The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(48)
“You’ll stay until you’re positive I’m not going to put her in the oven?” I ask.
He laughs. “Yes. Although, by the second or third incident, I think you’ll be able to remember on your own.”
“Maybe there’s an alarm I can set.” I reach out to him. “Hey, give me your phone.”
He blinks at me and fishes it out of his pocket. “Why am I giving you my phone?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to see all the fetishy porn you’ve downloaded of Japanese men’s feet or whatever.”
“Is that actually a category of porn? And more to the point, is that actually a category you think I’d be jerking off to?”
Heat shoots through me at those words.
Does he?
Does he lay there at night with his hand wrapped firmly around what was, as I recall, a pretty significantly sized erection?
Mind, pull thyself from the gutter.
“No, your preference is probably something more like Girl Takes it From Behind While Balancing Checkbook.’” I tap on his phone and hand it back to him.
He looks at it and laughs. “Text Keeley, remind her baby can’t go in the oven,” he reads. “This is like a month after the baby’s due. You’re sure you want to wait that long?”
I swallow, staring at my blanket-covered feet, his broad hand resting atop them. “I assumed, maybe, you’d stay. Just for a bit.” I can’t meet his eye, but I hope he hears the plea in my voice, the one saying, “please, please don’t leave right away, Graham. I can’t do this alone, and I don’t think I want to do this with anyone but you.”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice softer and lower than normal, “I can probably stay.”
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28
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KEELEY
The following Saturday morning, we are in Ben and Gemma’s kitchen with Lola jumping at our heels, and a ten-page list of directions Gemma’s reading aloud to me.
“Keeley went to medical school, hon,” Ben says. “I’m sure she can comprehend it on her own.”
Graham hoists himself onto the counter. “I wouldn’t be so sure. The only thing I’ve seen her read all week is Ugliest Celebrity Babies and Celebrities Who are Bad in Bed, and they were both mostly pictures.”
“I’ll have you know I also read Help! I’m in a threesome with my boyfriend’s parents and I don’t know how to tell him! And it had no pictures at all, which was unfortunate.”
Gemma laughs. “Okay, we’re leaving, but don’t baby her the whole time, okay? If you’re holding her 24/7, then she’s going to want me to do it while I’m at work.”
“Are you bringing her to work?”
“Well, I can’t leave her here alone.”
I laugh. Gemma is probably the most driven, professional person I know. She worked weekends and holidays for years and wore a suit every day of the week. I never thought I’d see the day she’d bring a dog to work.
“Oh, and if she sees a dog on TV, she goes nuts, so—”
“Hon,” Ben says, his jaw tight, his voice sharper than normal, “I really want to get there.”
Her mouth curves. “Fine. Just call if—”
“I know how to operate a phone, Gemma. Go, before your husband kills us both.”
They leave and I sink to the floor, pulling Lola on my lap, which is probably exactly the kind of thing Gemma was warning me about. “I’ve never seen your brother like that before.”
He laughs to himself. “He had his reasons.”
“What reasons?”
Graham brushes a hand through his hair. “She hasn’t slept with him all week,” he says. “She said she wanted to make this weekend special. I suspect he’s been pushed a little too far.”
“Ugh,” I grumble. “He’s complaining about a week? Give me a break, Ben. I’ve been married for six months, and I haven’t had sex once. I think that’s grounds for an annulment right there.”
He stiffens. “So there was no one else…after Vegas?”
I sigh heavily. “You are the only person I’ve slept with since last summer, and I don’t even remember it.”
Our eyes meet and I feel that shift inside me again, which is occurring more and more. That goddamn kiss was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I can barely think of anything else half the time. He simply has to walk into the room and my skin is too warm, the lace of my bra is too rough, and I’m wondering what it would take to get him to kiss me again. I’m wondering what it would take to get him to do more.
“It’s been a while for me too,” he says.
What an absolute waste. Someone should be taking full advantage of that body and that face. And if he’s not sleeping with anyone and I’m not sleeping with anyone…maybe it could be me?
It would be a terrible idea given the baby is coming and we’re actually friendly at the moment, but I’ve never let the fact that an idea was terrible stop me before.
And it would be expedient. Efficient. He’d like that aspect of it. I mean, we’re in the same place and it’s not like he can get me extra-pregnant and—