Page 41 of Devil in Disguise

He pressed the button, a sharp click that echoed the icy dread seizing my heart. “Come in, my dear,” he purred, his words a caress that scraped against my raw nerves.

Then she was there.

The office door swung inward, revealing a vision that stole my breath. Her skin was a canvas of incandescent perfection, marred only by the stark white triangle of a thong that mocked her nudity. The faintest whisper of expensive perfume, something musky and intoxicating, filled the air. Her head bowed, her long dark hair a curtain concealing her face, yet her perfectly formed shoulders betrayed her sensuality. She moved with a grace that was both seductive and alluring, each step a slow, sensual dance as she edged closer before she kneeled next to me. The cool smoothness of the polished floor was a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from her body.

Crispin Sinclair rose from his chair like a predator unleashed. His grin widened, revealing a glint of something cruel and calculating in his eyes. The air crackled with unspoken power. “I believe I shall leave you two alone to... reacquaint yourselves,” he said, his voice a silken whip. “We can talk... later.”

His unspoken threat hung heavier than the humid air, thick with the scent of fear and impending doom.

The instant Sinclair vanished, a seductive gleam ignited in her eyes. She was a stunning creature, all sharp angles and dangerous curves. Her gaze, a molten caress, burned into me as she looked up. A slow, deliberate smile parted her lips that hinted at secrets best left undisturbed. The scent of her perfume, heady and intoxicating with dark floral notes that promised both pleasure and peril, filled the air. Her hands, cool and impossibly smooth, began their ascent, a deliberate crawl up my legs, each feather-light touch sending a jolt of raw anticipation through me.

As she rose from the floor, a sinuous movement that was both feline grace and determination, my heart pounded against my chest. Straddling me, she leaned in, her breath ghosting my ear.

“Hello, Danny,” she purred, my name a caress, a reverence, a promise all at once. The heat of her body pressed against mine was a physical manifestation of the storm brewing within her and me.

Her breath, hot and laced with a hint of mint and something wild, feathered across my neck as she leaned in. The silken slide of her tongue was a searing brand on my neck.

“I know you,” I breathed, my words a ragged whisper caught in the tightening coil of my gut.

“Oh, Danny,” she cooed, the sound a low growl vibrating through my chest. Her hips ground against my cock, a deliberate, agonizing friction against the brutal hardness blooming in my groin. “We know each other very well.”

My sharp intake of air was involuntary, as was the choked moan that escaped me as her teeth grazed my earlobe, the tiny puncture a jolt of exquisite pain.

“How...?” I rasped, my question lost in the rising tide of sensation.

She murmured against my skin, her voice a silken blade slicing through the haze of desire. “MIT, darling. Remember the hushed whispers in the back of the lecture hall? The stolen glances across crowded labs? We were... inseparable. For a while.”

Her words were laced with a bitter sweetness, recounting a memory both cherished and shrouded in shadows.

I pushed her back, my question a desperate cry tearing at my sanity. “So, I’m not gay?”

Her touch ceased, and the abrupt absence left a gaping void.

She pulled back. Her startlingly green eyes I thought I’d forgotten burned into mine, radiating a complex tapestry of regret, longing and something else... something darkly exhilarating. She shook her head, the movement slow and deliberate, each subtle tremor carrying the weight of unspoken years. “No, Danny. You are not gay.”

Her denial hung in the air, a stark, brutal truth.

A raw, animalistic surge of relief washed over me, obliterating the lies Dante told me.

I clamped my hand around her throat, the delicate pressure a fierce assertion of ownership, of reclamation as I claimed her lips. My kiss was a ravenous storm, a desperate attempt to consume, to erase the haunting uncertainty thatheinstilled in me.

It was a kiss that tasted of redemption and a past that was nothing but pure fiction.

Chapter Eighteen

Dante

Trigger Warning:If infidelity is a trigger for you, please skip this section and pick the story up again in Chapter Nineteen.

The clock’s mocking tick-tock hammered against my skull.

I let out a ragged sigh.

Stella’s voice, a thin, reedy sound against the roaring in my ears, sliced through the silence. “It’ll be okay, Dante,” she said, her words a pathetic balm she didn’t believe herself. Her eyes, usually sparkled with mischief, were now dull with a fear that mirrored my own, a fear that clawed at my throat. “He’ll come back.”

“What if he doesn’t?” My question ripped from my chest, raw and desperate.

“Digger and the others are searching. He couldn’t have gone far.” Her voice trembled, a fragile thing against the storm brewing inside me.

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