On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [87]
And every night when he came to her bed and made her writhe and sob and act like a complete hussy, Lilah thought there might be more than Tucker making Devon happy these days.
By Friday, they were all getting tired of running around the city, so they made a quick trip to the magical wonderland of Dylan’s Candy Bar before taking their treats back to the apartment and settling on the couch for a movie.
Lilah wasn’t dumb enough to let Tucker or Devon pick; she had no interest in sitting through Terminator 9 or something. The boys grumbled, united for once in their desire for explosions and car chases, but Lilah was implacable.
“The Goonies is a classic,” she said, leveling a severe frown at the sofa. “It’s disgraceful that Tucker hasn’t seen it.”
Devon’s mouth twisted. “What would you say if I told you I haven’t seen it, either?”
Lilah gave a theatrical gasp and fell backward, clutching her heart. She kept very still, eyes closed. Tucker squawked and jumped off the sofa to kneel by her head. It was hard not to smile or twitch when he poked her, but Lilah managed it.
“You killed her,” he whispered to Devon.
“Good,” said his father heartlessly. “That means we can watch whatever we want. Have you seen the Evil Dead movies?”
Tucker shouted with laughter as Lilah sat straight up, indignant. “Hey! A little respect, if you please. Evil Dead is hardly appropriate when your . . .” She stopped, suddenly uncertain what to call herself, how to relate herself to this unexpectedly warm family moment. “. . . whatever is dead.”
She looked at Devon, who looked back at her. The moment stretched like taffy until Tucker, shockingly, broke it by saying, “Our Lolly. And you’re not dead, so I guess we hafta watch the goons, huh?”
“Goonies, you little philistine,” she said, but it came out all scratchy and tear-clogged.
Luckily, Tucker was too busy dealing with the high-tech gadgetry involved in putting on the movie to notice, but when Lilah ducked her head away from him she had to face the couch.
Devon’s knowing gaze was heavy on her face. He laid his arm along the back of the couch in open invitation, and Lilah moved into it, shaky but happy and a little scared.
Dear Lord, she prayed silently. Please don’t let me want this too much.
But when Tucker got the system working and scooted onto the couch on Lilah’s other side, when she felt his warm little body curled into hers and Devon’s hard side shifting against her ribs and hip, the heat of his arm behind her neck, she knew.
It was too late for prayers.
There was no help for it; not even divine intervention could stop her from falling for these two.
Another night, another awful dinner service. Devon dispiritedly wiped a few droplets of the truffle foam he’d added to the rib-eye entree from the rim of the white plate.
He didn’t even know why he couldn’t seem to let the chefs go back to cooking the menu Adam had left in place. Pure assholic pig-headedness, probably. But it would feel too much like admitting defeat.
He sent the server off with a tray full of dinners that would probably come back half-eaten and looked over his shoulder to the one ray of light in the gloom-and-doom kitchen.
Lilah had Tucker next to her at a burner near the end of the line. They were out of the way of regular dinner-rush traffic, not that there was much of a rush tonight. Lilah was helping Tuck stir something in a cast-iron Dutch oven.
Curious, Devon called, “Frankie. Get up here and run the pass for a minute.”
He ignored the look the sous chef shot him—seriously, what damn sous chef hated to call the shots at the hot plate? It was insane—and strode up the line to the last burner.
Lilah and Tucker were bent solicitously over something extremely noxious-looking. Devon recoiled a little.
“What the hell is that?”
“Language! Tuck, tell your father what we’re making.”
“It’s green.”
Devon snuck a peek. “Sort of.