The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(17)

He laughs. “Ah, rigorously ethical like you?”

“I’m ethical enough.” Yes, I’m aware that by qualifying how ethical I am, I may have proven his point.

He sighs, helping me pull the jacket off before handing it to me. “So what does this guy do? Your date tonight?”

I glance over at him. I imagine he’s hoping to ridicule Thomas somehow. In this one instance, I’m glad the guy does not own a Christmas tree farm. “He’s a chef.”

“Guess you’ll be paying for dinner. Good thing you’re so liberated.”

Heat, fatigue, frustration…they’re rapidly eroding my ability to put up with this situation, and even more rapidly eroding my ability to be around Ben. “Lots of chefs do really well, and I don’t care how much he earns anyway.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never had a broke day in her life.”

“Right,” I reply. “I forgot you’re from the mean streets of Newport.”

He raises a brow, and his mouth curves upward, as if to say, Gemma, how do you know so much about me? It’s a question I should probably be asking of myself.

“So tell me about this guy,” he continues, turning his head my way. “I mean, aside from the things I can already deduce: that he shares a two-bedroom with four other men, and still drives his mom’s 2005 Honda.”

“You’ve clearly never watched a Hallmark movie. Chefs live in cute cottages, either on the beach or in the mountains, with a small herb garden in front. Everyone knows this.”

He rises from his seat and moves into the aisle. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you don’t know a lot of real-life chefs.” He reaches up, pulls off his tie, and then begins unbuttoning his shirt.

That’s when any shred of restraint inside me…evaporates.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand. “This isn’t your weekend Chippendales’ show.”

“Gemma, it’s three hundred degrees in here. I’ve got a t-shirt on under this. You’ll live.”

He peels off the shirt, and I divert my eyes away from his very, very nice biceps, his smooth and surprisingly tan forearms…and they fall to his belt.

Then they fall lower, which is when I think about the elevator.

I felt it. He’s large. Too large. It would be irritating, having to deal with that thing nestled up against me every morning and night.

“If our positions were reversed, I’d be complaining to HR right now,” he says.

Shit.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I reply, quickly looking away.

He closes the overhead bin and takes the seat beside me again. “I practically watched your thoughts scroll across your face and they were surprisingly filthy. I’m not sure I could even say them aloud.”

I press my thighs together, feeling breathless. It’s probably the heat. “Considering most of the women you date don’t read yet, I figured you’d be better at talking.”

“Really?” he asks, his mouth twitching. He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temples like he’s a psychic. “So, I see you in a room, and…wow, you really want me to put my tongue there? I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.”

I roll my eyes. “You do seem like the type who wouldn’t have done much with his tongue.”

“I’ve done plenty, Gemma,” he says, his gaze on my mouth, his voice so gravelly that I have to swallow to get the air moving through my throat. He sits back in his seat and closes his eyes again. “Anyway, I didn’t say no to that really surprising—and some might say unsanitary—thing you want me to do. I’m just saying it’s a big step this early on. I normally start with the regular stuff first.”

“Do you even get to the regular stuff, or can you not wait that long before you dismember the body?”

His mouth twitches. “Now you’re trying to get me worked up.”

I laugh, hating myself for it. On the intercom, the airline attendant announces we’ve been cleared for takeoff, and that’s probably for the best. I don’t need any more time spent considering whether I could be friends—or more—with Ben Tate. I shut the window shade and close my eyes, quietly praying that Thomas the chef sweeps me off my feet so I never have to consider this question again.





I meet Thomas—who apparently goes by Tad—at a bar in North Hollywood.

His hair was short in the photo but is longer in real life, pulled back in a small ponytail. I’m fine with this, but he does not exude the calm authority I’d hoped for. He’s one of those twitchy guys whose free hand drums on the table constantly, as if he’s nervous or bored or fresh out of cocaine.

I tell him I’m a lawyer, hoping he will then ask if I’m fulfilled. Maybe he’ll get me talking about some secret interest of mine and suggest a change in careers. If I was someone who liked to bake, for instance, he’d encourage me to open a cupcake shop in his quaint little home town. If I was an artist, he’d convince me to start selling my work and he’d have a studio on his property that I was free to use. But I can’t paint, and baking seems like a waste of time, so I’m counting on Tad to come up with something better.

“I bet you make bank,” he says instead. Not quite what I was hoping for.