Devil In The Waters, Book 3, Chapter 13 (complete)

It was driving him crazy to watch her so separate from them. And one look at her expression would tell you whatever it was she was doing didn’t have to do with work. The way she’d playfully run her necklace through her mouth. The way she would flick at the dangling pendant. Put the pendant in her mouth. And she was smiling. Any work text he ever got did not put a smile on his face. It was almost guaranteed she was talking to Devlin. She hadn’t made friends there. Who was that one who was her secretary—Tami? She wasn’t friends with Tami. Tami wouldn’t be making her laugh. It was Devlin. Devlin was the one she spent time with. So if this was a work text, and she was smiling, it was with Devlin.

And this was after he told her just a small slice of Devlin Stone’s meanness.

A month ago, before the reunion had ever happened, if you’d asked Kimmy what she thought of Devlin Stone, she’d say he was a turd. If she was feeling particularly feisty, she would say he was a piece of shit. But in the last month, all sorts of profanity came out of her mouth. She said shit all the time now. He’d heard her say fuck. That wasn’t Kimmy . . . 

And now she was working for him. Now she was working for Devlin Stone. She’d got in a fight with the guy, got mad at him for being the prick he usually was, and they fought. Devlin pushed her down on the grass and got between her legs. Kimmy said he was hard. And now she was working for him . . .?

You’re so fucking blind, Josh.

Blind to the fact that he’d wanted this in some way.

You let Kimmy get close to Devlin because for some reason it’d hurt in a way you hate that you craved.

But now he didn’t. Not anymore. It was getting too real.

He’d never been the kind of man to stand up to his partner for fear she would think he was some sort of tyrant denying her freedom and will.

And that was why he assumed Kimmy’s always loved him. Because he was the kind of man she wanted. Now was it possible she wanted this kind of man? Look at her. Smiling.

And here with Susan and Simon, both of them honest and hard-working and pure people. Simple wants. Family. Grandchildren. Kimmy came from an excellent home. Sure, her mother had died when she was young, but her dad was a loving father. A hard driver, not somebody you’d want to disappoint, but not a tyrant. And that’s how Josh’d tried to be with her. But it didn’t get them anywhere. And now he was pumping the brakes, but this thing he’d somehow allowed had so much down force, barreling downhill on a snowy road, brakes locked but the momentum just keeping it plummeting . . . 

When he’d told her that little blood blister of psychic hurt from his past, he’d thought it would seal the deal. Kimmy would return to him, come to her senses. It would be like ringing her bell. Snapping her out of the hypnotist’s spell.

Or was it possible he was that tyrant and din’t know it? This was jealousy in his heart. Jealousy drove men to harm and retard women for millennia. Was what he was seeing real, or was it his imagination?

What if Devlin’s masculine appeal was in your head, and that’s not what had Kimmy working for him? Maybe it really was the job. He had to admit, since she’d been to work for the last week, he’d never seen her more energized. That dark swirling fantasy part of him liked to imagine that maybe she was inspired by lust. Maybe some kind of frightening attraction to Devlin Stone. But was Kimmy really like that? She was always tantalized by challenge. Loved to succeed. Put tasks in front of her, she would break them down into their milestone goals, happily chugging until they were done.

It was a hopeful thought.

That his wife—his sweet and loving and very smart wife—saw through Devlin Stone’s veneer, placated him, humored him by laughing at his jokes . . . Maybe even like now, when they were just texting.

It was the job; it was the work . . . and secretly he knew it was also the reward. She wasn’t always such a money-minded person, but she did like this new compensation.

He stepped down, crossed the family room, Kimmy not seeing him coming, and when he was close and asked her if he would come along with her Pop and Susan, she jumped, pressing the screen to her chest so he wouldn’t see.

That simple action, that defensive jump, told him the bad news. And it was in her eyes, too.

Kimmy looked caught.

***

While his fingers and toes went cold, and his face drew down, sunken and chilled, he maintained protocol for the sake of Susan, and Kimmy’s dad, saying now to his wife, “Did you want to come along?”

And before his eyes, he could see color rising to the surface of his wife’s freckled cheeks. What had she been texting? She said, “Come along where?” Her voice was thin and quiet.

Then Simon joined them, shrugging on his light cotton jacket to go down to the chilly underground parking. Pop said to his daughter, “See your new car.”

“Oh, yeah, the new car.” Kimmy shut off her phone and put it facedown in her lap. “Yeah, okay.”

Susan was there, standing close to Simon. She said to Kimmy: “You like it? It’s good?”

“It’s comfortable,” she said.

Simon said to Josh, “It has good tires? You know, for the snow? . . .”

He said, “They threw snows in, and they keep them for her at the dealership.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Simon said, nodding, then nodding to Kimmy.

“I know,” she said. “I know. No, I love it. We had a great drive up here.” She ran hair from her face. She still looked flushed.

“Are you coming down with us?” He regretted the natural coldness in his tone.

Their gazes connected, and he saw trouble in her eyes—but then she shot him a puzzled look, recovering now from being caught, turning the tables on him, acting like she wondered what was wrong with him. She said to her dad: “Yeah, I’ll come down. I didn’t even get to eat my cake . . .”

Simon said, “Not wait for you all day. Kids and their phones . . .”

She said, “Pop, you said I could . . .”

“Didn’t say we would wait,” Simon said, playing at indifference as he headed to the door.

Kimmy said after him: “But could I . . .”

Susan smiled, joining Simon walking toward the door. “Come on, Kimmy, come on,” Simon said without looking back, “come take us for a ride . . .”

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll come along in a minute, you guys go without me.”

Josh said to her, “What’s going on?”

“Work stuff.”

“Are you coming down or not?”

“I’ll come down—just give me a minute.”

“A minute for what?”

She whispered: “The bathroom, Josh—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Kimmy.”

“You’re mad at me because I’m texting?”

He grunted. It was obvious. “Yeah, I’m mad at you because you’re texting.”

“I have to. It’s work.”

“We’re at your dad’s—we’re having lunch . . .”

“I have to take it. It’s my first week.” Now she rose, still pressing the screen of her phone face down against her thigh. “You guys go without me, I’ll just be a couple minutes. I just have to go to the bathroom first, okay?”

“Fine,” he said, “meet us downstairs.”

***

On the lip of her father’s bathtub, phone propped against a full toilet roll placed in the center of the toilet seat, she slid her hand down her unzipped shorts. She’d waited until she heard the apartment door close, and now here she was in her father’s bathroom like she was fifteen again.

Contact with Devlin was finished. Her arrogant boss would be engaged with his buddies, another bunch of suit wearing assholes, she was sure, drinking Scotch and getting hyped at the start of the baseball game, all of them with the best seats the Rogers Centre offered. Meanwhile, Devlin Stone’s newest acquisition was jacking off in her dad’s bathroom like it was high school. That’s what she’d been reduced to.

As her fingers slipped up and down her hot and wet folds, parting flesh, caressing back her hood and dabbing at her clitoris, she recalled the object of her obsession lit up on her phone’s screen a foot away from her.

The photo of Devlin naked, displaying for her that huge gorgeous cock.

Half hard in the photo, it was fully hard in her mind’s eye. Her fingers swirling, whipping pleasure through herself, recalling it in the cargo container. The feel of it in her mouth. The distinct pump shape of his large cock head; when it was wet, poised as if it would enter her, she squirted, was overflowing with wet and telling him to put it in her even though he didn’t wear a condom. The pills were probably already working (she’d lied to herself).

Devlin inspired risky—oh-so-risky—lust.

Now she was thinking of herself on the grass, closing her eyes, recalling that nighttime dark when she hated Devlin and wanted to hit him and he’d laid her back, got on top of her, and she opened her legs. He grabbed her there, between her legs, grabbed the crotch of her denim shorts, growled feeling the hot wetness trough the fabric, took his hard cock out, laid it against the inside of her leg. . . . Both of them had worked while wrestling, trying to get his cock inside her without taking her pants off. How hot that had been. How awful. Caught then, and still not deterred, they’d ended up in the bathroom together where Karina thought they were ‘working it out.’ The only thing they were working out was his mouth on her neck, and her taking her shorts down. Karina was there again, persistent, knocking on the door, as Devlin was just about to put it inside her.

She hadn’t even been drinking . . . 

Now she was on her toes, bare feet on her dad’s bathmat, clicking wet sounds from between her legs, thinking what it was finally like to have him inside her—it didn’t count as sex—letting her know just the kind of domination a man like . . . 

“Oh wow, oh wow,” she panted, eyes open again, scanning, searching, finding the upturned photo on her phone, the one Devlin had sent of his naked body.

She came, one hand in her underwear, the other hand over her mouth, eyes focused hard on the man she would cheat on her husband with. Only once, just once.

If only masturbating could have solved this. If only having him inside her one time would’ve quenched her thirst . . . If only the condom-covered Magnum-sized cucumber had done the trick. But nothing was chilling her fever. So do it. Do it and be done.

It was supposed to be already done. Technically, as far as her relationship with Josh was concerned, her having sex with Devlin could have transpired that last year of high school when she wasn’t even dating Josh. When she’d come back from Taiwan after she and Josh’d kissed, whatever it been between her and Josh had been laminated over . . . All their emotions that had bubbled to the surface stilled underneath a thin milky film. She still had feelings for him then, and maybe he still had feelings for her—but there was an unsureness. And neither of them’d pushed it.

And it was in that window of time when the first opportunity with Devlin came . . . 

She clapped her thighs shut on her hand, trying to stop her own swirling finger from driving too much pleasure and making her cry out past her cupped hand. The hidden fear that if she moaned in orgasm, then stepped outside the bathroom, she’d find Susan had hung back to wait for her. Susan then knowing that her boyfriend’s daughter jerked off in the bathroom during a family lunch.

She sat for a minute until she calmed, and her breath returned to normal. She dried between her legs with paper towel, straightened her underwear, flushed. Retrieved her phone, washed her hands with lots of soap and hot water, and hustled out to meet Josh . . . 

***

At last, movement behind the reflection on the condo lobby glass windows. A figure approaching, height and thinness of his wife.

He was in the front seat of her new Nissan Leaf, air conditioning on, Pop in the passenger seat, Susan in the back. Making small talk for almost fifteen minutes now. If someone had to go to the bathroom, and it was going to be a number two that would take a while, it would’ve been nice to get a heads up.

He had the distinct feeling she’d pushed him off so she could keep texting with Devlin. I’ll catch up. Yeah, right, he leaves with her dad and Susan, she’s right back to texting again with Devlin. Doing that thing with her necklace in her mouth, smiling at her phone, smiling at Devlin’s words, being flirty. It was an awful feeling.

All the impending sexual dread that he for some reason enjoyed up till this point was squashed now, seeing that hidden exchange between his wife and Devlin. Sure, he could be wrong. Maybe it was Tami. But it fucking wasn’t Tami.

Kimmy was acting flirty like that while texting Devlin Stone. The worst guy in his life. So, no. This couldn’t go on.

As the door swung open and Kimmy hustled out to join them—dressed in her pleated shorts, striding long bare legs, feet in her shiny loafers—he got out to greet her. Over the top of her new Leaf, he gave her an expression to let her know how he felt being made to wait so long. He said, “You all finished now?”

It faltered her, and her quick steps slowed. He held open the driver door for her, letting her drive so he could get in the back.

“Josh, I had to go to the bathroom,” she said in a low whisper as he got close.

“Great,” he said, “let’s get going, okay?—show them your car . . .”

Kimmy’s face flashed sadness, then mild disappointment. But most importantly: guilt. Maybe she would finally get the message. Smarten up.

He’d distinctly told her the kind of guy Devlin could be, and she disregarded him. Disregarded him and then let things get worse. He kept her eye as he backed to the rear door, opened it, threw himself in to sit next to Susan. Forced a smile on his face.