Steal the Day (Thieves #2)(52)

“Daniel will come for us.”

Dev laughed. “No, he won’t. If he tries he’ll be the fried food portion of the evening. While the crazy twins were painting me up, they were discussing all the anti-vampire stuff they were finally going to get to use. You wouldn’t believe it. They have motion detectors that shoot UV light. Apparently Mr. Renfro is paranoid about vampires, and he’s spent a ton of cash on defense which he can now proudly use.”

That was bad news. “How the hell does he know about Danny and Chad?”

He growled a little, a sure sign of his complete frustration. “Well, what do you expect when Danny boy spends the evening introducing himself to the locals? He’s being an idiot about this. He has to start using some discretion or he’s going to bring the Council down on all our heads, Zoey. There are ways to handle these things with more diplomacy.”

“He’s doing the best he can.” I was defending myself as much as Danny. We weren’t raised to play these games. Dev had been raised in a royal court. Plots and subterfuge and coups might be second nature to him, but Danny and I were fumbling.

Dev rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all a huge clusterf*ck. The witches don’t even realize we have anything to do with the vamps. They’re just paranoid. That stupid amulet thing we came to steal glows around me, so she thinks I’m an angel. It glows around you, but she thinks it’s because we had sex. She’s sure you’re some evil human who’s trying to make me fall.”

Frustration welled up. “Why does everyone think I’m the one leading you into sin? Have they met you? Since I started sleeping with you I have done things I would never have thought to do. That thing with my feet, who would think to do that? You have the single dirtiest mind I’ve ever met.”

“A lot of good it did me.” His eyes moved away from mine.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Why wouldn’t he just come out and tell me?

Dev seemed to think about it for a moment, and I worried he would shut me out again. “It means I always knew we had an expiration date, Zoey. I just didn’t realize it would be so f*cking soon. I knew you would probably go back to him. I just thought I could keep you for longer than seven months. I overestimated my skills, it seems.”

“I wasn’t trying to leave you.” I scooted on my butt to get closer to him. “I was just pissed because you wouldn’t talk to me. You never talk to me about anything important. Come to think of it, you never do anything with me except have sex and run jobs. It makes a girl think.”

He frowned. “We hang out at the club.”

“Great, let me add drinking to our list of activities,” I replied, tears threatening. “You won’t even tell me if you have a kid. I don’t know anything about your life, Dev. I’m in love with you, and I don’t know if you left a family behind when you fled the mound.”

“What did you say?” Dev didn’t have a problem looking at me now. His body was tense, every bit of his focus pointed at me.

I shrank back because I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn’t meant to ever let him know how I felt. It made me too vulnerable. Whatever had been in that sedative was screwing with me. I decided to be obtuse. “You won’t tell me if you have a kid.”

He smiled and looked distinctly wolfish. “Oh, no, darling, you’re not getting off the hook that easily. You love me. You said it.”

“Don’t get excited.” I had to make something very clear. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love Daniel, too. It just means I’m screwed whichever way I go.”

“But you love me,” he said as though the statement satisfied him deeply. “I made you love me.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Unless you have the keys to get us out of these cuffs, it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters, sweetheart,” Dev replied. “We have maybe an hour before the sun goes down and the coven comes for us. I can still check this state off. All you have to do is use your teeth to get my zipper down. I don’t care what anyone says. It counts as sex.”

I laughed because that was my Dev, always thinking with his dick. We were going to be human sacrifices, and he was trying to get a hummer before we went out.

Dev moved his feet so they touched mine. “I thought you didn’t want to sleep with me anymore.”

“No, I just wanted to mean more to you than a warm version of a blow-up doll.”

Dev laughed. “You are so much more trouble than a blow-up doll, sweetheart. You make me crazy with your hazel eyes and those luscious tits of yours, but I have to admit it’s the violence I’m really attracted to. Now shut up and I’ll give you what you want before they slice us up. Don’t waste time trying to get out. They have three guys with shotguns on the door, and I watched them remove everything we could possibly use as a weapon from this room before they left to get ready for the ceremony. Mary Jo is going to the hair salon.”

“Good to know she’s taking it seriously.” I got as close as I could and was able to lean against him. If we only had a little time left, I wanted to hear the story. “Now, are you a daddy or not?”

He smiled sadly. “I don’t know. It’s possible. When my grandfather died back in World War One, he took the tribe’s fertility with him. He got too involved in human affairs. Even a full-blooded Fae will die if you put enough bullets in him and he’s far from a sithein. My mother became queen, but she couldn’t bear children, and trust me, she tried with every full-blooded Fae she could. It became clear she should try something else. She came to the Earth plane, met my father, and immediately became pregnant with me and my brother, Declan.”