Page 86 of The Devil Gets His Due

Graham: I feel like this isn’t really about Prescott.

Me: Ignore me. I’ve had a hard week. You have, too, apparently.

I wait for him to ask how my week was hard, because he’d usually ask, or to tell me something more.

I wait and wait, but he doesn’t even reply.

Friday feelslike the world’s longest day, though I leave at a reasonable hour for once.

When I get to my building, I stop by the front desk to thank Jacobson for letting the delivery guys into my apartment, and he waves me off. “I didn’t need to. Graham took care of it.”

“He’s here?” I ask, my heart racing.

Jacobson raises a brow. “I figured you’d be the first to know.”

I’m never the first to know, but he’s here and I’m too excited to be sad about that. I walk-run to the elevator and then down my hall, bursting into my apartment with no couth whatsoever.

He’s in the kitchen, in shorts and a t-shirt, making a pie. I don’t know why the sight of him makes my trachea feel half its normal size.

“You’re home,” I say, then swallow hard.Oh God, do not let me cry over this. Do not.

He gives me an uncertain smile. “You’rehome.Hours early.”

“I lied about a doctor’s appointment so I could leave,” I admit, and he laughs. “What happened? You said you’d be gone until Wednesday.”

“I’ve got to head back in the morning. I just thought—” He looks at me, his tongue prodding his cheek. “You said you’d had a hard week. I thought maybe I ought to be here.”

I open my mouth to tell him he didn’t need to do that, and instead burst into tears.

In seconds, his arms are around me. “Keeley, what’s going on? Is this just a pregnancy thing or is it something else?”

I sob against his chest. “You haven’t been weird at all,” I cry. “Ever since we slept together, you haven’t been weird at all.”

He laughs quietly. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. Why hasn’t it been weird for you? Because it’s been different for me, but you’re just business as usual. It’s like it was meaningless.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then his arms tighten around me. “Keeley, if I don’t seem any different…it’s because I’m not. I’ve been trying to get over you for months, and…I’m still trying. I’m going to be trying for a long while. This is just what it looks like.”

A tiny flame ignites inside me, flickering at first and then growing stronger. He wants this. He wants us. And it’s incredibly risky and doomed to failure, but I want it too.

I place my palms on his chest as I look up at him. “I don’twantyou to get over it, Graham.”

He swallows, hope and uncertainty dancing in his eyes. “You once said you were a butterfly who couldn’t stay in one place for long.”

I take a deep breath before I answer. “Maybe I just needed a safe place to land.”

He searches my face just long enough to make sure I mean it, and then he leans down with a quiet groan and kisses me.

He smells like cinnamon and soap; he tastes like apples and mint.

His arms—not too tight and not too loose—surround me in a wall of muscle he’ll use to shield me from the world if necessary. His mouth on mine is urgent andperfect. For five days, I’ve missed this and dreamed about it, and it’s even better than I remember.

It’s messy, desperate, and when his hand finally slides inside my panties I gasp in relief. “Fucking finally,” I say, and his laughter is strained.

He pulls the shirt over my head and pushes my skirt around my hips. When I reach into his boxers and palm him, exactly the way he likes, air hisses between his teeth, and then he lifts me onto the counter.

“I’vegotto fuck you now because I can’t stand not to,” he says. “And I apologize in advance for its brevity.”

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