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Fate had some fucking nerve. But as Dev’s eyes ran over my exposed skin, I was suddenly glad for the choice. I could almost see the heat in his gaze, the imagined interest as his eyes tracedover the curve of my hips, the dip of my waist. I wondered if I should feel more self-conscious about the freckles scattered across my chest, about the softness of my stomach. But before I could think too much of it, Dev’s face settled back into his easy smile, his eyes on mine as he dragged one foot behind the other.
“Let’s get started.”
An hour later, I barely had it in me to stand, sweat dripping from my hair and pooling between my breasts as I heaved heavy breaths.
“You’re trying to kill me,” I protested when Dev tried to lead me through another drill. We’d been going at each other for what felt like forever, Dev attacking as I tried to defend myself with little success, despite the tips Dev threw at me like confetti. He never got frustrated or disappointed when I failed. He just got back into position with an encouraging smile before coming at me again.
I hadn’t complained until now, and that was only because I was getting to the point where I doubted I’d be able to walk up the stairs unassisted if we kept going. I also doubted I could go much longer without Dev being able to smell my arousal, which had dulled to a continued ache as Dev’s body controlled and manipulated mine down to the mat. My words seemed to snap Dev out of fighting mode, his focus turning to me.
“Not trying to kill you, Red. Gotta get you to the altar in two weeks.” He winked, unapologetic for my exhausted state. But he didn’t push me to go again either, walking over to brush his lips across my forehead. His tongue darted across his lips, picking up the sweat that had gathered on my skin. “Salty.”
“You’re not fresh as a daisy, either,” I argued, even if it were untrue. Despite the sweat staining his shirt and slicking his hair, Dev still smelled like fresh laundry and something deliciously musky. It was probably his fucking pheromones, leaking into the air and trying to make me fall for him biologically. It was just myluck that my forced fiancé would be the only man whose sweat I was attracted to.
Dev mock-gasped, as if affronted by my insult. Then his expression turned sly, eyes narrowed with an intensity that forced me to take a half-step back. But it wasn’t enough, Dev reaching down and shoving a shoulder into my stomach so I was thrown over his back.
“Dev!” I yelled, smacking my palm against his back.
“Didn’t want your legs to give out on you, Red. Plus, this way you can smell my daisy-like freshness all the way to the car.”
A laugh bubbled out of my throat as Dev carried me through the house, and another brick tumbled down.
I metup with the girls for more wedding planning later in the week, Dev dropping me off at the house before leaving to catch up on the work he’d been neglecting while continuing to serve as my bodyguard.
He walked me up to the house, peeking his head around the front door as he called out, “Roll call!”
Wren and Ames called out their names, laughter in their voices carrying from the back of the house.
“Be good,” Dev whispered in my ear before brushing a kiss across my forehead, the casual affection something that had become familiar over the past few days living in Dev’s space. He pushed me softly across the threshold, his palm warm on my lower back, before walking back toward his new car.
Wren whipped her head in my direction as I entered the kitchen, nose tilting in the air like a bloodhound as she took a few sniffs of the air.
“You have chai.” She slung the accusation across the room with enough force that John and Cian startled from their spots on the couch, giving each other wary looks as if worried they’d have to break up a fight.
“I do?” Even I could hear the trepidation in my voice, the statement coming out closer to a question. I looked between Wren and Ames, wondering if I’d taken some sort of social misstep I was unaware of between opening the front door and walking into the kitchen. We’d been running late this morning, Wren and Ames texting before I woke up, and Dev had poured my chai into a travel mug before we’d walked out the door.
“Is everything okay?” Ames asked, face twisting in concern. “Between you and Dev, I mean.”
“Everything is fine,” I told her, confused why she would think otherwise. Wren was still staring longingly at my travel mug, and I forced a laugh as I held it out toward her, anxiety tightening my chest at the stares they both gave me. “You can have it if you want.”
Wren took a step back, shock coloring her face at my words. “I can’t take your chai,” she said seriously, holding her hands up in denial when I tried to push the mug further in her direction.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get another tomorrow.” I groaned at the shocked looks the two women gave me at my words. “What is it? You’re freaking me out.”
“I can count on one hand how many times he’s made homemade chai for us,” Ames said slowly, as if breaking some very important or unfortunate news to someone who was struggling to grasp its implication. “A couple times toward the beginning of fall, then again at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“Only special occasions,” Wren said in a mockingly deep voice, her fingers wrapping air quotes around the words. “I literally had to go through a quarter-life crisis - more accurately,a does-Bex-actually-like-me crisis - for him to make me some. That crisis lasted awhile. And still, only one extra cup!”
“How many times has he made it for you?” Ames asked.
“Every morning since I moved in,” I told her, my voice whisper-quiet as I realized just how precious this daily ritual was from Dev’s perspective. How he’d been putting time and effort into making me something he saw as special and rare, and I knew without asking it was just another thing he’d done to try to make me more comfortable around him, in his home.
Ames and Wren exchanged looks at my answer, and I saw as their lips formed words in response to my revelation. But I couldn’t hear them, too busy listening to the sound of more and more bricks crumbling to the ground.
Two weeks passed that way,Dev steadily breaking down my walls faster than I could build them. It wasn’t just the breakfast, or the chai, or the workouts that he guided me through with unwavering focus. It wasn’t even the sparring, his hands and body on mine in ways that had my thoughts racing with temptation. It wasn’t even the progress I made in the two weeks, the way Dev praised me as I increased my weights or how much longer I could hold out against him when we practiced my self-defense moves. Sure, all those things made me grow more attached to the man who’d taken over so much of my life. But they weren’t the breaking point.
It was our conversations that did me in, really. The way Dev wanted to know everything about me, the way he wanted to share in return. He asked about my childhood and how I felt growing up surrounded by a life I was born into, not one that I chose. How he grinned when I shared the shenanigans I got upto with Callan, Cormac’s son, whom I thought of as a brother. The laugh he barked when I explained how ‘parley’ came to be and the dozens of pirate movies that preceded it. How he looked interested when I talked about the books I edited for work, the way I enjoyed working with authors to maintain their voice while molding their art. How he didn’t ask about my mother again after I simply told him she was gone.
But it wasn’t just what he asked me. It was the way he shared himself in return. He told me about his talent with languages, how that led to his placement on a few secret missions, until he eventually had the opportunity to join a black-ops group. How he took a security job at an office building when he came back to the States, only to meet Alex there, the darkest parts of him recognizing something familiar in Alex’s eyes. How they’d met my father that way, when he’d come to take care of Alex’s boss. How Alex had stood up to my dad, Dev by his side. How my father had offered Alex - and at Alex’s invitation, Dev - a job as a result, which spiraled into the business they ran now.
