Page 52 of Dev

“What’s funny, wise guy?” Eden challenges him.

“You girls are what’s funny.” He shakes his head and places a cigarette between his lips.

“Sin,” Wrath calls out from the bar, and when Sinner looks over, he’s got a stern ass look on his face. “You're gonna swallow that thing lit if you spark it up near my wife,” he warns.

“Excuse me while I go bash my head against a wall till Saint comes back.” Sinner gets up off his chair and heads out the door, leaving me to deal with the girls by myself.

“Look, you all know how I feel about Millie being here. If you wanna invite her to the shower, hold it somewhere else.” I turn my back and go to follow Sinner; I’d better go check that he ain’t really banging his head against a brick wall.

“You're so selfish, you know that?” I turn around and see Freya looking at me in disgust. “Don’t you get that she’s lonely? She needs friends around her right now. She wants to remember all the good things she shared with Corey. You need to find a new way of coping, Dev, because being cruel to her ain’t fucking cool.” She storms her way across the bar to be with Ruck, who simply shrugs his shoulders at me like he agrees with her.

“Fuck this,” I mutter under my breath, barging out the door to my bike so I can get outta here. Instead of banging his head into the wall, I catch Sinner going inside the motel with Trinity; moving on past them, I get on my bike and head back toward home.

I’m not feeling like company today, in fact, I don’t feel like doing anything at all. I hate the fact that Freya is right. Iambeing selfish. Millie deserves better, but I just can’t let her have it. Having her at the club has already had its consequences. I fuckin’ kissed her, and I would have killed that kid last night if she hadn’t told me not to.

I don’t like the way some of my club brothers look at her. I hate that the fact she’s unclaimed makes her anyone’s game, and having her there makes me wanna write mine all over her fuckin’ forehead.

I spoke to Sinner a few days ago about heading back to Nebraska. She wouldn’t be a temptation there; she could hang out at the clubhouse, and get the kinda friendships outta the girls that she needs. Coming here to Long Beach was mine and Corey’s fresh start, now he ain’t here, it don’t feel the same.

“What the—” I get irritated all over again when I see Millie sitting on my doorstep in her cute little diner dress, and as I pull up onto the drive, she stands on her feet, straightening it out and looking embarrassed.

“What the fuck are you doin’ here?” I ask, kicking down my stand and balancing my bike. Why does she have to be so damn pretty? It makes keeping my hands off her so much harder to do.

“Don’t leave.” She looks at me desperately, her eyes puffy from crying, and her chest rising and falling frantically. “You can’t leave. I?—”

“How the hell did you…Where has all this come from?” I start wondering if the girl can read my fuckin’ mind.

“Beatrix heard Sinner talking about it; he said you might go back to Nebraska. But you can’t. You can’t leave Long Beach, Dev. I need you here.” She shakes her head and swallows the lump in her throat, and her eyes look up into mine like she’s petrified.

“Please, Dev.” She takes a step forward, and when she places her hand over mine, I ain’t got the strength to stop her.

“You feel that, don’t you?” she asks, gripping me tighter. “Your mind is telling you it’s wrong, but everything else–”

“No!” I cut her off before she starts trying to make how I feel seem okay.

“Stop lying to me, and to yourself,” she begs.

“Millie–” My voice comes out weak

“No. Don’t youdaredo that. Don’t tell me I’m wrong or that I’m imagining this, because it makes me crazy.”

“Millie, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go inside.” I glance over the hedge where Jean is pretending to check her mail and listening in.

“Oh.” She drops her shoulders and looks a little surprised. “Fine, if that's what you want.” Keeping her head up, she waits until I’ve opened the door before marching past me victoriously, and I can’t help but check out her ass as she does it, even if it does earn me a judgmental frown from Jean.

“Dev, I know you think this is wrong, and maybe it is, but you're supposed to be a bad guy; you do wrong things all the time. Why can’t I be one of them?” I barely give him a chance to close the door behind him before I speak.

I’ve been waiting on his doorstep for over an hour and gone over and over the things I need to say.

“Has it ever crossed your mind that I don’t wanna be a bad guy when it comes to you? That I actually wanna do therightthing?” He startles me when he takes hold of my wrist, and the desperation in his hold makes me wonder if he’s feeling the same frustration I am. “You're my brother's girl, Millie. You’re years younger than me. Me and you… We just don’t fit darlin’.” He drops his head as if he’s as disappointed to say it as I am to hear it.

“That’s not how it felt when we kissed. Dev, I’ve never experienced anything like that before, and I want to feel it again.”

“That’s because you're only eighteen years old,” he mocks me. “You have a whole lifetime of kisses like that ahead of you.”

“But, Dev, I don’twantthose kisses if they're not with you. Come on, that can’t be the reason that you're scared to do it again?”

“Scared? I ain’t fuckin’ scared.” He shakes his head at me.

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