Page 8 of Fighting Conviction
According to brochures and everyone’s two cents, there were lessons college could teach her that on-the-job training couldn’t. Although the more she worked at Sasha Saves, the more she questioned what lessons she’d learn from mandatory electives, like the history of the dang flute.
Dev lightly tapped her shoulder with a pen, gently bringing her back to the moment. “You okay?”
She hadn’t realized how close she’d gotten leaning next to him, but she had no complaints when his warm breath tickled her ear as he leaned into her space, making her shiver.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Damn, Ellie, you cold?” His brow furrowed in concern before he pulled his jacket from the coat rack in the corner of the office to give to her. “I keep telling you, you don’t wear enough clothes.”
“I’mfine.” Ellie rolled her eyes. While he might chastise her for not keeping herself warm, wearing more clothes around Devil Ray Vos was the last thing she wanted to do. But she took the offering, forcing herself not to burrow her nose into the fabric for the whiff of cinnamon she knew she’d find there. “It might be winter, but it feels like summer outside so I thought I’d be okay.” She laughed and elbowed him. “And, I’ve already got one big brother, ya know. I don’t need another one.”
Dev grumbled something and Ellie tilted her head. “What’s that?”
He leaned into her ear again. Even though he wasn’t touching her, his words puffed against the loose hair from her ponytail, sending tingles along the back of her neck. “Isaid, I sure as hell am not your brother.”
Ellie whipped her gaze up to see his facial expression, but he was already looking away. Dev confused the heck outta her. Whether he knowingly toyed with the line between friendship and flirtation, she wasn’t sure.
And that was the problem.
They’d known each other for almost a year and she still couldn’t tell if the spark she felt when he touched her was something she imagined or if he felt the same way. Or if the attraction was one-sided entirely. Oh God, nowthatwould be embarrassing.
The comment he’d made about her clothes, for example, sounded like he only saw her as his friend’s kid sister. But the way he whispered in her ear afterward felt like anything but.
However he talked to her, she’d take it. It was better than how everyone else spoke to her. Like a victim.
Dev saved her back then. He was the first sign of hope she’d seen when she was kidnapped. For a while, she’d chalked her feelings up to a harmless hero crush. The more she was around him, though, the less innocent it felt. She huddled farther into his jacket, imprinting his scent on her skin. Maybe they wouldn’t be innocent, but in her fantasies, the sinful things Dev did to her felt absolutely heavenly.
“Hey… I thought you had class right now?” Nora asked Ellie before lifting a dyed gray brow and glanced up from the computer screen, only to do a double take. “Damn, girl, now that I look at ya, you kinda look like shidoobie. When was the last time you slept? Or ate? You look like you’re about to fall over from lack of one or the other.” She paused and looked her up and down. “Or, Hades, maybe both.” She sobered a little and spoke more softly. “I’m glad you’re outta hidin’ babe, but are you takin’ care of yourself?”
Ellie’s cheeks heated at the truth. She’d shut herself off emotionally from everyone for nearly a year after her kidnapping. It was only this semester she’d forced herself to interact with the world. Before then, she’d hardly gone anywhere but Sasha Saves and the library. Besides sleeping, she rarely even stayed in that tiny cell of a dorm room. It felt too much like a prison.
“I’m fine,” Ellie mumbled, but Nora’s gray brow lifted higher. Nora couldn’t be more than a few years older than Ellie, but she treated her hair and eyebrows like a mood ring. Lately, she’d only chosen gray or black.
Ellie got Nora’s need for self-expression. Sasha, Ellie, Nora, and several other women were kidnapped as bids for an auction in a sex trafficking ring almost a year ago. What had happened to Sasha… Ellie closed her eyes to concentrate on blocking out another flashback. Ellie was with her captors for three days, suffering her own hell. Meanwhile, Nora witnessed one of the BlackStone men, Draco, almost die trying to save her from being kidnapped. He was shot twice and had been in a coma ever since.
The men who were behind it all were still at large, and that fact drove Ellie, and everyone around her, crazy. Jason, Dev, and the rest of the men at BlackStone Securities were attempting to solve the puzzle. But whatever they knew, they weren’t sharing any of the pieces with Ellie.
She was drugged for most of her abduction and whether it was from the drugs or trauma, Ellie could only recount what happened in hazy, disjointed fragments. She’d tried for months to unlock those memories, but it was no use. They only barged in on their terms.
Besides, even if she did remember everything, she’d never be invited to help with the investigation. Dev didn’t see her as a victim, but she knew he was overprotective of her. And Jason? Jason would never stop seeing her as the baby sister he almost lost.
“Look alive, El,” Dev grumbled and prodded her arm gently. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?” Ellie blinked away the light-headedness brought on by her daydream, recognizing from Dev’s prompt and hours of therapy that she’d taken another “mental vacation from the present.” That’s what her therapist called dissociating, when Ellie retreated from conversations and blanked out, taking up residence in her mind instead. She came back to see Jules had stepped into the office, probably to leave Naomi to think things over.
“Are you supposed to be in class right now?” Jules whispered before closing the door behind her and perching her hands on her hips. Jason thought her lawyer voice was cute, but he was insane. Even whispered, it was still scary as all get out.
“Um… yes, but Nora texted me,” Ellie hedged. “If she didn’t want me to come then she shouldn’t have messaged me.”
Nora snorted. “Don’t blame this on me. You know the drill. ‘Get here when you can’ means after class, baby doll.”
Ellie huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine, but I have absences left. And—”
“Yeah right, girl. I call bull hockey,” Nora interrupted and rolled her eyes. “You’ve been here more days than you’ve been in class.”
Ellie stuck her tongue out at Nora, and Nora stuck hers out right back. Dev grunted and the grim line of his mouth thinned even more. Ellie felt heat rise up her chest and into her cheeks. She’d acted like the child they all thought she was.
“Seriously, El, what’s going on? Going to college has always been your dream,” Jules’s eyebrows drew together with concern as she spoke.
