Moonlight Scandals by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Like she was under some kind of bad-life-choices spell, she opened the door the rest of the way, getting a full view of Devlin. The first dumb thought that entered her head, she spoke out loud.

“It’s after nine at night and you’re wearing trousers and a dress shirt. Just like Saturday.” She shook her head, a little dumbfounded. “Amazing.”

His brows snapped together. “Excuse me?”

“Do you own jeans? Sweatpants? Pajama bottoms?” she asked. “Do you sleep in black trousers?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered.

Devlin stared at her for a moment and then checked her out. His gaze swept over her. “Jesus.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“What are you wearing?” His gaze was so intense as it glided over her legs, it felt like an actual touch. His head tilted as he reached her thighs. “Are there tacos on your shorts?”

“Yes, sir. Taco Tuesday is a national holiday.”

He bit down on that plump lower lip, and she hated that she felt that bite in the pit of her stomach, in the warm little tremor that unnerved her.

God, what was he doing here?

“It’s Monday, Rosie.”

Another lick of heat curled in her stomach, and she was thoroughly annoyed by that—by all of this. “I’m preparing for Taco Tuesday, thank you very much.”

“Hmm.” His gaze lifted, and he bit down on that damn lip again.

It was then when she realized that the sides of her cardigan had parted, and she didn’t have to look down to know he could probably see just how affected she was by him.

Which meant this conversation had exceeded its limits.

“Stop ogling me,” she demanded. “And tell me why you’re here. I sent you a text and told you to contact—”

“I know what you texted me.” Dev slowly brought his gaze to hers and there was a warmth in his stare that she recognized from the night of the Masquerade. “I’m not here because of the text, and it’s really hard not to ogle you.”

“Then you need to try harder—actually, that doesn’t matter.” She started to close the door. “I’m just going to pretend you’re not standing here, close the door, and go back to doing what I was doing.”

Devlin caught the door before she could close it. “I need inside your apartment.”

“And I need a million dollars, but you don’t see me knocking on your door.”

He arched a brow. “Well, it would be the right door to knock on if you were in need of it.”

“Nice.” Rosie rolled her eyes. “I honestly don’t know why you’re here if it doesn’t have to do with the text I sent about Lucian’s—wait.” Concern blossomed in the pit of her stomach and spread like wildfire. “Is Nikki okay? Did something happen?”

“Nikki’s okay,” he told her. “As far as I know, she’s still being waited on hand and foot by my brother.”

“As it should be.” Relief seeped into her. For a horrible second there, she’d thought something had happened, so she was happy to hear that it hadn’t. Only one question remained. “Are you drunk?”

“What?”

“Are you drunk?” she repeated.

He stared at her like she’d asked him to do complicated mathematics in his head. “I’m not drunk.”

“Then why are you here, Devlin? I’m pretty sure or at least hopeful that you understood that my text was—”

“A brush-off?” His expression was about as bland as white paint. “Yes. I understood exactly that you were brushing me off, Rosie. But again, I am not here because of that.”

Well, hearing it put like that made it all kinds of awkward. Worse yet, she was—oh God—disappointed that he wasn’t there because she was trying to cut off contact with him and lessen the chances of them being around each other, and that, well, that made no sense. But that was what she felt in her chest, a sensation like a balloon deflating.

And that was completely messed up.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the next. “Then why are you here?”

“Lawrence owned this building.”

Now, she was not expecting him to say that. “Come again?”

His gaze sharpened as he watched her. “I just discovered that this entire building belongs to de Vincent Properties. The shop below and this apartment.”

Rosie opened her mouth, but it took her a moment to figure out what to say to that. She was shocked. Honest to God, she had no idea who the owner or owners of this building was. She only dealt with the property manager, but if the de Vincents really owned this building, that was . . .

Wow. That sounded a lot like what Devlin had said Saturday outside of the bakery. Their paths really were . . . destined to cross. As silly as that sounded, a fine shiver tiptoed its way down her spine.

This was . . . too surreal.

First it was her obsession with the de Vincent manor and the legend that surrounded it. Then it was her friendship with Nikki that connected her to the de Vincents. She’d been at the cemetery at the exact same time as him and there was no forgetting the spirit that had come through her reading, the spirit who could very well be his father. And now this? Where she lived was owned by the de Vincents?

That was just way too many coincidences, so much so that even people who weren’t superstitious would begin to think there was some kind of higher power involved—a higher power with a sick sense of humor.

But something . . . something was going on here. Something really weird.

A little stunned, she moved aside. Devlin’s gaze lifted to hers once again and there was a questioning glint to them.

“You can come in.” Her voice sounded hoarse to her own ears. “I didn’t know your family owned this building.”

Devlin walked in, and she closed the door behind him, throwing the dead bolt. “Really?” he asked.

“Yes. Really.” She crossed her arms, feeling chilled and too hot all at the same time. “I don’t understand. I mean, I have no idea who owns this building. I just deal with the property manager.”

Dev wasn’t looking at her. He was scanning the living room and kitchen like he was looking for something. “Who is your property manager?”

“Wait a second,” she said, sort of dumbfounded. “You really just learned that you own this building? Like today?”

He strode forward, toward the kitchen area. “Yes.”

“How is that even possible?”

Dev moved behind her counter. “That’s a good question. I knew every property that is held in our portfolio, all except this one. This property was listed under Lawrence’s estate.” He stopped and looked at her. “And you had no idea that this building was owned by us?”

“Uh. No. Like I said. I only deal with the property manager. I just assumed he owned the building.” She walked over to the fridge and pulled a business card that had the property manager’s information on it out from underneath a magnet. She already had his number saved in her phone. Placing the card on the counter, she inched it over to him. “You can ask him yourself. His name is Carl Tassi. I have his phone number.”

“Thank you,” he said, picking up the card. It went into his pocket and he then knelt down, disappearing out of her view.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and then she heard the cabinet door open. “What the hell?” Darting around the counter, she skidded to a stop. “Why in the world are you going through my cabinets?”

He leaned in. “There has to be a reason why this property was hidden.”

“If there is a reason, you sure as hell aren’t going to find it with the cleaning supplies.”

Devlin shot her a look as he closed the doors and moved on to the next cabinet.

Oh my God!

“Dude, you cannot just bust up into my house and start going through my stuff!”

He peered inside the cabinet that housed her one million mixing bowls. “We’ve already had this discussion, Rosie. It’s an apartment. Not a house.”

“Oh my God!” She said it out loud this time as she threw up her hands. “This is seriously not happening.”

Devlin rose and slipped past her, moving to the other row of shaker cabinets.

“I apparently drank too much wine, stood up, and fell over and hit my head,” she continued as she turned to him. “That is the only explanation for this.”

“Does that happen often?” he asked as he rummaged through her cabinets like a trash panda in a dumpster.

“Yeah, at least twice a week. I’m a wino. No,” she snapped. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.” He closed the door on the last cabinet and then pivoted, walking out to the living room.

“You’re searching my apartment for something and you don’t even know what that something is? Did you eat bath salts today? Should I call someone? An adult? Caregiver?”

Devlin shot her a droll look over his shoulder.

“Do your loved ones know where you are?”

He sighed—sighed like he was exasperated with her when he was in her home, uninvited, going through her stuff! This was pure insanity.

She followed him to her bookcase, where he started peering behind the shelf. “Okay. Seriously. This is just out-there, and coming from me, that’s pretty bad.”

Stepping back from the bookshelf, he turned to her. Their gazes collided as he took a step toward her. “I want to believe you. As unexplainable as that is, I want to believe that you have nothing to do with Ross—nothing to do with Lawrence. I want to, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I told you how I met Ross. And you know I’ve never met your father. Ever.”

“Thought you met Lawrence during your psychic reading?” he queried.

“Thought you believed that was a crock of shit?”

Devlin snorted. “Do you have a closet?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Her brows bunched together. “Duh.”

He turned toward the beaded curtains and his lip curled. Rosie’s eyes rolled, but then he started forward, toward those curtains.

“Don’t you dare!” She shot forward.

“Both Lawrence and my mother had this habit of stowing things away in closets. If something was hidden here, something that he didn’t want me to know about, it could be in there.” He parted the beads like Moses before the Red Sea. She swore to God and the Holy Ghost he didn’t even touch the damn things. He took one step into her dark bedroom and stopped so fast that she crashed into his back. “What in the hell?”

“What?” She shoved past him, thinking there must be a full-bodied apparition in her bedroom.

No ghost.

Devlin was staring up at her ceiling. “Are they . . . glow-in-the-dark stars?”

“If you make one snide comment about them, I will roundhouse kick you through a window.” Stomping over to the light switch, she flicked it on. “I swear.”

Slowly, he lowered his chin and looked over at her. “You know how to roundhouse kick someone?”

“No, but I’m a damn fast learner.”

He stared at her for a moment and then his gaze flipped to the bed. Luckily it was made, but he stared at the bed so long it started to make her feel a little uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, but in a way that made her realize her hormones were completely, utterly out of control. Like she was experiencing a midlife crisis or something.

He glanced over at her and she felt that stare again, an intense sweep of his gaze before he turned from her. “Is that the closet?”

“That’s the bathroom.”

As if he didn’t believe her, he opened the door. “That’s a surprise.”

“What? That I didn’t lie? Spoiler alert. I haven’t been lying to you. At all.”

“I wasn’t expecting your bathroom to be so big is what I meant.” He lifted a shoulder and then closed the door. A second later, he was at the closet door. “Surprised there isn’t a beaded curtain here.”

“Oh go choke on a di—”

“This the only closet?” He opened it before she could say a word.

“Yeah, some of us to don’t have walk-in closets the size of a small house.” She hurried over to him and managed to dip under his outstretched arm, getting in between him and the closet. “You are not going to mess up my closet. I spent all Saturday morning rage organizing that thing.”

He stared down at her, expression piqued with confusion. “Rage organizing?”

“Yes, it’s something that humans do when they are pissed at people or situations,” she explained. “But you obviously wouldn’t know what that is since you don’t seem to experience human emotion.”

His brows lowered. “I experience human emotion.”

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy. Maybe one day you’ll be a real boy, too.”

Devlin’s lips thinned.

“Ah! Wait. I am wrong. There’s an emotion. Irritation. Anger,” she said, glaring up at him. Mad at him. At herself. At how destiny really did keep throwing them together. “So you should understand rage cleaning. Maybe you should try that. Give your staff a day off.”

His eyes widened just the slightest. “No one ever speaks to me like you do.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that more people need to tell you how they really feel.” She planted her hands on her hips.

He dipped his chin. “And how do you really feel?”

“Pretty positive that’s obvious,” she retorted. “I don’t like you.”

A slow half grin appeared. “Thought you weren’t a liar.”

“I’m not,” she seethed.

“But you’re lying right now, Rosie.”

“Am not.”

“Oh but you are. You’re saying that you don’t like me, but we both know that’s not true.”

Rosie laughed—laughed right in his face as she rose onto the tips of her toes. “You’re delusional if you think that’s the case just because one out of five times we get along. And as you remember, I’d know, considering I do have a bachelor’s in psychology.”

He smirked. “Well, what does that bachelor’s in psychology say about you telling me you’d let me do anything to you while grinding on my dick just a few nights ago?”

She sucked in a shrill breath and for what felt like an eternity she had no response. He had her there. “It would say that I had temporary insanity.”

His head came down even farther as he whispered, “You’re lying again, Rosie, and I already don’t trust you, so you’re not helping yourself here.”

“I couldn’t care less about you trusting me. I’m not here for your issues.” Anger and something hotter and brighter burned through her. “What happened between us at the Masquerade was a one-time-only thing.”

“Was it?”

“Yep. You could kiss me right now and it would be about as thrilling as making out with a piece of sushi.”

His hands came down on the doorframe, right above Rosie’s head. “Is that a challenge?”

She snickered. “No, it’s just the truth. You may be a pretty face and a nice body, but I’m about as turned on as a—”

Devlin moved so quickly she didn’t have a chance to react. His hand curled around the nape of her neck a second before his mouth came down on hers.

There was nothing soft or questioning about this kiss. It was harsh and rough, and it was like striking a match to a pool of gasoline. There was no room for thought or common sense. Rosie’s entire body exploded in reaction, and she wasn’t sure how what happened next even happened, but he was kissing her like he wanted to devour every breath and she was kissing him back, clutching at the front of his shirt, wrinkling the crisp, pristine bastard.

An arm folded around her waist as he pulled her out from the doorway of her closet and pushed her against the wall. He pressed into her as his hand slid from the nape of her neck to her jaw. She felt him against her stomach, thick and hard, and molten lava poured through her veins.

This was wrong, so wrong, and she couldn’t stop herself even if she wanted to. Her leg moved of its own accord, rising up his. Devlin seemed to know what she wanted, because he lifted her and pressed in again, but this time—oh my—this time the hardest part of him was pushed against the softest part of her.

And he didn’t let up.

His mouth moved over hers, and she could taste his desire in his kiss, feel it when his tongue moved across her teeth and then her tongue, and in the way his hips rolled into her as the hand that had been at her jaw slid down. Her cardigan slipped off her shoulder as she squirmed against him, clutching his shoulders when his hand grazed her breast and then went down, under her shirt.

She was drowning in him and she couldn’t breathe, and didn’t care. Her heart was thumping and her pulse was pounding throughout her body.

“Okay. Okay,” she gasped, dragging in air when he broke the kiss. “You’ve proved your point.”

“Have I?” The hand under her shirt closed over her breast. The contact of his palm against her breast stole the breath she’d just gotten into her lungs. “I’m not sure if I’ve made my point yet.”

Rosie moaned, her back arching as those nimble fingers plucked at her taut nipple.

“But that sound you just made?” He kissed her as the arm around her waist tightened and then he dropped his mouth to her neck. “I think I’m well on my way to making that point.”

“Asshole,” she moaned, her skin red-hot and body aching.

He chuckled against her skin. “That’s not nice.”

She slid her hand into his hair and pulled, lifting his mouth from her neck. Her eyes opened. “It may not be nice, but it’s true.”

Those pale blue-green eyes were on fire. “You want me to stop?”

Rosie pressed her lips together as she glared at him. She needed to say yes before this spiraled even further out of control and it was already pretty damn out of control.

He slipped his hand out from underneath her shirt and clasped her hip. “Rosie? Do you want me to stop?”

Did she?

“No,” she whispered.

A deep growl rumbled out of him. “Thank fuck.”

Devlin pulled her away from the wall and set her down on her feet. Then he let go and stepped back.

She stared at him, watching his chest rise and fall heavily, and she could see how aroused he was. His erection was straining the front of his gray trousers. “Are you stopping?” she asked.

“Hell no,” he said, voice gruff. “I’m just . . . savoring the moment.”

Rosie felt herself flush even more. “Why?”

His gaze lifted to hers. “Because you’re a beautiful danger.”

Her heart squeezed. “I’m not a danger.”

“Then what are you?” He took one long step and was right in front of her.

She closed her eyes as she felt his hands on her hips. “I’m just . . . Rosie.”

“You’re not just anything.” His warm breath coasted over her forehead as he hooked his fingers around the hem of her tank top. “That’s the biggest lie you’ve told so far.”

Rosie opened her mouth, but he lifted her top, gathering the material in his hands and shoving it up under her arms, exposing her chest.

His lips parted. “God.”

It seemed impossible, but the ache intensified in her breasts to the point it was almost painful. “You like?” she asked, keeping her arms at her sides.

“Yeah.”

She felt dizzy as the cool air of the room teased the tips of her breasts. “A lot?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s . . . that’s nice.” She bit down on her lip. “But I still don’t like you, Devlin. None of this means I like you.”

His lips kicked up on one side. “I don’t care.”

“Good.”

“Because I know the truth.”

Then he dipped, lowering his hot, wet mouth to her breast. Rosie cried out as he licked and nipped at her, drawing her nipple deep into his mouth and then letting the puckered skin slip out. He moved to her other breast, and with each tug, each tiny bite of his teeth, it sent a pulse straight to her very center.

“What . . . what truth?” she asked, her head lolling back as his one hand slid down the center of her stomach.

“You may not like me.” He blazed a path of kisses across her breasts. “But you like this.”

She groaned as his hand slipped inside her bottoms, cupping her. Her hips twitched and churned as he kept his hand pressed against her heat.

“You like this a lot,” he said, his finger dragging along the wet, pulsing center. “Don’t you?”

Rosie clamped her mouth shut, but her hips tipped into his touch.

“I like it. I liked it Friday night.” His mouth moved up her neck, to her ear. “I liked it so much that I fucked my own hand more times than I can count since then. All I had to do was think about how soft you were, how wet. Then I remembered how your mouth tasted and I imagined you taking my dick into your mouth. I never came quicker in my life.”

Oh God, who knew Devlin had this kind of mouth on him?

Her entire body melted. “I . . .”

“What?” His finger kept moving, back and forth idly. Never slipping inside her. “What, Rosie?”

“I liked it, too.” She moved her head forward, letting it fall against his chest. “I did it, too.”

His finger stilled against her. “Did what?”

“Thought of you.” Her fingers curled around the front of his shirt. “Thought of you when I touched myself.”

Devlin froze and then he grunted out, “Fuck.”

“I came . . . thinking about what you did,” she whispered. “Even though I don’t like you.”

“Same.” He pulled his hand out of her bottoms and then he pulled them down, yanking them past her thighs. They slid the rest of the way, pooling at her feet. Using his thigh, he pushed her legs apart, spreading them. “I’m going to give us both new material.”

And he did.

Devlin de Vincent dropped to his knees before her. His large hands clasped her thighs and then his mouth was on her.

Rosie’s entire body jolted as her eyes flew open. The breath she took was stuttered as his tongue ran the length of her and then slipped in. “Fuck,” she gasped, her hand going to his head, into his hair. “Devlin.”

He growled against her flesh as he dragged his tongue to the sensitive bundle of nerves. His mouth closed over her, and she about doubled over.

“Oh God.” Her hips jerked as his hand came around her thigh and up, and then he was thrusting a finger deep inside her.

And then he . . . he feasted on her.

Shudders rocked her entire body. Harsh puffs of air and soft groans. Her legs began to shake as muscles deep inside her tightened and tightened, and her hips moved shamelessly, riding his mouth and his fingers.

Thick lashes lifted and he peered up at her as he worked another finger inside her.

That was it.

Her release happened all at once, crashing into her like a tidal wave that shattered every piece of her. She came and her legs nearly gave out on her. Having no idea how she managed to keep standing as he dragged every little tremor from her, she was panting for breath by the time he lifted his head.

Rosie trembled all over as she looked down at him and watched him run his tongue over his mouth. The mere sight of that sent another twist of pleasure through her.

“Yeah,” he said. “That is definitely new material.”

It really was, she thought as he rose in front of her, his body tight and thrumming with unreleased desire. He curled his hand around the nape of her neck and brought his mouth to hers.

The kiss . . .

The taste of him and the taste of her mingling on their tongues did something to her. It was like being drunk. It was like falling underwater and holding yourself there until your lungs burned and your vision dotted. It was being consumed by blinding lust and there was no sense, no will, no end.

“You still don’t like me?” he asked against her mouth.

“No.” Her hands slipped down his chest, to his belt.

His lips curved into a smile against hers as his grip tightened on the back of her neck. “Then prove it.”