The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(53)

“I knew you were going to make me feel bad about this.”

“I’m not.” His jaw locks. “I’m just trying to understand.” He raises his head to look at me. “What do you mean by more? How much?”

I hitch a shoulder. “Ideally, uh…several times a day.”

“Jesus,” he whispers.

“I knew—”

“I’m not complaining,” he hisses. “You have no idea how hot I find it that you…fuck. Never mind.”

“How hot you find it that I what?”

He glares at me. “What do you think, Keeley? The idea of you, spending your entire day wanting to get laid…what sane man isn’t going to hear that and be tortured by it?”

I freeze, wondering if he’s joking. Based on how pissed he is, he’s probably not. “Lots of men aren’t into that,” I reply. “And with the way I look now, I think the odds of me ever attracting anyone again are painfully slim anyway.”

He laughs, but the sound is rueful and unhappy. “With the way you look now? What’s wrong with the way you look?”

I stand and flip my shirt up. “Look at my stomach, Graham! Look at my stretch marks!” I let my shirt fall. “I’ve got veins.”

“Any man would give up a year of his life to fuck you, Keeley. Supposed veins or not.”

My breath stills. I’m good at equations, and this is a simple one:

Any man would with sleep me + Graham is a man = Graham would sleep with me.

“You could,” I suggest.

He blinks. “What?”

“You heard me.”

His eyes fall closed. “Keeley…I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

It’s not like I thought he’d be thrilled with the offer, but I wasn’t prepared for outright rejection either.

“Of course you don’t want to,” I reply. My voice grows quiet. “I can’t even blame you. I wouldn’t want to fuck me either.”

He laughs—the sound low and menacing—as his hand wraps around my wrist. “You can’t be serious,” he says, and then he rises, too, stepping close to me—the heat of him along my chest, his breath against my forehead.

I swallow. Pull it together, Keeley. “Yes, I’m serious. I—”

He presses my hand to his cock. “Does it feel like I don’t want to?”

Beneath my hand he is thick and long, and very, very hard.

And I remember this: standing close to him, just the way I am now, and feeling the sharp edges of his hunger, and being simultaneously terrified and compelled by the depth of it. He seemed safe from a distance, but now I realize how wrong I was; there’s nothing safe about him. He’s been like a feral animal kept on a leash, and I just suggested removing it.

He lets my hand go, but it remains anyway, instinct urging me to try to wrap my palm around him through his shorts.

“Keeley, stop,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to—”

I keep my hand right where it is. “You don’t want my hand here?”

“Of course I fucking want your hand there. I just meant…I wasn’t putting it there for that reason.”

“Graham,” I say quietly, “what else do you want from me?” And then I grasp him again, harder, and air hisses through his teeth.

“Everything,” he grunts, moving away. “But not when you’re offering it as a one-off.”

He walks into his room and I remain behind, breathless.

He just turned me down, but it’s not because he doesn’t want me. It’s because he knows he will want more than I will. He’s probably right.

I’ve never hated his practicality as much as I do right now.





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KEELEY





I expect things to be weird in the morning, but they’re not. I’m running late, he’s cranky—business as usual. He offers to make Mark breakfast and suggests that it wouldn’t take me so long to get dressed if I’d just tell the office I was pregnant, though I’m completely hidden by a lab coat these days.

It’s like last night didn’t happen…except it did. And I can’t stop replaying it in my head. Big, lovely Graham with his sharp tongue and his constant disdain.

I never dreamed he’d want more than once from me. I never dreamed I’d want more than once from him.

And, goddammit, maybe I do. I doubt I could ever tire of having sex with him, and I like having him around. These weeks with him have been comforting and fulfilling in a way the weeks and years preceding him were not. But there are so many ways it could go wrong.

Anna Tattelbaum had him for months, probably. How many months? And how will she ever recover from the memory of it, when I simply stood next to him for thirty seconds and already know I won’t move forward?

“Will you be home at a reasonable hour tonight?” he asks, turning toward me from the blender, in which he’s crafting something I want no part of. “I was gonna grill steaks.”

I hesitate. “Not tonight. I’ve got a thing.”

A muscle flickers in his cheek. “What kind of thing?”