Devil in the Waters, Book 8, Chapter 11

At a quarter-to-five Devlin finally showed. She was at her desk, talking on the phone with Ruth in charge of records out of the Kingston office. Devlin strolled into the lobby from the elevator like everything was perfect. Tami’s cheeks flushed seeing Devlin. Still talking with Ruth, Kimmy watched Tami and Devlin exchanged pleasantries, Devlin smiling, Tami nodding. Devlin gestured toward Kimmy’s office.

“That’s great, Ruth,” Kimmy said, “I’ll follow-up tomorrow. If you find it send it to my email.” She hung up as Devlin entered her office.

She said nothing, the office quiet, Devlin coming in amused, looking at her heron painting for a moment before plopping down in one of the chairs on the other side of her desk.

“You’ve had some day,” she said.

“Busy-busy,” he said.

“Aren’t we all.”

Devlin slouched in the chair, a passive pose he didn’t usually assume. But there was still a rakish command in his demeanor. Suit jacket open, hair lightly ruffled but still looking put-together.

Kimmy began packing her things away, looking to head home. While pushing paperwork into her satchel, she said, “Heard you had lunch today with Josh.”

“Indeed I did,” he said, smiling slyly, elbows on the leather armrests and his fingers steepled.

“Good for you.”

Devlin studied her a moment. “Are you sore?”

“Sore about what?”

“Sore I missed our lunch.”

She resumed riffling paperwork to take home.” Did we have a thing today?”

“You didn’t think we did?”

More paperwork sorting. “I thought perhaps.”

Devlin smiled. “Someone was in my apartment today eating eel from Izakaya. I hope it was you.”

She’d forgot about her trash. “I ate lunch in your apartment. It was quiet.”

“I was having lunch with our mutual friend.”

She smiled now, lured in by his playful but devious banter. Elbows on the desk, she steepled her fingers like he did. “He’s more than a friend to me. He tells me you’re taking him to the Jays game.”

“Are you jealous?”

“I don’t follow baseball.”

Devlin shrugged a shoulder. “Great food. Great libation. Maybe I’ll take Josh out to a strip club.”

“Try it and see what happens.”

Devlin’s delight showed in his eyes and the tighter curl to one corner of his smile. “Maybe I’ll do that. How bad would you punish me?”

“I’d punish Josh, not you,” she said and smiled as well.

“I might turn Josh into a howling poon dog.”

“Josh doesn’t howl.”

Devlin crossed one leg over the other. “I’m pretty sure you could make him howl.”

“Your father was here looking for you.”

Devlin waved it off. “I talked to him.”

“After lunch?”

“This afternoon.”

“He didn’t seem happy.”

“Have you met the man? That’s his neutral demeanor.”

“Well, I’m glad you talked to him. I think he scared the pants off Tami.”

“Pop’s scared the pants off many secretaries.” Devlin chuckled to himself.

“Gross,” she said.

“What’s the matter, Kimmy, worried that the Stone men sleep with the staff, that what you and I have isn’t real?”

“We don’t have anything.”

“Then why were you in my apartment today—because it’s quiet? Were you catching up on work? Or were you there looking for something else?”

Denying him would be playing into his game. She said, “You know what I was there for.”

Devlin smiled, getting the answer he wanted. His eyes moved aside to watch Tami packing away her things and turning off her computer for the night. Tami’s eyes moved furtively, wanting to look in on them but not wanting to be caught doing it.

Kimmy said, “When your dad came to the office, she came to me thinking I knew where you were.”

“Tami’s crafty. Did you tell her you lay waiting in my apartment, naked under my bed sheets?”

“I did not tell her that. I told her you had lunch with my husband.”

Devlin looked disappointed, saying to himself, “I think your husband has the hots for me more than you do.”

She regarded Devlin coolly, tempering that smug and arrogant gleam in his black devilish eyes. But she couldn’t help smiling. She said, “Josh only has eyes for me, Devlin.”

“You’re right about that. I know it. I have him eating out of my hand because I know it.”

“Do not mess with him,” she said. “I’m warning you.”

“Mess with him? I want to make his wildest fantasies come true.”

“I don’t think he’d be ready for that.”

“Time will tell. . . . You know, I had an interesting conversation today.”

“With Josh?”

Devlin nodded. “Something Josh said got me calling an old friend of ours.”

Kimmy squirmed. “Amy.”

Devlin pointed a finger pistol and brought the thumb hammer down. “Exactly. Seems our devious friend played some games with your husband.”

Kimmy frowned. “What do you mean played games?”

“I talked to Amy this afternoon. At lunch Josh tells me he thought I’d hypnotized him, or some shit—that guy watches too many comic book movies—tells me I got in his head to make him do things he didn’t want to do.”

The texting.

Devlin said, “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

“I didn’t?”

Devlin looked up to the office ceiling and breathed deeply. “Amy’s not a nice person, Kimmy.”

“She’s my friend.”

Devlin chuckled.

“She’s more my friend than yours.”

Devlin looked at her. “Something your husband said to Amy at Tiffany’s party put a busy bee in her bonnet. She took it on herself to whisper sweet-nothings in your husband’s ear.”

She regarded Devlin coolly, not buying what he was selling. “What did she whisper?”

“Amy whispered Josh’s secrets closer to the surface.”

Kimmy raised a mistrustful eyebrow. “Did she?”

“Amy told me your husband wants me to fuck you.”

“You already did that,” Kimmy said, a strange heat on the back of her neck.

Did Amy really manipulate all of this into being?

As outrageous as it might seem, she was sure that if Amy suspected Josh’s desire to be true, the events over the last two months were unknowingly approved. Josh might hate the idea, but it did turn him on. Taunting and teasing Josh provided her a strange satisfaction, but to hear others engaging in it made her at once protective and unconfident. Like the only way for this to work for her and Josh was for it to belong to them only.

“We did that together,” Devlin said.

Kimmy nodded, studying Devlin, his lounging broad-shouldered body in an expensive suit, one leg crossed over the other and looking self-assured to the point of belligerence. “So our union was predetermined. Fate. Set in motion that night in high school when I rejected you.”

“And Amy.”

“Amy holds a grudge?”

Devlin nodded once, not affirmation but a supposition. “Amy holds a grudge.”

“Excuse me if I don’t so readily believe in such orchestrated malevolence from my high school friend.”

“This was all your decision. Every step of the way. You had agency this whole time. It was you who decided it would happen.”

“But you’re implying Amy worked Josh. And didn’t you work me? Is that how this started, you and Amy? To what end? To ruin my life, ruin Josh’s life?”

“What’s been ruined exactly, Miss Chang?”

“It’s Waters. Mrs. Waters.”

“Mrs. Waters, tell me then, what exactly has been ruined? Look how your life’s changed the last few months. Look how Josh’s life has changed these last few months. He hasn’t even received my gift yet.”

She raised her eyebrows with dry indifference. “A trip to a Jays game?”

Devlin smiled and nodded. “No. Allowing him to watch me fuck you.”

She couldn’t help smiling too, a slippery thrill at hearing such an immoral proclamation.

Devlin continued, working with the sly eagerness he saw in her. “Watching your face as you take every inch, watching your thighs shake as I make you come and come and come. That’s what Josh wants and that’s what we’re going to give him.”

She said, “How are we going to give it to him?”

Devlin uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “You tell me, Kimmy. You tell me.”

***

Thirty minutes later she sat in the driver’s seat of her car, casting cautious glances to the left and right. With no one else in sight she continued what she was doing. Thumbs hooked in her panties, she scooted her panties down her thighs, and over her knees, a vigilant gaze scanning the apartment windows looming over her windshield like two dozen possible witnesses.

Then the panties were over her knees, down to her shoes and off. She sat up straight as if she weren’t doing something awful. The panties she held in a hand in her lap were heavy with dampness. The talk with Devlin in her office had sent her over the top and now she was returned here to this spot to get what she’d wanted earlier today. What she’d wanted for over a week now. Her stomach quivered in anticipation and the inside of her thighs were warm and greased. A fullness flooded her pussy, a ticking desire-bomb counting down, needing what it knew it was about to get and sopping with overflowing anticipation.

Devlin had gone on to his apartment ahead of her, daring her to follow, knowing what they’d discussed over her desk had riled her as much as the way they knew this idea aroused Josh. Devlin had two supplicants coming to his temple to receive their offering. For now, this situation would do, but in time, only one person could be in control of this situation. It could not be Devlin. That left her or Josh, and Josh had planted his head in the sand.

She checked hair and makeup in the rear-view, made sure she had her phone—it was crucial—and hid her dank panties in the console between the seats. Then she was out of the Leaf, walking with bare legs and bare pussy under a short skirt, heels tapping on the asphalt, tugging at her skirt hem.

In the elevator she made small talk with another tenant, a well-dressed older woman, a Yorkshire Terrier in her arms with a pink bow in its hair. Talking to the woman about innocent things like the weather, knowing the enormous next step she would take in a few minutes brought goosebumps to her flesh and hardened her nipples—thankfully hidden from the woman and her dog’s sight under her suit jacket.

Off on Devlin’s floor, waving a goodbye to the Yorkie, she strutted down the hall, pulling out her phone, opening her dictation app, starting a new file, then pressing record.

At Devlin’s door she slipped the phone into her jacket pocket and knocked.

Devlin took his time answering, and when he did, he wore only his suit pants and dress shirt. He said, “I’m glad you could make it, Kimmy. Sorry to drag you out here, I know you want to get home to josh, but I needed you to look at something.”

“Okay,” Kimmy said, smiling wide like a high school girl, trying not to burst out laughing. “Show me what you got, Devlin.”