Page 30 of Her Devil

My head is still reeling from the altercation with Nick, his musky cologne swirling around my brain and making everything else fuzzy.That infuriating dickhead.Not only does he make me madder than I could even possibly consider myself to get, but then he goes and soothes it with that tone, that growl, the offer of a pleasure you know is going to be oh-so-good.

We took our coffee to go, the attendant already making preparations by the time I’d finally pulled myself together enough to get back out there and face him.The presumptuous little shit.Not that I’m complaining. The drive back was electrified, stuck somewhere between overwhelming annoyance and pure lust, and neither of us could seem to manage the right words to bridge the gap.

He dropped me at the car. I thanked him for the coffee. And he left. Then I climbed in my own and swore profusely.

I’m such a joke.

I wanted details, details he didn’t have, and then I gave him shit about it. I wanted them. Needed them.

I’m here for a reason, I can see it, feel it, but not understand it. And it’s infuriating.

The answers are just a taste away, practically on his tongue.

The tongue that was in my mouth.

And it was good. So fucking good.

“Oh, girl, you’ve got it bad,” Tamsin sing-songs as she comes in, placing a glass of wine on the bedside table.

“Uh, no I don’t,” I argue, already worrying how much she saw on my face just seconds ago.

“Of course not.” She smiles, not believing a single word out of my mouth. “So, come on, spill. Who was it?”

“Who was what?”

“Who did you go for coffee with?” she asks, sipping her wine and dropping onto one of the chairs by the window. “Because I know for a fact it wasn’t Jacob.”

“And how do you know that?” I ask on an exhale, grabbing the glass and taking a healthy swig.

“There’s this new technology, you’ve probably heard of it, they’re calledmobile phones.You can literally get in touch with anyone anywhere, providing you have their number.” She laughs at her own joke, waving her phone at me.

“Taylor,” I deduce, not aware they’d swapped numbers as well as bodily fluids last night.

“And Leo was with him, so don’t hold out on me. Who’s the new mystery guy?”

“No mystery guy, you’ve met him.”You just didn’t realise it at the time. None of us did.

“Please, for the love of all that is holy, donottell me you let Spencer take you out.” She groans, rolling her eyes back in disgust.

“That’s a hard pass,” I reply. “But it turns out that particular dick is in my advanced bio class, which means I’m gonna be stuck with him the entire time we’re here. On the plus side, so is Leo.” I grin, thinking about Spencer falling over himself to get away from him. It falls away just as quickly when I remember the very real plea in his voice as he asked me to stay away from him.

“You knew he would be though…”

“Really?”

“After all the time and effort your mother went to, to get the two of you together, and then your father demanding you come here… If you think there was any chance he wasn’t going to appear at some point, you’re delusional.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“No maybe about it, chick. So, come on, mystery guy…”

“Oh, I went with Nick,” I brush off. “Apparently, Nick and Jacob are twins and I’ve been managing to mix them up… that didn’t go down so well.”

“Really?” she asks, her interest showing. “Twins. Now that could make for a fun time. How did neither of us notice that last night? Surely having both of them in the room should have been easy to see… no?”

“You’d think.” I laugh, thinking about how much it makes sense and how completely oblivious I’ve been. “Anyway, I think Jacob’s forgiven me for the mishap, Nick maybe not.”

“No?” she asks, settling in for the details.

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