The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(89)

I did keep it, obviously, and now I’m a wife and the mother of a four-month-old and a homeowner of all things, and it was only when I heard Coachella had sold out that I remembered I’d ever considered going.

I hear Graham’s key in the door and throw the onesies down. He was in New York for three days—his longest trip since Daisy was born—and I’m just uncool enough to run down the hall to see him faster. He’s just uncool enough to drop his bag and pull me against him tight as if he’s been gone for a month.

“How was it?” I ask.

He tugs me closer, and I listen to the steady, constant beat of his heart beneath my ear. Steady and constant are things I didn’t even know I wanted last January. Now I can’t imagine life without them. “I’m glad to be home,” he replies.

I bite down on my smile. “How glad are you, exactly?”

He pulls away just enough for me to see him raise a brow. “How glad are you?”

Ugh. So, I’m not getting laid. All because I jokingly suggested I might take a page from Gemma’s book and not sleep with him until we left for tomorrow’s anniversary trip, to which he’d replied, “as if you have that much self-control.”

Why did I insist I’d prove it? Graham has way more willpower than me. I know this. Graham knows this. Hell, Daisy even knows it.

“Not as glad as you wish I was,” I reply, pulling him by the hand.

He peers into our living room as we round the corner to the stairs. The room looks even worse than it did when he left town.

“If you say a word about my lack of progress, you’ll be waiting a lot longer to get laid than you think,” I warn.

He smirks. “As I said the last time you suggested this, you’ll cave before I do.”

I nearly remind him I’ve made it three days, but I’m not sure I can laud myself for days he wasn’t even home.

He presses a kiss to my forehead and tells me he’s going to peek in on Daisy. I only have to wait a minute before I see him in the moonlit nursery, settling into the rocking chair with his jacket off and her snug against his chest. For all Graham’s concerns that I’d be too soft, he’s nearly as bad.

And the sight of him like that leaves me doubly determined not to wait until tomorrow to get laid. I hustle to my closet when he rises to return Daisy to her crib and get out the sheer black lace nighty he hasn’t seen yet. This thing is even risqué for me, and that’s saying something. I own a lot of lingerie.

He’s in the shower when I emerge. “Did you look at her ear?” he calls over the sound of the running water.

I laugh to myself. Thank God I’m a doctor because as it turns out, Graham is the world’s most paranoid father. He’s now read more JAMA articles on ear infections than most pediatricians I know. We’d be at the hospital every other day if it wasn’t for me.

“It’s not Ebola, hon,” I reply, reaching for the toothpaste. “Ear infections are really common.”

“But you looked?” The water shuts off. “They did this study on—”

His words trail away as he steps out of the shower. I spit toothpaste in the sink, leaning over more than necessary. I know he’s looking at my ass.

He steps up beside me with a towel around his waist. I wipe my mouth and smile at the sight of those two butterfly tattoos on his chest—one for me and a smaller one for Daisy—because he finally loved two things enough to mark himself on their behalf.

“I think you forgot to dry off,” I tell him.

He ignores me, his eyes grazing over the black lace as he reaches for his toothbrush.

“Is that new?” he asks, his voice rougher than it was.

“Uh huh.”

“It’s…very sheer.”

I look at my reflection. “Oh, look at that. It really is. You can see everything, can’t you? I’ll have to remember not to wear it around the house while they’re here painting next time.”

He stares at me in the mirror as he starts brushing his teeth. His Adam’s apple bobs. “I know what you’re doing.”

I hop onto the counter, and the slip rides up to my hip bone. He’d be able to see my panties…if I was wearing any.

“Remember the night your mom and Walter kept Daisy and we had the apartment to ourselves?”

A muscle in his cheek flickers. “Yeah.”

If I even reference either of two things—that night in the apartment or my vibrator—Graham loses it. I once waved the vibrator from across the room when he was in a Zoom meeting and he told them our power had gone out to end the call.

“That was so hot,” I purr. “I’m not sure if I ever told you this, but when you left the next morning, I started thinking about it and had to get out my vibrator.”

He flinches as he spits out the toothpaste and rinses his mouth.

“We can end all this very easily,” he says, voice lower than it was, rasping with desire. “Just admit you want it.”

My fingers move between my legs and his eyes jerk toward the motion. “I want to try what we did in the apartment again, but I want you to do it harder.”

“Fuck,” he groans, pushing my thighs apart and stepping between them. “You win.”

His hand slides around the back of my neck as he pulls my mouth to his. The towel appears to fall on its own, having realized it was no longer necessary, and then he’s pressed against me, hard as steel. I have to silence my groan, but it’s about fucking time.