did to you, for the way he helped Anna keep her secrets and enact her plans. For all the things he’s done for Joseph Blackstone over the years. Selfishly, I think what I want him to pay for the most is the fact that he made me feel a kinship toward him. The fact that we were both tainted with the sins of our family. I don’t deserve that label, and I didn’t think he did either. But he does.”
“And that hurts. He played you.”
Devlin chuckles. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but yes, he played me.”
“I’m sorry. He did, and it’s a terrible thing. But I stand by my own decision. If it were up to me, I would let him walk.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and studies me, the corners of his mouth turning down. He’s silent for so long that I start to get edgy.
“What?”
“This man committed crimes, you know that right?”
“Yes, but —”
Devlin shakes his finger. “No, no, no buts. He committed crimes, and you’re saying that we should let him go. That the justice system shouldn’t do its job.”
I’m not entirely sure where he’s going with this, but I have an inkling. And so I bite my lower lip and wait for him to answer for me.
He does. “How is that different from what Saint’s Angels does?”
“Because I’m not suggesting you kill him.”
“But you are making that decision. You’re taking that step. You’re saying hold back. What we do is simply the reverse.”
I don’t want to argue with him about this, especially because I’m tired enough that my mind can’t come up with a good counter-argument, which frustrates me. So instead I just snap, “Look, are you going to go after him or not?”
He laughs, and I know he understands why I’m frustrated. “No. I want to. The man’s pissed me off in a million ways, not the least of which is hurting Brandy and making me feel like a fool. But I won’t go after him because you don’t want me to. And the thing I want most of all is for you and your friends to be happy.”
Pleasure soaks through me and I smile. “Oh. Well, okay then.” I lean forward my hands on his chest as I give him a soft kiss. Then I pull back, another question dancing on my lips, one I’m not sure I should ask, but once again Devlin knows me well.
“What is it?”
I shrug. “It’s just—It’s just that I don’t like him not knowing. Or Brandy.” I don’t have to explain that the him I’m referring to is Lamar, and the subject I’m referring to is Saint’s Angels.
“I know you don’t, but I’m not yet to that point where we should let them know. I think that really is too dangerous.”
“I thought you were concerned with me keeping secrets from my friends.”
“I suppose if you were part of it, things might be different. But you’re not. You’re a bystander and a watcher. Hell, you’re my talisman for what’s good and solid and centered.”
“I don’t think I—”
“I do. And that’s not the point. But I don’t think that it’s fair to the others on the team that your emotions about your friends should come into play under those circumstances.”
It’s a fair argument, and one I hadn’t thought of.
He tilts my chin up with his fingertip. “If I were in the CIA, would you feel strange about not being able to tell your friends what I do?”
“No, I suppose not. But you’re not in the CIA.”
“Are you sure?” He winks, and I laugh, and even though I am sure, I have to actually concede that no, I really don’t know.
“So I’m supposed to just pretend like you’re an undercover operative, and I’m the poor woman left behind who doesn’t know what you’re up to when you go on your secret missions?”
“I think we can play that game for a while.” He flips me over making me squeal. “Right now,” he says, “I think we both need to be undercover.”
He slides down my body and pulls the sheet up over both of us. And then he kisses me, long and deep and with enough passion that I forget all of my fears, all of my wishes, all of my problems, and all of my secrets. Right now, I’m nothing but desire, and once again, I let Devlin take me away on a wave of sweet forgetfulness, lost in the pleasure of skin against skin.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Late the