Page 15 of Heart of a Devil

“We both know that’s not true.” His eyes flash at me, and his sinful mouth quirks up at one corner. “So, first things first. Let’s clear the air.”

“Do we have to? I prefer the air a little murky.”

“We have to. Sam gave me a right telling off earlier. Doesn’t want me to mess things up at the firm. So truthfully? I’ve beenthinking about you a lot. I get the feeling you’re not looking for anything serious, and being brutally honest, I’m not so great at serious myself. But I have to tell you, I enjoyed our time together… And there are still a lot of things left on the list.”

“The list?”

“The list of filthy things I’d like to do to you. The list of ways I want to make you come. The list of your body parts I’d still like to fuck.”

Every cell in my body sits up at attention and screams at me. I squeeze my thighs together to relieve the pressure that suddenly builds between my legs, and my vision goes a little blurry. I suck in a deep breath and hope I don’t look as aroused as I feel. “That’s not friendly dinner talk, Seb. Did you bring me here under false pretenses?”

He laughs and rubs his beard, grinning at me cheekily. “Maybe, although I didn’t plan it that way. I had every intention of being the gent tonight, but something about you seems to bring out the animal in me… I’ve got a rock-hard dick just sitting across from you in public, for fuck’s sake. But I’ve had a hard dick before, and that will pass. Friendship lasts longer, and I do want us to be friends too. Whatever you want from this, I’ll be fine with it.”

“Are you sure about that? You’re saying the right words, but you’re looking at me like you want to throw me over your shoulder and carry me off to a cave.”

“I strongly suspect you wouldn’t mind that at all, sweetheart. But that’s a game for another day. How about we take this one step at a time? Dinner, drinks, conversation.”

I nod and sip more beer, unwilling to open my mouth because I’m still stuck on the image of him carrying me out of here, complete with his hard dick. I’d like to slip a shoe off and run my toes over it under the table. Hell, I’d like to run my tongue over it under the table.

The waitress arrives with food as I’m imagining licking those heavy balls of his and picturing him shooting his load on my breasts. That’s a thing I don’t typically enjoy much, but the idea of him finishing on me is enough to make my pussy contract.

He gives me a smug look. “You look distracted. Something on your mind?”

The damn man knows exactly what’s on my mind. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me, and I fight to regain control. “Just how delicious this dish smells. Nothing on earth sexier than a plate of good pasta.”

“If you say so, Hot Sauce. Now. Do you want to tell me about Caroline, or would that ruin your sexy pasta?”

His tone is more serious and businesslike, like he’s flipped from playful Seb to security firm–owner Seb, and I wonder if that’s his way of coping with difficult emotions. I’m not an idiot. I saw the way he was with Nicky and heard the things he said to him while he thought I wasn’t listening. I can’t imagine anybody being able to hurt this big man now, but he was a once vulnerable little boy, a boy somebody took advantage of. Probably someone he should have been able to trust. I don’t let myself go down that heartbreaking rabbit hole, and instead follow his lead of being professional.

“No, let’s talk about it. I’m worried about her, Seb. She’s been with her husband for eleven years, married for ten. They met when she was working as a personal shopper in Harrods—he was a high-roller client. At first, he was charm personified, and it was all a fairytale. I’m pretty sure you can guess the rest.”

“Sadly, I can, yeah. He’ll have cut her off from her family and friends, started with the odd slap, persuaded her it was all her fault for setting him off. Usual blood-boiling bullshit.”

I nod, saddened but unsurprised at the weariness in his words. Caroline’s story isn’t a unique one. Far too many women have similar stories to tell. “Exactly that. But things haveescalated beyond the usual. For the last few years, he’s been sharing her out among his friends, forcing her to endure gang rape. His favorite game is to throw a party, tie her to the bed, and invite friends and business colleagues to take their turns. They’re allowed to do whatever they want to her.” I swallow down the bile that works its way up from my stomach and force myself to go on. “The last time, it was over twenty men, and she ended up in the hospital with horrific internal injuries. It was a private hospital, paid for by him, so everybody turned a blind eye.”

Reciting the awful details like this is actually helping me distance myself from the trauma of it all. I learned long ago to compartmentalize with my job, to separate my emotions from my words—there’s a place for passion in the law, but it’s mainly a world of logic and reason. I won’t be helping Caroline or Nicky if I can’t clearly describe what she’s been subjected to without bursting into tears. Seb obviously isn’t quite there yet and slams his massive fist down on the table so hard the plates shake. “The evil piece of shit. How about I tie him up and do the same to him? Cut off his cock, cover it in barbed wire, and shove it up his arse until he bleeds out.”

I nod, not at all distressed by that image. “Believe me, I hear you Seb—but that can’t be our first choice. She’s so scared, she isn’t even sure what she wants to do yet. I need to try to get her out of this the right way.”

“And if you can’t? If the civilized crap fails her? This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you, Lauren, but I don’t exactly have a huge amount of respect for the law or the system. They both let too many people down.”

“Like you?” I ask quietly. “I heard what you said to Nicky.”

He shrugs and looks away before he speaks. This is hard for him. “Yeah. Like me. Not going to give you the whole sob story—Samantha doesn’t even know the details. My dad was an ex-conwho liked hurting people, and my mum was… Well, fuck knows what she started off as, but by the end, she was his partner in it all. The pair of them were at me from the day I was born, right up until I was taken into care.”

“And how was that? Any better?”

He gives me a bitter smile. “I’m sure you’ve seen the care system in the States, and I’m guessing it’s not much different from here. I was almost thirteen. I was too old, too angry, too everything. I was never going to be adopted by some cute couple who nurtured me, was I? Weirdly, it was getting Sam’s mum pregnant that changed things. When her parents took her away from me, I let them, because I was only a child myself—and because I knew I had nothing to offer them. I genuinely thought the girl I loved and my own kid would be better off without me. It made me feel worthless, pathetic, and I decided I never wanted to feel like that again.”

There is unguarded pain in his dark-brown eyes, but it’s the strength in his voice I focus on. This is a man who has suffered and has overcome, and I, of all people, respect that. I place my hand over his. “Is that when you started Archangel? When you were that young?”

“Nah, that didn’t come ’til later, when I met Gabriel and was ready to turn my back on the wild days and really achieve something. No, back then there weren’t a lot of options for a kid like me, so as soon as I was old enough, I joined the army.”

I’m surprised—Seb doesn’t really seem like the army type. “Huh. How did that work out?”

He flashes me a wicked grin. “About as well as you’d expect. I was shit at doing what I was told, but it gave me a little discipline, taught me a few tricks. Made me grow up a bit, I suppose—though Sam would argue that part is still a work in progress. Anyway. Enough about me. Nicky’s broken arm. The dad?”

He’s obviously had enough of digging into his own past, and I get that. I’ve turned avoidance into an art form. “The dad, yes. At first, she didn’t know. Genuinely believed he fell the first few times the bruises showed up. You’ve met him, he’s a lively kid, always on the go. But when his arm was broken, he finally told her who’d been hurting him. Even more than that, she started to suspect he was being prepped for something else. One of the men who came to the parties, she said, only ever liked to watch as the others raped and abused her. She heard him saying his tastes ran much younger. She suspects the beatings are a way of breaking Nicky down, making him more malleable, that he’s getting ready to… getting ready to sell him to some sick pervert. His own damn father. Who, by the way, is a Russian ‘businessman’ named Ivan Volkov. He’s protected by layers of powerful connections. The kind that carry AK-47s and own private helicopters. It’s only the threat to Nicky that’s made her take the steps she has. When it was only her, I think she was willing to tolerate it…”

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