wall. She ignored the Alpha to deny the sensations he incited.
“All right,” Rey murmured, the whisper of skin across the sheets daring her to look back. “I’m going to go make some. Your soap is still in the shower if you want to take one.”
What she wanted was a giant red reverse button. Something that would take her back years and years ago where she could set herself on a far different path, one where she never tried so damned hard to get away from everything that would have led to a simple, quiet life. One where she’d just accepted her fate and settled for what little protection that could have afforded her.
The ragged sob burst free without warning, tears flowing down her cheeks in a sudden rush. Devin scrambled from the bed, racing for the frail privacy of the bathroom. She fell to the floor as she tangled in the sheets, and again when she tripped over her own feet.
Slamming the door shut with her back pressed hard against the smooth wood, she waited for him to burst in. She couldn’t hear a damned thing over the wretched cries grating from her throat as they echoed through the room. One thundering heartbeat after the next, he didn’t appear. Not when she slid down to cry into her knees, or when she lay on her side hiccupping through the last of her tears on the cold tiles.
Even when she crawled into the shower and the pounding spray announced her actions, he stayed away.
Looking through the vanity, linen closet, and shower, she understood why he gave her such privacy. Not a single razor, no chemical cleansers, nothing she could use to hurt herself or anyone else unless she intended to break the large mirror or shower door. Even then, the shatter of glass would no doubt bring him running.
Devin emerged a long time later, feeling no better for having washed away the last of his scent from her skin. Coated in the muted tones of citrus and herbs and clothed in more towels than one person needed, she blinked at the clothes dangling from a hanger on the front of the wardrobe. They were hers. The worn jeans and baggy t-shirt were from her own closet. Covered in plastic, a professional had laundered them.
It seemed years ago since Beau forced her to wear the skimpy costumes he demanded.
Devin couldn’t hide her surprise as she tugged the thin film away. Wherever he’d taken them, they’d done a good job. The clothes were flat, lifeless. Not even a hint of the workers who handled them. It must have cost a small fortune. How he’d managed to get her things was another question. She’d figured her apartment lost and her few belongings piled at the curb in a humiliating disarray by now.
Cracking open the closed bedroom door, Devin found even more surprises waiting for her. He’d removed the couch and rug from the living room. Rey lounged in a chair built for an Alpha’s bulk, a steaming mug cupped between his palms as he brooded over the dark liquid.
Something urged her to stop, pausing in the doorway as she looked at him as if for the first time.
How had she never noticed the warm russet threading through the darkness of his damp hair? The quiet grace of him at once familiar and alien as he sipped at the steaming coffee. He was shorter than many of the Alphas she’d come across, but it made him no less intimidating. Broad shoulders, thick muscles bunching his arms. Even beneath the snug fit of the shirt he wore, she knew the pattern of his strength. The feel of the scars that marked the decadent red-brown of his skin.
Scoffing in disgust at her thoughts, Devin brought attention to herself. Rey’s dark brows bounced once, a question lingering deep in his gaze, though he hid it away before she could examine it further. She didn’t want to find any part of him pleasing. Grabbing hold of the fact she knew his body so well because he used her at her most vulnerable, that he’d stolen away something she’d never get back, Devin clung to her vitriol.
Rey grunted, no doubt sensing the change in her mood from the acrid bite of it in the air. He rose with stealthy ease, long strides taking him to the kitchen. Shattering her anger with heavy-handed surprise when he poured a cup of coffee and doctored it just the way she had last time she’d been in this place.
He didn’t approach. Knew better by the twitch at the corner of his lips as he set the mug down on the firm surface of the ottoman before taking his chair again. A lazy threat that showed no urgency as he went back to sipping at his black coffee, denying her his attention for the moment in the illusion of safety.
She needed caffeine. That’s what she told herself as she skittered around the now odd grouping to take the chair opposite him. Curling into a tight ball, she clutched the hot mug close. Weapon and sanity both, she took a careful sip.
Perfection.
He let Devin get halfway through the cup before he ruined it. She realized he must have been watching the entire time, waiting for her to relax, to let her legs drop aside to a far more comfortable position as she snuggled into the oversized chair.
“We’re leaving in an hour. I have business I can’t delay.”
He seemed almost apologetic, as if she’d been a party to plans that were now changed. Devin snorted, hiding the curl of her lips behind the mug. That was why he gave her clothing, why he told her to shower. He intended to take her out into public and couldn’t have these people distracted by his latest acquisition. Leaving her alone in the apartment wasn’t anywhere on his radar.
“What time is it,” Devin asked in a hoarse croak. The coffee had done nothing to improve her mood, her crying destroying what little the sleep had accomplished to bolster her resolve.
“Eleven.” Rey raised his chin at the clock ticking away above the kitchen island. Keeping his every action simple, restrained.
Trying not to scare her.
The dark arches of her brows slid down into a scowl as she stared at the plain, white face of the cheap clock. Not something she would have seen him purchasing, it must have been here when he bought the place. It looked a lot like the one she’d hung in her apartment, though far cleaner and missing the cracked plastic over the face. Dragging her thoughts back to center, she realized what seemed more wrong than the Alpha with expensive tastes owning a cheap wall clock.
“In the morning?”
“At night.”
Devin’s wide blue eyes slanted towards Rey, a heavy line forming between her eyebrows. It’d been the dead of night the last she remembered. The jumbled snippets of her memory were a hopeless puzzle, but that much she recalled. The cool night air on her bare skin, the bite of gravel at the dark pier. Neon lights brilliant and garish at some point.
“You slept the day away,” Rey said, giving her the missing piece with all the care of a sledgehammer.
“Yeah, I get it.” Snapping at the Alpha didn’t change the fact she’d been in that bed for hours. That she’d no doubtsnuggledwith the man for as long as he’d been in there with her.
