book and offered it to him. Surely he wanted to get this over with quickly so we could both go back to pretending I hadn’t been the equivalent of a drug mule for the payment of illegal narcotics.
I didn’t make it a habit of doing illegal things. Except underage drinking. Drinking that had dragged Joshua to a party he didn’t want to go to in the first place. Drinking that forced him to pick me up and drive me home. He’s why I no longer did “bad” things. Bad things led to worse things. A familiar wave of regret licked at my insides like fire.
Devlin approached until he was close enough that the envelope crinkled against his chef’s coat. The fire of regret morphed into a flicker of desire. Mischief glittering in his eyes, his mouth twitched into an almost-smile.
“Answer me, Rena,” he commanded.
Under his unblinking stare, it took me a few seconds to regroup. “You didn’t ask me anything.”
“I asked you what you thought you had.”
My fist tightened around the money. “I… don’t know.”
“No, Rena.” Slowly, he shook his head. His assertive presence overwhelmed me. “Tell me what you think is in that envelope. If we have any hope of being friends, we can’t lie to each other.”
My heart Tommy-gunned against my ribs like it might leap out of my chest at any moment. Friends? With Devlin? I was definitely a drug-money mule.
I shoved the envelope against his chest. “I don’t want to know what it is.” The feel of rock-hard muscle against the side of my hand nearly made me forget where I was.
His warm hand over mine made me forget who I was.
“You think the money is for…” He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for me to tell him. I wasn’t sure he’d let me out of here until I did.
“Drug money?”
A sharp laugh echoed off the steel walls surrounding us. His full-wattage smile, white teeth against the shadow of his jaw, black-and-blue bruises decorating one side of his face, beckoned my own smile. I couldn’t help it.
“No, sweetheart. Not drug money. My friend made a bet. He lost.”
I remembered Travis’s shifty eyes. “That guy’s your friend?”
“More like an acquaintance.” He pushed a few strands of my hair away from my face before settling his palm on my cheek. “You’re cold.”
“We’re in a freezer.”
His low chuckle shook my internal organs like a towering game of Jenga.
Then he closed the gap between us and his lips covered mine. Tenderly at first, like he was being careful of his healing lip. I tried to be careful, too, until he pushed his fingers through my hair and slanted his mouth. The slow burn that started in my stomach consumed my chest, fanned out to my nipples, and struck the tip of my tongue like flint to stone. I ached to taste him. The faint bit of scruff on his jaw scraped my face. His fingers tore down my ponytail.
Then it was over.
He took the envelope and licked the corner of his mouth, giving me a peek at the tongue I hadn’t tasted.
Then he parted the plastic strips to leave, first giving me a once-over. “Might want to fix your hair before you go back out there. Looks like you were making out in a freezer.”
My hand went to my disheveled hair as he disappeared out the door. I was in a freezer, all right, but I wasn’t the least bit cold after that kiss.
Chapter Six
Rena
My mom, with her dyed (what she called “frosted”) Mom-hair and jaunty sweater covered in knit snowmen and candy canes and holly, leaned on her elbows at the kitchen table and gave me “the look.”
Every mom had her own version of “the look,” and when a daughter saw it, she knew, without words, what it meant. Hers always said the same thing: You’ve been single too long.
“I think… I work that night.” I stood from the kitchen table to escape her lethal stare and made a show of rinsing my orange juice glass. She’d invited me over for homemade scones, which I found suspicious because she doesn’t bake. That’s not technically true. She does bake. She doesn’t bake well.
I hadn’t expected to her to drop the “I met a nice boy” bomb as I took my third bite. Shockingly, the scones were delicious. That orange marmalade–cranberry one almost made her inquisition worth it.
“His name is Barney,” she said.
I paced back to the table. “Barney?”
She shushed me with a frown and darted her eyes upstairs to where Roy