(Complete) Devil In The Waters, Book 2, Chapter 9

A ringing in his ears accompanied Josh from the secret spy lair of the bathroom; heart-thudding he returned stiffly to the couch where Steve and Meyer were engaged in an assault on the landlord Almalik, Meyer in control, Steve offering support.

They played, he watched vacantly; explosions, gunfire, yelling, dying, his friends cheering. An empty feeling spread from his core, a lone figure in an endless void.

How had it come to this?

He’d sat on the toilet and spied on Kimmy. No big deal. he’d spied on her a lot with Find My Phone. Liked to know where she was. that she was safe. Tonight he’d spied on her to catch her in a lie.

And what had he discovered?

He watched that pinging blue dot on the map; expecting to see her location not where she’d said. He’d worried he’d find her lying to him. The dot showed her location outside the gym. Where she should be.

It should have been happy news. It deserved a fist pump. But instead he wasn’t satisfied. And truthfully a small measurement of disappointment could be detected. The truth of the pinging dot was resisted: he told himself these things were inaccurate . . . 

What kind of thought was that?

Don’t you want her to be at the gym?

Of course he did. Devlin had got into his head, made him doubt her. he shouldn’t have been spying on her in the first place. To find her where she said she’d be should have been good news, but he faced it with incredulity.

Fucking Devlin Stone. Master manipulator.

Got him doubting his own wife. Got him spying from secret locations . . . mistrusting the love of his life.

It was an insidious ploy.

The power was in his hands though. Reject Devlin, don’t fall for the poisonous doubt. If you did, you were his pawn. trust Kimmy. It was there on the phone’s screen. Kimmy was at the gym. Stop the madness.

“You okay?”

He looked up to see Meyer watching him, game paused, Steve smirking.

Meyer said, “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“You’re so pale for the summer,” Steve said.

Josh laughed, shook off the badness, reached for his beer and swigged. “I’m sick of watching you flounce around taking potshots and hiding. Could I have the controller, please?—it’s time for you two to see how it’s done . . .”

***

For minutes now her breath had come only in small hitches. Brief breath in, brief breath out; ribs hardly moving at all. Like the act of breathing was a disruption, and if the current state was dispelled she’d have to confront this new strange reality. A job offer. A real one. Real money. She didn’t want it dispelled. Now it was on the table, she wanted to look at it. Count it. Disruption would bring another reality she needed to face (and didn’t want to).

You can’t seriously consider this job offer, can you?

On the heels of the offer, your potential boss firmly presented the plan to go to a hotel room and have sex. You’re not even hired yet and this is his behavior. You’d be crazy to work for Devlin Stone. But the money . . . 

Then get another job, Kimmy.

But this was here and now. She could be working in a week, money coming in the bank . . . The things she and Josh could do . . . Her family . . . Take her dad to Taiwan to see relatives. She and Josh could take their own vacations, too, places they’d always wanted to see but seemed too extravagant. Clothes, eating out . . . Savings. Buy a home . . . Sure, she could get a high-paying job on her own. One that had nothing to do with Devlin. She was qualified. (Of course she’d been dormant, and they might ask why she’d spent so many years working the low-paying job in immigration.) This job was right here, in her lap . . . 

She could handle Devlin Stone. Handle him despite the past transgressions. Couldn’t she?

Devlin stood aside of her for the moment, on the top step of the Dragon’s patio, pausing for what he told her was an important call. She waited below, hugging arms around herself, sneaker toe kicking at the raised lip of a heaved red brick in the walkway that ran to the closed shops on the right, the path under the archway and out to the street on her left.

Even the pose her potential boss struck was the epitome of arrogant masculinity. Totally blocking the short set of steps should anyone wish to pass; one hand on hip, the hand in a fist; chest out, feet shoulder width apart. Devlin talked into the phone in a deep resonant tone, telling someone on the other side “that was the way it was always going to be, and if Cruickshank didn’t know that he deserved the consequences. I save my sympathy for smart people.” He gave a ciao, Bud, closed off the call and tucked the phone in his suit jacket before trotting down to join her saying, “Sorry about that.”

“I’m fine,” she said, gaze lingering aside to the lit storefront of a closed woman’s shop, halogen spotlight on a porcelain white mannequin, headless, showing off a long black skirt and sleeveless sweater. First thing she would do was buy a new suit. In black or steel. Shoes, too, pointed toes.

“You ready to get out of here?”

“I am,” she said, letting him lead the way.

Devlin said, “Hotels are shit in Ajax. But we can find some flop house with a bed.” He half-turned, waiting for her to catch up.

She chuckled, his persistence amusing. It was a taunt, not a command he issued. Practically in jest. She could choose to be offended—and wouldn’t be wrong—or ignore it. She said, “You’re such an asshole.”

“Twenty-four-seven, Miss Chang, you don’t even know half of it.”

“I’m not changing my name— For your information. And I’m married.”

As they passed beneath the brick arch a group of three headed to the Dragon turned from the sidewalk and walked toward them. Her heart jumped, and that fear of being caught alarmed her. She wandered aside to stand in the shadows under the canopy of a low locust tree. Devin pivoted, came her way. He watched over his shoulder, hands in pockets; the three passed and they weren’t familiar to her anyway.

Now Devin faced her, closed her off under the bush, blocking her path. He was tall. Wide shouldered. He smelled like sandalwood and pine. “That was close,” he said, restrained mirth in his tone. “You know them?”

“No,” she said, relaxing. “Look . . .”

He checked his watch.

“I’m not taking any job where you think you can force me into having sex.”

“I’d never force you.”

“Coerce. Wrangle. Whatever. If you’re offering me this job so you can have sex with me . . .”

“Please, Kimmy,” he said, scoffing. Both his hands in his pockets, he said, “That’s a lot of money I put in front of you. If all I wanted was sex what kind of loser would I be hiring you? You know what I mean? I could get you in bed without dropping a dime— I know, I know, I’m a pig.” He put up his huge hands in defense now like he expected her to take a swipe at him, but she was still listening. “If I was the kind of man who spent money like that on a piece of pussy I’d go to Vegas, get a girl for ten-grand looks just like you. The whole weekend. Get it out of my system. The job offer is because I went to school with you. I know what kind of student you were. Extrapolate that through Queens and Western . . .? Then this fucking fire you show me. At Tiffany’s . . .? That’s fire. And I’m not talking about how I almost got my dick in you, I’m talking how you don’t back down.”

“When I’m motivated.”

“I was a dick. It’s fun to prod you. See what you’ll say.”

“Then you’re diagnosable.”

“You’re not wrong,” he said laughing. “Shit I went through, fuck, the things I’ve done. Yeah, certifiable is more like it. But, listen: I’m offering Kimmy Chang—oh, excuse me, Kimmy Waters—a good job because I need her to fill it. Sex and job are like this—” He took two hands from his pocket, made large fists, separated them out either side of him—“Two different things. I’m hiring you. We have an existing relationship. Whether you like it or not. From high school to last week, you and I aren’t exactly unknown to each other sexually. We have a past. Not a big deal, but it’s not like we’re strangers. I want to fuck you. That’s not going to change. Come work for me see what happens. You never want it, cool. Trust me, it’s cool. We fuck, we don’t fuck . . . that’s up to you. But it doesn’t have a thing with why I want to hire you nor does it have anything to do with you keeping the job. The only requirement from you is that Kimmy Chang brain and that fire— Can you give me that?”

She surmised him a long while, sucking on her cheek, her crossed arms tightened. His face was hidden in shadow, a shimmering streetlight painting a stripe along his prominent cheekbone, his hard jaw, the brushed back hair gleaming like it was wet. She muttered, “It’s off the table, anyway.”

“Anyway?”

“You know . . .”

“It’s up to you.”

She chuckled, not wanting to have to explain it and now faced with it. “You know, we already know.” She leaned closer, arms still crossed, whispering, “You didn’t exactly fit.”

“Oh,” he said, laughing. “I fit, Kimmy. Be real. If we weren’t in the grass, if I wasn’t trying to go up your shorts leg . . . if we didn’t have your friends breathing down our neck . . .?”

“Like if we had a hotel room?”

“You me, right now.”

“You know that’s not going to happen, Devin.”

“I’m letting you know I’m available.”

“Like I ever thought you weren’t.”

“Seriously, Kimmy. I need a good, smart lawyer. That’s you. You and I have unfinished business I’d like to see finished. Tell me to keep my mouth shut, it’s shut. Okay?”

She said, “Keep your mouth shut.”

He nodded (and she could tell he was still smiling). “Take the job first.”

It made her laugh, and she growled, grabbed her bangs and hid her face, saying into her wrist, “You’re so infuriating.”

“Sue me, counselor— Kimmy Chang gets mad she likes to fuck.”

That wasn’t as funny, but when she looked up he’d left her, out on the walkway again, hands in his pockets, cutting a roguish silhouette in the street lamps’ glow. She sighed, came out to join him.

They walked side by side without saying more, getting to his Mercedes parked street side in a long line of cars. He unlocked it with his fob, the lights flashing; he held the door for her.

As she stepped under his chin, looking to get in the seat, he said, “Where we headed—the gym or the Holiday Inn?”

She stopped, folded her arms again, leaned her shoulders against the roofline of his car looking up at him. “I take the job you swear you’ll leave me alone if I ask?”

“If you ask,” he said, coming into her space, the two of them in the V of his open door, her shoes on the street, his on the sidewalk, towering over her.

She showed him a grim expression, like she was contemplating. Then he stooped. Her head darted back as his face got nearer to hers like he would kiss her. She raised her crossed arms as a barrier between them, turned her face away and showed him her cheek. He stayed near. She faced him. “Don’t ever try to kiss me.”

He breathed slowly, calmly; stayed near, still stooped. He set a foot down so he was lower. His huge hand spread on her stomach then slid down the front of her tights, smoothing over the stretchy fabric, his fingers scooping under her crotch. She grunted and moaned; her knees weakened. His hand pulled upward, almost lifting her; she went on her toes. The firmness of his palm against her sex sent a sparkle through the back of her brain like glitter tossed past a flashlight. He smiled and she was mad and she thought about kneeing his balls. Thought about grabbing them. Knew he’d be hard; she’d feel that python on her wrist . . . 

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“Your pussy’s so hot right now,” he said in a low growl. “I can feel the heat through your tights.”

“Don’t touch me there anymore,” she whined.

“I know you want my fingers inside you, I know you want to come, give me that tonight. For your own sake.” He chuckled, slid his hand up the flat of her stomach, stepped back onto the sidewalk and widened the door.

She stared at him, incredulous. How could he be so bold? And he was pleased with himself, smiling, knowing his effect. And the effect was real. Her cheeks burned right now, a sizzling rash on the back of her neck; her nipples ached. Without looking, she knew they’d poked out the front of her jersey. And between her legs, she could feel the dampness. Devin’d said she felt like an overripe peach when he’d fingered her in her apartment hallway. It was probably apt.

He said, “You getting in?”

She took her eyes off his, unnerved into silence, and backed into his Mercedes. He closed her door.