The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(45)

I ask her about the puppy while glancing across the lawn at Graham. He grins at me, and when he makes a show of looking at his watch, I laugh.

“Well, that’s interesting,” says Gemma.

“It’s not interesting,” I reply. “It’s horrific. If we leave Graham in charge of the burgers, they’ll be full of healthy shit, and I bet he won’t even put cheese on mine.”

“You know that’s not what I’m referring to. You guys like each other now.”

“We get along. That doesn’t mean we like each other.”

She regards me, her margarita glass against her lips. “Would it be so terrible if you decided you did like each other?”

“It’s just a bad idea. That’s what leads to people throwing new socks in the fire.”

She raises a brow. “That’s…I don’t even know what you mean by that.”

“I mean that if we did anything, it would end and then we’d have to divide up custody, with one of us pissed off and making it all fucking terrible, and we both know it’ll be me who’s left and Graham who’s pissed.”

She squeezes my hand. “Some love stories have a happy ending, you know.”

Yeah, but I already know mine won’t. That’s sort of the problem. No love story is assured a happy ending, but any story involving me has way fewer guarantees than most.

We’re called inside to the table. I sit next to Noah and save the seat beside me for Graham, who’s still outside with Walter.

“He’s got it so bad,” whispers Noah, glancing at Ben and Gemma. “Look at the way he’s watching her.”

My gaze follows hers. Gemma is holding forth on the best way to train Lola, and Ben looks almost dopily infatuated as he listens and mentally prepares a rebuttal.

“That’s the goal,” Noah says. “To be with someone you don’t want to look away from, someone who makes you feel like you’ve been found. Those Tate boys love with their entire hearts.”

Graham will want someone like that one day, will look at someone the way Ben looks at Gemma, and it won’t be me. The idea has me swallowing hard just as he slides into the seat on the other side of me.

“Oh my God, are they still talking about the dog?”

I laugh. “Gemma has a whole lot of theories, you’ll be surprised to learn.”

“Actually,” says Gemma, eyes sparkling with mischief as she looks at me, “I was going to see how you’d feel about housesitting next weekend. Ben and I were talking about going to Santa Barbara.”

I’m not sure why she’s acting like this is something I’d say no to. A puppy? Her bomb-ass house at my disposal for the weekend? “Of course,” I reply. “I love your house.”

“I meant both of you, obviously,” she says. “Believe me, you don’t want to be dealing with Lola on your own.”

Oh.

I turn to glance at Graham. A few weeks ago, I’d have been disappointed to have him along, but I guess I don’t feel that way anymore. He’s kind of fun in his own rarely-smiling, money-focused way.

“Sure,” he says.

Walter stands and raises his glass. “I’d just like to make a quick toast to Graham and Keeley. I’m not sure what’s led to this, but we couldn’t be more pleased. Welcome to the family, Keeley.”

That’s when Colin shouts, “Kiss!”, exactly like I predicted, and the rest of the Tates join in. Even Gemma, my former friend.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

God. Nothing like being asked to kiss someone for the first time in front of his whole goddamn family. First time sober, anyway. I knew this would happen.

I raise a brow at him to say, “I told you so.”

Graham swallows, his gaze uncertain as he looks down at me. “We don’t have to,” he says under his breath.

I let my hand press to his chest as I lean forward. “I’ve done worse things with my mouth.”

There’s a tiny flare in his eyes, a spark dancing.

“They definitely weren’t worse, as far as I recall.”

It takes me a second to understand what he’s referring to, but there’s no time to react because his hand is on my hip and he’s leaning toward me. His lips press to mine, full and surprisingly firm and certain, as if he knows exactly what he’s doing here and has done it a thousand times. As if it’s something he has wanted to be doing.

His mouth is warm and I like the smell of his soap. I let myself lean into him. He’s built like a fucking wall, and I have a sudden flash of déjà vu.

We’ve done this and I wanted it to happen. I asked him to do it. I wanted to climb him like a goddamn tree.

He pulls back, and for a fraction of a second, my lower brain thinks no, wait. I sit up at last, blinking at him in surprise. His mouth curves as if he knows exactly the effect he just had: that kissing him was like a drug, one that made my mind slow until it barely functioned. Maybe that’s what made me want to marry him—he drugged me, sort of.

My mind remains slow for the rest of the night, focused entirely on the wrong things.

People tease Colin about his fiancée never coming to anything and I’m still thinking about that kiss. When there’s only one burger left, Colin and Simon wrestle for it, which Simon wins by elbowing Colin in the face. And I watch, thinking about how firm Graham’s mouth was, how assured he was. That he kisses like a guy who would know exactly what he wanted in bed and wouldn’t be the least bit shy demanding it.