Page 63 of Dance With A Devil
I can barely breathe. “Thank you, Karter.”
He pulls my face toward him, presses a kiss to my lips like it’s a brand. “Always, Brat.”
“Anybody hungry?” he asks, like he didn’t just make every soul in the salon shift uncomfortably.
“Hell yeah,” the others echo.
Because even Devils need to eat.
And right now?
So do I.
The day’s winding down. Sun low, shadows long. But just when I think we’re headed home, Wyck veers the truck off the main road and into the parking lot of IKEA like he’s chasing a target.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, watching the sharp jerk of his wrists as he swings into a spot on two wheels. The engine dies, and the silence that follows is louder than the music that had been playing seconds ago.
“Furniture,” he says. That one word is all I get before he’s out, slamming the driver’s side door shut like a statement.
Furniture? From IKEA?
He rounds the truck with that hungry look he wears too well, yanks my door open, and unbuckles my seatbelt like I’m his to command, which, I guess, I am. Not that I fight it. Not tonight. I let him pull me out and steady me on my feet before I’ve even caught up to the decision.
If he says we need furniture, then I guess we do.
And for once, I don’t push back. No sarcasm. No fight. Just me, surrendering to the moment, to him. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it's relief. Or maybe I’ve just stopped pretending I’m not enjoying this, being wanted like a possession. Protected like a queen. Owned like a secret.
Fuck the consequences.
If this is wrong, I don’t want right.
“You hear that?” Karter’s voice cuts in, sharp and slick with amusement as he slides in on my other side. “Silence. Goddamn, that’s sexy.”
He offers his hand, grinning like the devil he is. “You listening to us? Letting us take care of shit without a fight? Total fucking turn-on.”
“Cool it,” Wyck growls, his hand already gripping mine like he owns the bones beneath my skin. “We’ve got shit to do.”
Before I can respond, Dash steps out of the shadows like he’s been summoned. He moves with a quiet confidence, cold steel and shadow wrapped in ink and restraint. He approaches without looking at anyone else. Just me.
He offers me his arm. “May I escort you inside?”
I blink, caught off guard. He’s usually the last to speak, the last to reach, but this time… he steps up.
When he leans close and whispers, “Please?” the word cuts through every defense I didn’t even know I still had.
There’s something about it. Not desperation. Not command. Just a quiet need that threatens to undo me.
Without another word, I slide my hand from both Wyck’s and Karter’s grasp and curl it around Dash’s arm.
“I would be delighted.”
The shift in his face wrecks me. The doubt in his expression vanishes like smoke, replaced by something reverent. Something real.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, patting my hand with surprising gentleness. Then he adds, “By the way… pink looks dangerous on you.”
“You think so?”
He nods once. “Deadly.”
