A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

23

I yankedmy suitcase out of the closet, threw it open, and started stuffing shit into it.

Because I was sane.

Because I still had some rationality left.

Because choosing anything other than the first option wasn’t actually an option.

I didn’t care what my insides were doing. I didn’t care how good that kiss had been. I didn’t care that there were all these voices in the back of my head protesting the decision.

Frankly, no voice in my head should have been trying to stop me from leaving this nightmare. So, I either needed to book myself a CT scan when I got back home, enroll in extensive therapy, or both.

Probably both.

I was packed before the email hit my inbox. My flight was in four hours and the car would be at Black Sheepish Tea in two. But there was no point in waiting here.

I snuck down to the basement using a set of stairs I didn’t know existed until I read Adrien’s instructions, and left through the doors beside the theater, which, apparently, no one ever used.

I turned the corner, rushed through the gates, and I was done. I was free.

And I never had to see him again.

My feet moved quickly, my suitcase rolling noisily behind me.

I never had to see him again.

I never ever had to see him ever again.

Which was good. Great. Fantastic. It was exactly what I needed. It was exactly what I wanted. It was exactly what I should have wanted.

So why did I stop?

The teashop was right there. I could see its cloud-shaped sign from where I was standing.

So move.

I stood there and stared.

Move, damn it!

I shoved off the strange tangle of emotions gnawing at my gut and forced my legs to move forward. The Black Sheepish Tea was small, quaint. It had dark blue walls, light oak furnishings, and was decorated to the brim with greenery. Potted plants of all shapes and colors had been stuffed into every possible corner, peppered across every possible surface, and hung from every possible hook and curve.

I bit back a reluctant smile. There was around a half-dozen cafes on this block, and of course this was the one he’d thought of.

What a freak.

I ordered a pot of jasmine green tea and sat at a small round table tucked in the back corner, right by the window. Just so I could see the car when it arrived.

Because I was leaving.

I was going to get into the vehicle the second it pulled up to the curb, I was going to leave, and I was never going to talk to, or think about Adrien Cloutier ever again. He’d go back to being a random dude I’d see pop up on the news occasionally, and that would be it.

I’d wake up tomorrow and my life would go back exactly to the way it was.

I blinked down at the steam rising from the small ceramic teacup.

Tomorrow I’d wake up… and my life would go back… to the way it was.

I’d find another bullshit job, and I’d go back to…

Alba. Olive. Jamie. And… what else?

I frowned down at the teapot. Why couldn’t I think of anything I looked forward to doing when I got home? Why couldn’t I remember a single memorable experience I’d had in the last year that was just my own? Something I’d done, an accomplishment I’d made, a milestone I’d passed—not Jamie, not Alba, not Olive.

I came up wholly, entirely blank.

So, then I tried extending the perimeters of my internal search to two years, then to three… four. Nothing.

Not one thing.

I hadn’t traveled; I hadn’t expanded my minuscule social circle; I hadn’t really dated or taken up any hobbies or learned anything new. I’d just…

“… I don’t recognize you anymore, Ree…You’ve let him win. You keep letting him win. You don’t care about work, you don’t care about meeting new people or making new friends, you don’t date. You don’t have any goals or ambitions anymore. You laugh and make jokes and pretend like nothing ever bothers you, but you’ve given up. You’ve numbed yourself to the point where you just… you don’t live. You exist and that’s all.”

There was a soft ringing in my ear as I stared blankly out the window, watching the sky slowly turn a darker, angrier shade of gray. The glass eventually fogged in the corners, and little droplets of rain splattered against my view.

My tea had gone cold, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink any of it. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than sit there, stare, and feel… nothing.

No. Not nothing. It was more of… an emptiness. Like something fundamental was missing. Except it wasn’t scary or alarming. It wasn’t like The Fundamental Thing was gone forever. More like I’d maybe just misplaced it. Or hidden it away a long time ago for safekeeping and couldn’t quite remember how to get it back. It was in there somewhere, I just needed to look for it now that I knew it was gone.

And I could do that at home, during my seven hundredth rewatch of Bridget Jones. Or sitting at my new desk, dying a slow death at my new bullshit job.

It was going to be fine. All I had to do was get in the car, get on the plane, and never allow myself to think about Adrien Cloutier ever again.

All I had to do was go back.

You exist and that’s all.

You don’t live.

* * *

I accidentally missed my flight.

And by accidentally, I meant I shoved my suitcase behind my chair and pretended like I’d never heard the name Ria Sanchez in my life when the suited driver came into the teashop asking for me.

Did I then haul my suitcase back to the house and sneak up to the cursed bedroom I’d been sharing with Adrien? Yes.

Did I spend the majority of the day playing backgammon with Gampy and baking with Alice while Maxwell sang a whole bunch of D12? Yes.

Did I enjoy myself? Immensely.

But none of that mattered. Because I’d come back to do one thing, and one thing only: prove to myself that what I’d felt when Adrien kissed me had been a total and utter fluke.

Emotions had been running high, and all that murderous rage had blasted straight to my head and messed with my hormonal wiring. The increased heart rate, the trembling, the inability to breathe properly had all been part of a fight-or-flight response thing—an adrenaline kick, if you will. I was ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine percent sure of it. I just needed to be one hundred percent sure of it so I could go back and move on with my life without that pesky little question mark poking into the back of my brain.

Which was why I was restlessly pacing the room when Adrien came back from his meeting. I halted midstep when the door handle finally twisted (seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds later than when he’d said he’d be back) … (not that I was counting).

“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurted before he’d even had a chance to enter the room. “I’m obviously not staying.”

Adrien’s eyebrows climbed when he saw me, a cocky smirk toying at his mouth. He shut the door and leaned against it, arms crossed. The man was arrogance personified. “It’s nice to see you, too, Sanchez. How was your day?”

“I’m not staying,” I said again, just in case he hadn’t heard me the first time. Then I wiggled the diamond ring off my finger and held it out to him. “Also, this is yours.”

He stalked to where I stood in the middle of the room, his midnight-green gaze bolted to mine. I had to tilt my chin up to maintain eye contact, the man was so irritably tall.

“You could have just left it on my desk,” he pointed out.

I arched my eyebrows at him. “Why? So you could claim it was missing—that I stole it—and lure me into a predatorial slave-contract to pay you back?”

Even in the dim lighting of the single bedside lamp I could see his ears tinting red as he studied me. “You really think that little of me?”

“No,” I answered truthfully, “because even that’s giving you too much credit.”

A muscle in his jaw bounced. His smirk was gone. “I told you I didn’t want to play this fucked up game with you anymore. So just tell me why you’re still here.”

I shoved the ring into the pocket of his jacket since he refused to take it. “I need to confirm something really quick, and then I’ll be on my way.”

I’d called the airline and had my flight rebooked. The earliest they could do was tomorrow afternoon, but I’d be more than happy to spend the night at the airport or a motel. I just really needed to get this out of the way first.

“And what’s that?” he practically growled through clenched teeth. “What do you need to confirm?”

My tongue darted out to wet my drying lips, my heart doing its best to crawl right out of my throat as I shoved my fists into my jacket pockets. I was dressed and ready to go. The second my little experiment was over, I’d grab my suitcase and march right out.

“I need to kiss you super quick,” I told him directly.

His eyebrows twitched, then slammed together. Twitched, slammed. “Pardon?”

“I need to kiss you,” I repeated as evenly as possible. “I’m telling you in advance for consent purposes. I’ll keep it short and PG-13, and we’ll both keep our hands to ourselves. Just so we’re not tempted to strangle each other at any point.”

Just so I’m not tempted to rip away your clothes on the extremely off chance that this morning wasn’t a fluke.

He was looking at me like I was a crazy person. Because I sounded exactly like a crazy person.

“Why?” he asked.

I cleared my throat, my gaze darting away from him momentarily. Thinking was easier when he wasn’t in my direct line of sight. “I felt a lot of things this morning that I shouldn’t have when you kissed me. And I just need to prove to myself that it wasn’t real.”

Adrien eyed me for a few moments, something entirely unreadable flashing across his face. He let out a frustrated breath, glanced up at the ceiling, then yanked at his tie like it was suffocating him.

I shifted on my feet. “You don’t have to say yes, this is why I asked first—”

“Has it occurred to you even once over the last couple of weeks that I’m an actual human being, Ria?”

I blinked.

Huh?

“I—what?”

“Has it onceoccurred to you over the last two weeks that I’m a real person?” he repeated. “With real feelings and all the other bullshit that comes with it?”

It was my turn to frown. Of course he was a real person. “What are you talking about?”

His throat worked like he was trying to swallow back whatever response was bubbling up his chest. Then he scrubbed a hand over his face, his lips pressing together. The redness from his ears had crept to his cheeks and was beginning to drip down his neck.

“Fine,” he eventually muttered. “Go ahead. Do what you need to do.”

I hesitated. He’d completely thrown me off with the human comment. “Maybe we should—”

But he cut me off, his voice readopting its usual sharp edge. “What were the parameters? PG-13 and hands to ourselves?”

I nodded and he shoved his hands into his pockets, mirroring me. “What else?”

I studied him carefully. “You don’t have to say yes. You can just tell me to fuck off and kick me out of the house.”

“I don’t want to tell you to fuck off, and I don’t want to kick you out of the house.”

“Okay… what do you want?”

There was a long stretch of silence before he answered. “I want you to be honest about the results of this little… experiment.”

I didn’t know why that made my gut wiggle the way it did. It was fine. I’d kiss him, feel nothing, then tell him I felt nothing. It would be like kissing a lamp. Kind of warm and solid, with a slight chance of being mildly electrocuted. And not much else.

“Deal,” I said.

“Deal,” he said.

And then we just stood there.

“Can you… um… like lean down a little?” I asked awkwardly. He was too tall for me to reach, and I couldn’t use my hands to pull him down.

The one side of his mouth twitched with reluctant amusement, his shoulders somewhat relaxing. He lowered his head. “Better?”

“Mhmm.” Whatever soap or cologne or aftershave the man used deserved a whole bunch of awards for its longevity. And scent.

“Sanchez.”

“Yup?”

“This is the part where you kiss me.”

“I’m getting there.” I was just trying to get my insides to calm down a little first. The whole point of this was to feel nothing.

His eyes meandered lazily over my face, deliberately lingering on my lips. It didn’t help. “What are you waiting for?” he asked quietly, his warm breath gently caressing my skin.

Goosebumps. Goosebumps everywhere.

“Can you just… be still for a few seconds?” I ground out.

“I’m not moving very much.”

“Your eyes are. And you keep talking.”

“I’m just looking at you. Am I not allowed to look at you?”

“Shut up and shhh.”

“I like looking at you. So much so that I actually hate it. You’re very pretty. It’s beyond outrageous.”

Swoosh.

“Stop. Talking.” My heart was a tiny, frantic bird, trying to burst out of its too-small cage.

“Can you tell me why first?”

“You’re messing with my vitals—er, variables. You’re messing with the variables of my experiment.”

The cocky smirk was back. He seemed a lot more relaxed now, and entirely too amused at my expense. Always at my expense. “I see. Sorry.”

He did not look sorry. He looked like he was the opposite of sorry.

I shut my eyes, pushed an irritated breath out of my nose, and tried to recenter myself. Then I made the mistake of opening them again.

Adrien had moved closer, his gaze boring into my freaking soul. He had so many eyelashes, and they were so rich, dark, and breathtaking. His eyes were absolutely breathtaking. Especially when they’d gone all… tender and cloudy like that. I hated them.

“You can touch me if you want,” he murmured softly. “I’ll keep my hands to myself from now on. Until you tell me to.”

From now on, like I wasn’t leaving after this. Until you tell me to, like it was inevitable.

I should have rolled my eyes at him, but instead, I found my right fist unfurling, hesitating, then sliding out of my pocket.

Just to hold him in place, I told myself. Or to push him away when I inevitably want to.

So why did the tips of my fingers reach for his face instead? Why did they trace over his sharp eyebrow, cheekbone, jaw, his parted lips? Why did my chest flutter when his breath hitched in response?

I watched as his eyelids drooped, his focus grew hazy, and his breathing picked up. He cursed under his breath when my featherlight touch moved down the line of his throat, and I could feel the frantic flutter of his pulse.

It was fucking intoxicating.

Distracting.

“Sanchez…”

“Mmm?”

“Remember your little experiment?”

“Mmm.”

“You should probably conduct it now.”

“This is part of it,” I decided. My fingers moved back up the column of his throat and over the full length of his jaw. His muscles were taught, and his throat kept working with one rough swallow after another.

I wondered how it would feel to touch his entire body like this. How he would react if I ran my teasing fingers all the way down his naked chest, his abs, his thighs. What would he do if I lazily traced the length of his cock—

My hand froze. My eyes flared. My brain halted.

Excuse me? You wonder what now?

My eyes snapped to his.

What the hell just happened?

You just wondered what it would be like to tease Adrien Cloutier’s cock, you kinky little perv! That’s what!

“Is torturing me a part of it, too?” Adrien chided quietly.

I didn’t answer him. I tried to, but the comeback stuck itself at the base of my throat and refused to come out. When was the last time I’d… I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought about…

Huh.

“Sanchez, kiss me before I—”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish.