I blink. “Devan?”
Chapter 18
Devan looks like he wants to haul me over his shoulder like he did every other time he showed up somewhere unexpectedly, but I’m no longer his ward—not by any stretch of the definition—and it’s not my birthday. He plants his hands on the table and leans over it. “Move over.”
I’m obeying before I have a chance to decide if I want to obey. “What are you doing here?”
“You said you want to talk in person.” He scoots into the booth next to me, his big body crowding me in a way that’s far too pleasant. “So talk.”
“But…” I can’t think with him so close, with his thick thigh pressing against mine. “But why?”
“Hazel.” Devan eyes my mimosa like it did him personal harm. “I am not a good guy. It took everything I had to let you walk away and not haul you home to chain you up in my office or some shit until you admitted this thing between us was never meant to be temporary. I let you go.” He practically growls the last sentence. “Then, two weeks later, you’re tagging your location while wearing a little cock-tease of a bikini that I can clearly see your nipples through, and texting me shit about how we should talk in person.”
“But—”
“I’m not finished.”
I snap my mouth shut. I wanted him to take a step. I should have bargained on Devan doing it in his own way. He looks at me like he wants to memorize every inch of me. “Then I show up here to find you having brunch with a whole pitcher of those fancy fruity drinks.”
“Mimosas,” I whisper.
“Mimosas.” He nods. “Wearing a dress that has a man like me wondering what you’ve got underneath. So talk fast, Hazel. Because it sure as fuck looks like you want the same thing I do.”
“What do you want?”
He plants his big hand on my thigh, high enough that his pinkie dips beneath the hem of my dress. “I want everything. I want all your days and your nights. All the fantasies and nightmares. All the goddamned brunches. Everything, Hazel.” He doesn’t move. “So, if that’s not what you’re offering, now’s a good time to tell me to get the fuck away from you.”
This is happening. He’s here, saying the things I desperately wanted him to say the day I left things unfinished in the hotel room. I lick my lips and place my hand on Devan’s where it sits on my bare thigh. “That’s what I want. All of that. Everything.”
“Mean what you’re saying, birthday girl. Because if I slip my hand up your skirt and find you wet and waiting for me, I’m liable to put a ring on your finger and a baby in your belly the first fucking chance I get.”
“Do you promise?”
He makes a sound that sounds almost pained and then he’s sliding his hand up my thigh to cup my pussy. I wore panties today, but that only makes it readily apparently how soaked I already am just from thinking about Devan and mimosas earlier.
He doesn’t take his gaze from my face as he drags a finger up the center of my panties. “You feel pretty fucking wet, Hazel. I’m still going to need you to tell me yes.”
“Is that a proposal?”
“No.” He shakes his head sharply. “When I propose, it will be when we’re both ready. That doesn’t change the fact that saying yes to me means we’re headed in that direction. This isn’t a fling or a quick fuck. Not for me.”
“It isn’t for me, either.” I bite my bottom lip and fight to keep from spreading my legs. We’re tucked back from the rest of the dining room, but that doesn’t change the fact that Devan is slowly rubbing his finger up and down my pussy while we’re in public. The table mostly hides what he’s doing, but if I start riding his hand and moaning, there will be no hiding that.
I reach up and cup his face, pausing to relish that I can touch him like this. “I want everything, too, Devan. I want every single fucking day of a happily ever after with you. I want the fights and the making up and the hard days and the easy days. I just want you.”
He leans down. His lips touch mine as the same moment that he pushes two fingers into my pussy. It’s a relatively chaste kiss, completely at odds with the way he’s working me between the table. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Words I said on accident before. Ones I’m saying intentionally now.
Devan leans back, stilling his hand as the waitress approaches. She gives us a bright smile, obviously having no idea what my new brunch companion is doing between my thighs. “Welcome. Would you like the menu?”
“Actually—”
“Do you have biscuits and gravy?” Devan cuts me off. When the waitress nods, he gives her a small smile. “I’d like an order of that with coffee, please.”
“Coming right up.”
I barely wait for her to leave before I glare at him. “I want to go up to the room.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve wanted access to this pretty pussy for the last two weeks. A little suffering never hurt anyone.”
I drag in a breath that almost—almost—comes out as a moan. “I was miserable, too, you know. You weren’t suffering alone.”
“I know that now.” He shifts his hand up a little to rub my clit. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to keep my hand right here until I’m finished eating, and then we’re going to go upstairs and I’ll have second breakfast.”
My laugh comes out a little too high. “You would be a Lord of the Rings fan.”
“Come on, Hazel. You know you are, too.” He leans down until his lips brush the shell of my ear. “Just like we both know you’re more of a Gimli girl than one who drops her panties for pretty elves.”
I can
