Page 10 of Devil's Den

She pressed her lips together and frowned at him. “Because without things being clean, there would be chaos, and no one wants that.”

He raised a brow. “Some people like chaos.”

“You don’t.”

He smirked. “You don’t know me very well.”

“Okay, maybe you like creating chaos you don’t have to worry about cleaning up, but you don’t relish chaos.”

“What makes you think that?” he asked, curious about her.

“Your home.”

This made him frown but he didn’t ask her a question and waited for her to elaborate.

“Seriously, you don’t see it?”

“See what?”

“You have a very clean and organized home. Nothing is out of place, and from what I can tell, you must hire some kind of cleaning crew to come around, and, I don’t know, clean like every single day. There’s not a speck of dust to be seen, and lived-in houses always have a mess by the end of the day.” She shrugged. “Which suggests you like making chaos but that doesn’t mean you like living in it.”

He didn’t like how astute she was.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why don’t you tell me the reason you can’t stand mess?” he said.

“Simple. My parents did nothing but cause trouble and make messes that were impossible to clean. Growing up with sticky floors, beer cans, used condoms, moldy food, that will affect some people. No matter how much I seemed to clean, they always found a way to make it messy.”

“You cleaned for your parents?”

“At first I did, but then, I don’t know, I think I startedto clean for myself and it made it a little easier.” She leaned forward, placing an elbow on the table, followed by her chin onto her palm. “So, tell me, why do you not like messes?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Can I take a guess?”

He didn’t see a reason not to allow her to continue to talk. She pursed her lips as she stared at him. Rome took the time to just watch her.

“You’ve had no choice but to live in messes when you were younger.”

“Why when I was younger?”

“You’re much older now. Some things that happen in our past greatly affect who we are in the present, and what we do in the present designs our future.”

“It’s too early for philosophical lessons.”

She giggled, and it was such a strange sound, not bad, not fake either, but … natural. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

“It beats talking about the big elephant in the room,” she said.

He knew exactly what she was talking about. “I’ve never had a woman refer to my cock as an elephant.”

She gasped. “I didn’t mean that.”

This time, he chuckled. “I know.”

She pressed her lips together and quickly glanced down. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy teasing you about it.”

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