On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [50]
She absolutely melted.
Never would’ve thought I was this kind of girl, she thought dazedly. The thought brought her up short.
Oh, wait. I’m not.
Lilah pressed her palms to Devon’s chest and pushed until she could reclaim her mouth. Dragging in air like she’d been underwater for three minutes, Lilah gasped out, “Hold your horses, there.”
Devon flexed his hands in her hair, sending prickles of sensation racing down her spine. “What’s the matter, Lilah Jane?”
Ignoring the warmth that spread through her at the soft way he said her name, Lilah shuddered and pulled away. Her smile felt shaky, but it was there. “Come on now. You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”
Huffing out a laugh, Devon said, “Looking back at today, I guess I should’ve known better. It’s not like anything has turned out the way I thought it would since I met you.”
Lilah leaned on the sink to hide the fact that she felt like a newborn colt trying to stand for the first time. “Unpredictable. I can live with that.”
“More like ‘harbinger of chaos,’ ” Devon corrected her. “Jesus.”
“A little bit of chaos would do you good. And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
Devon pressed his hands together as if he were praying, but the look in his deep blue eyes was all sin. He grinned and bowed once, quickly.
“Yes, boss.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Devon wandered out to his living room. He didn’t bother turning on any lights; the darkness suited his mood.
Everyone else in his odd new household was still in bed, tucked up and cozy, but despite the exhaustion weighting his bones, Devon’s sleep had been restive at best. And now here he was, up at the ass crack of dawn, wondering if there was anything on TV at this godforsaken hour.
He was slouched into the buttery leather comfort of his ultra-modern couch, flipping through channels, when an unsettling feeling of not-aloneness crawled up the back of his neck.
Whipping to the side, Devon threw out the arm holding the remote and accidentally lost his grip on the thing. The all-in-one contraption that controlled every piece of state-of-the-art electronics in his apartment, from lighting to stereo to the enormous flat-panel television, flew from his hand and smacked against the opposite wall. Plastic snapped, batteries bounced in all directions, and Devon squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Well, shit.”
And then he grinned, wondering if his pretty little nanny was about to scold him for naughty language again. Why that was such a turn-on, Devon would never understand.
Except when he squinted one eye open, it wasn’t Lilah standing behind the couch, but Tucker.
The kid was sleepy-eyed and rumpled, hair smashed flat against his skull in a way that made one tuft poke straight out of the middle of his head. One small hand curled in a death grip around the ratty straps of the backpack he’d brought with him.
He didn’t look fazed by Devon’s language.
“What are you doing up?” Devon asked, working embarrassingly hard to keep his voice normal.
Tucker shrugged.
“You want to go back to bed?”
Tucker shook his head.
“Lilah’s still asleep,” Devon said, feeling helpless and hating it. Inspiration struck. “Do you want to go wake her up?”
Tucker shook his head again.
Devon was running out of options. Stalling for time, he hauled himself off the couch and went to gather the pieces of the remote control. Luckily for him, the thing seemed to be basically fine.
Snapping the batteries back into place, Devon scrolled through a few channels to make sure everything was working properly. All the while, he was hyper-conscious of the boy standing behind him.
Why was this so fucking awkward? Tucker was only a kid, but Devon was as nervous under his silent regard as he’d been when the New York Times critic was at Appetite.
All that comforted Devon was that Tucker seemed at least as jumpy, if not more, judging by the way the kid startled when Devon moved to sit back down on the couch. Maybe they were both feeling their way a little bit.
Casting a surreptitious sideways glance at