The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(60)

It would be unbelievably irresponsible. And I already know I’m going if she’s serious about this.

I could, I reply and then wait, holding my breath, watching those swirling dots as she phrases her reply.

Drew: Peninsula. I’ll leave you a key under the name Sexy Viking. DO NOT remove the suit until I get there.





34





DREW





Talk shows are normally the bane of my existence—obstacle courses filled with landmines and quicksand. They entail skirting around all questions about my love life and my childhood, and the implied questions about how I made it big when a thousand more talented women did not. I can speak ill of no one and have to act abundantly grateful to people and entities I hate: my manager, my family, my record label. One wrong step and within hours it will be circulating over the news and social media.

Tonight was different. Because messing up wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Instead, I worried something might delay Josh, or delay me so I couldn’t get back to Josh. If we’d been under nuclear attack during the show, my primary concern would have been its impact on the train schedules.

Don’t get your hopes up, I tell myself. He probably came to his senses.

But my hopes are up anyway. I rush through the interview, distractedly decline the host’s invitation to some after-party, and practically run all the way to the waiting car.

I’m dialing his number before I’m fully seated. “Are you at the hotel?” I demand.

“No,” he says, sounding aggrieved. “There was something on the tracks near Philly. We got delayed. Pulling in now.”

“I’m in the car on the way back to the hotel. Are you at Penn Station? We’ll pick you up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. The background noise changes from quiet to chaotic and echoing. He must be at the station. “I can just catch a cab.”

I can’t explain the weird trip of anxiety I feel. I can’t explain that I don’t want to be separated from him for even one minute if I don’t need to be, that I panic at the idea of him wandering outside Penn Station at night, though I’ve been outside Penn Station plenty of times without feeling worried once. Is this how he felt when he saw me leaving to run in the dark in Waikiki? It can’t possibly be.

“We’ll be there in two minutes,” I say, making eye contact with the driver in the rearview mirror. He nods. “Send me your location. And don’t get mugged.”

He laughs. “I could fight ten guys at once. At least ten. All at the same time. Tarantino movies are a pale imitation of my fighting skills.”

“You,” I reply, feeling unduly aggravated, “sound absolutely ridiculous.”

We arrive at the entrance near 8th and 31st and I stare at the sea of people there, willing one of the dark shapes roaming around to suddenly materialize into Josh.

When one of them suddenly does—in a suit and overcoat, bag slung over his shoulder—it feels like I’m suddenly made of confetti and champagne, all of it bubbling and fizzing inside me at the same time.

I roll down the back window. “Hey, big boy. You looking for a good time?”

His face lights up with a lopsided grin and he walks toward the car, opening the door and sliding in beside me in a burst of winter air and warm skin.

The driver has thoughtfully put the privacy glass up. “Hey,” he says, turning his head toward me, linking icy fingers through my warm ones. His lips press to mine, hard and fast, as if he can’t help himself.

When he pulls back, I place my palm on his jaw because I just want to keep looking at his face. He doesn’t seem to want to look away from mine either.

“You’re actually happy to see me,” I whisper.

He raises a brow. “I just sat on a train for three and a half hours simply to spend the night with you. Is that really a surprise?”

The answer is both yes and no. When I think of the guy I ran with, the guy who watched me like a hawk the whole muddy, treacherous climb down the Kalalau Trail and who kissed me like he’d die without it at the airport—then no.

But when I think about Joshua Bailey, MD, cold and brilliant and intimidating, rattling off facts in front of senators with barely hidden contempt, generous and selfless and far too good for me—yes, it’s a little surprising.

“I guess not,” I reply. “I do give a really good blowjob.” I crack a smile but his is muted in response.

“That’s not why I’m here,” he says, holding my eye. Something in his expression, in his tone, chastens me: Don’t make this cheap. Don’t make this out to be the same bullshit you have with everyone else.

I swallow. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

He tips my chin up with his index finger. His lips glance off mine once then press again, just holding there while he breathes me in and out. “Don’t apologize. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope there was a blowjob somewhere in the next seven hours.”

I glance from him to the privacy glass. “I could ask him to circle the block.”

His eyes fall closed. “Fuck. Now I’m hard. All you had to do was offer and it happened that fast, Drew.” My hand unlinks from his and travels, hip to groin. He wasn’t lying. It’s lovely and long and firm. I manage to give it one solid squeeze before he removes my hand.