An Angel for the Devil Page 3

  She peeks one eye open and smiles, whispering so low I almost can’t hear her over the pounding of my pulse. “Uh oh.” Pool water rolls down her temples. “Caught you being a good man again.”

  Shock sweeps me. Followed by relief like I’ve never known.

  Then, there’s respect I reserve for a worthy adversary.

  And lastly, it’s anger.

  How dare she expose me like this? I don’t even know what she’s going to find if she peels back another layer and that absolutely cannot be allowed to happen. It’s time to push her away once and for all. I can’t risk another second of her expecting me to be good. To be the kind of man who saves people—or even gives a shit. When a man cares about someone, it’s only a matter of time before that person deserts him. Before the business of feelings blows up in his face.

  “I’m not a good man. You want to find that out the hard way? Fine by me,” I say stiffly, standing up and reaching down to fist a large section of her blonde hair, pulling her, gasping, up onto her knees, then to her feet. Guiding her without gentleness toward a row of lounge chairs and pushing her down into a seated position at the end of one, refusing to acknowledge the voice in the back of my head, telling me to stop. That I will regret what I’m about to do. “Open your brat mouth for my cock,” I say hoarsely, unzipping my pants. “Mommy didn’t tell you about sex? You’re about to get an education.”

  Despite my harsh orders, I’m surprised to find her watching me pull down my zipper with eager eyes, her tongue gliding along her bottom lip to wet it quickly. Is she…excited? What is it going to take to make this girl despise me? I brought her here, confident I could seduce her with my wealth, spend the night fucking her and part ways in the morning without getting tangled up. Why won’t she cooperate?

  I take out my dick, raking it side to side over her lush mouth, then push the stiff flesh between her lips, not giving her a chance to brace herself or breathe. My groan echoes off the walls of the pool room, my fingers burrowing into her wet hair. The picture she makes, innocent eyes on me, mouth stretching around my shaft, almost undoes me completely. So much so that I have to concentrate on not filling her mouth with spend before I’ve gotten more than halfway in.

  “This would have been a hard conversation to have with Mommy, huh?” I hold her head steady and sink deeper, my balls already beginning to tingle. “This is what men think about when they look at you. The postman, your grandfatherly neighbor. They smile and make small talk with you, but they all just want it sucked.”

  Unbelievably, I watch her hands travel up her bare thighs, toward the drenched thong that is now second skin on her pussy, leaving zero to the imagination. Her fingertips brush back and forth on her inner thighs, her mouth beginning to take me in earnest, her lips testing me, sliding up and down, a feminine moan building in her throat.

  Her hands find her tits next, watching me through her eyelashes while she rolls her distended nipples in her palms, her chest beginning to heave.

  “Oh shit,” I mutter thickly, devouring the sight. “Oh my God.”

  I’m barely conscious of thrusting into her sexy mouth, faster, faster, fucking between her plump lips, the pleasure so enormous my spine twists top to bottom, making my vision go double. Oh fuck. What is happening? I meant to punish her with this blow job. Take what I needed, selfishly, the way I do everything else.

  Instead, we’re in it together.

  Working feverishly toward pleasure. Mine, mainly, since I’m hammering at her hot little mouth and she’s taking most of me, bobbing her head in this incredible rhythm we’ve designed without saying a word.

  With her knowing eyes on me, I’m stripped bare, vulnerable. There is nothing to protect me from what this girl makes me feel—and I lash out. Goddamn me, I can’t help but ruin the perfect moment out of sheer self-preservation.

  Fisting her hair roughly, I push deeper than I think she can stand. “If you’re not choking, little girl, you’re doing it wrong.”

  Shelby coughs around my dick, her eyes tearing, but I get no pleasure out of it. In fact, in the moment, I hate myself more than I hate the world.

  Shame is like a manacle around my neck as I pull out, stumbling away from her expression of dismay. Betrayal. I zip and button my rampant erection back into my dress pants. I can think of nothing to say. Everything sounds wrong on my tongue, no apology that would be good enough. I all but forced this innocent girl to give me pleasure and she was kind-hearted enough to forgive me, to participate and enjoy it, even though she’s innocent of men.

  God.

  My family was right to leave me on the side of the road and never come back.

  Swiping a hand across my sweaty lip, I stride from the room before I can do something completely self-destructive like hold her, kiss her, ask her to teach me how to be good. Such a thing is impossible.

  Chapter 5

  Shelby

  I pull the belt tighter around the fluffy, cream-colored robe and creep down the seemingly endless hallway. There really is no reason to creep, but the ceilings are so high, the art on the walls looks so expensive and it’s eerily quiet. I feel as though I’m in a library or a museum, so I try not to make a sound, my purpose made easier by the thick rugs arranged on the hallway floor.

  Where am I going? I have no idea—and I might even be lost. After Alistair left the pool room, I followed a few moments later and promptly lost my way in the labyrinth Alistair calls home. Who needs this many rooms? Or bathrooms, for that matter? Every one is pristine and decorated expensively, just waiting for someone to arrive and enjoy. No one ever will, however, because the man who owns this house is so damaged on the inside, he can only drive people away.

  When Alistair unzipped his pants in front of me, I could see his intentions clear as day. God help me, knowing he was trying to scare me off only made me want him more. What is the matter with me? The man practically forced his hardened sex in my mouth and I couldn’t even be angry with him. Or outraged. All I wanted was to heal his pain. Maybe I’m the damaged one.

  I almost scream when a figure appears in front of me at the end of the hallway. For a split second, I think it’s Alistair and hope leaps in my chest, but a light comes on and illuminates Pauline instead. Remembering that she witnessed Alistair massaging my breasts from behind, my face burns. Pauline, however, appears just as before. Serene and indifferent.

  “Miss Shelby, I’ve been asked to make sure you eat dinner. Is there something specific you would like?” She gestures to the room to my left. “I can have it brought up to the library, if you prefer.”

  The housekeeper thinks I’ve intentionally ended up in front of the library, instead of ending up here by mistake in my lost wanderings—and I play along to avoid any more embarrassment. “Sure, that would be so nice. Thank you.” I wet my lips, realizing I am, in fact, starving. “Anything you have handy is perfect.”

  “Oh now, give us a challenge, dear,” Pauline says, giving me a warm smile. “The man of the house eats the same seven meals on rotation. The chef is bored to tears. What is the food you’d like most in the world?”

  “Brownies,” I blurt. “With whipped cream. Strawberries. A big glass of milk. Is that too much—”

  Pauline cuts me off with a laugh. “It’s perfect. Please make yourself comfortable in the library and I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Thank you.”

  With no choice but to walk into the dark, scary room off the hallway, I push open the tall, creaking door and search the wall for a light switch. When the frosted globes glow to life on the ceiling, my mouth can only hang open. It’s huge. Shelves and shelves of books run the length of the walls. Several are open on a desk in the corner. Others are stacked on tables. Big, fluffy couches are arranged beneath windows and tucked into corners. And all I can think about is how perfect a location this would be to write in my diary.

  Night has fallen completely now, so I cast a long shadow on the floor of the library as I tiptoe toward the closest wall of books, hesit
ating only a moment before climbing the ladder attached to the ceiling. Catching my bottom lip between my teeth, I give in to the mischief and push off, sailing the ladder diagonally from one end of the library to another, my giggle echoing off the walls.

  “Having fun?” Alistair’s deep velvet voice comes from the doorway and I gasp, almost falling a handful of feet off the ladder. When I turn around, he’s halfway across the library floor, his hand extended, the color drained from his face. “Jesus Christ. Get down before you break your pretty neck.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say automatically in response to his authoritarian tone. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to kick myself, though.

  I shouldn’t be rushing to grant this man’s wishes after what happened, right? I grew up with two older brothers and neighborhood bullies. I’m made of sterner stuff than most. Raising my chin, I pause in the act of climbing off the ladder.

  “If you didn’t creep up on me like a weirdo, I wouldn’t have almost fallen,” I snap over my shoulder. Then I toss my almost dry hair for good measure.

  “I’m the weirdo?” He snorts. “You were the one tiptoeing through my house like Nancy Drew trying to solve a mystery.”

  Lord, will the humiliations ever end? “You were watching me?” I don’t wait for him to answer that obvious question. “Maybe that’s how a normal person walks around a big, dark, empty house—”

  I break off mid-rant when his hands settle on my waist, plucking me off the ladder. A second later, my feet land softly on the ground and I’m pulled back against Alistair’s chest, his breath ghosting over my hair. “You’re right.” Slowly, his arms wrap around me, as if testing how it feels. “This house is big, dark and empty. That much was never more obvious than when I heard you…laugh.” His swallow is audible. “I didn’t come in here to argue with you.”

  Awareness prickles along my skin, especially when his open mouth drags up behind my ear, exploiting that sensitive patch of skin. “Why did you come in here?”

  “I tried not to.” He sounds frustrated. “But this…I don’t know, this burning in my stomach won’t go away. It has been there since what happened downstairs. I think it’s guilt.” It’s obvious the admission was painful. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Why is his honesty making my knees weak? “You could apologize.”

  “I never apologize.” His chest heaves twice against my back. “But if I did want to apologize, what would be the appropriate way to go about it?”

  “You’d say, ‘I’m sorry, Shelby’.”

  His scoff blows my hair forward. “Words? Words don’t mean shit.”

  “They do to me.” He makes a sound of disagreement and I start to pull away, but his hand creeps inside my robe, smoothing across my belly, squeezing my hip. That touch leaves a trail of lava in its wake, my core clenching hotly between my legs. “What…” I breathe, struggling to maintain the order of my thoughts. “What happened to make you think words mean nothing?”

  His hand stops moving on my belly. “Here we go again with the personal questions.” I try to wiggle my way free of his arms, but he holds tight, cursing under his breath. “My family couldn’t afford to feed all of us, once upon a time, okay? Me, my mother and two sisters—they were twins. My father was a pathetic man who thought his rock band would get a big break eventually. Even after a decade of no real success. He kept telling us our big payday was around the corner, but it was just an excuse to waste money and stay out all night drinking with his friends.” He pulls me closer, as if needing the additional strength. “I was the oldest. I ate the most, grew the fastest and needed new clothing most often. But my worst transgression was doing well in school, making my father feel inadequate. And so, one afternoon, they voted to throw me out.”

  My gasp sounds loud in the quiet library. I turn around in the circle of Alistair’s arms and bury my face in his throat, no idea what to say, what to do. Only knowing I’m here in this moment to give him comfort.

  “He coerced my mother and sisters into voting for me. They were dependent on his meager income and our life…it was survival of the fittest. When my father pulled over to the side of the road and threw me out into the rain, they cried and apologized, but their words didn’t mean a thing, did they? The vote, the betrayal, still stood. So I never apologize, Shelby. Actions are what matter.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I whisper into his shoulder, heat prickling the insides of my eyelids. “I hate it.”

  “No, angel. You leave the hating to me.” He strokes my hair. “You’re too…good for an emotion so ugly. You’re too good for…what I did to your innocent mouth.” His hand closes around the length of my blonde hair, winding it around his fist and pulling firmly, making me whimper. “You’re going to make me want to be a better man, aren’t you? Goddammit, Shelby.” He inhales against my throat. “Goddamn you.”

  “You’re already a better man,” I whisper. “You just scare people away so they can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “Why isn’t it working with you?” he says hoarsely, bringing our lips an inch apart. “Why…don’t I really want it to work?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, unable to tear my attention off his sculpted, masculine mouth. “But I’m so glad.”

  We stare at each other for long moments, our breaths growing more and more labored, his large sex thickening against my stomach. Rapidly.

  Likewise, pivotal events are taking place all over my body. I’m wet and achy between my legs, my nipples are in pain from being hard so long. But the most intense of all is the reaction of my heart to having Alistair expose himself to me emotionally. To hearing him being honest, vulnerable. All those times I yearned for him while sitting in my tree and finally, I have access to what’s on the inside. It’s deeper and more damaged than I could have imagined—and all I want is more of him. I want him to take more of me in return.

  It’s in that moment, when he leans in to kiss me, that I remember what I’m really doing here. I’m here to offer my body in exchange for leniency with my family.

  If I tell him that now, right after his confession, he will hate me.

  Oh God. What should I do?

  My hesitation causes a line to form between Alistair’s brows. He opens his mouth to say something, but at the same moment, Pauline’s voice rings out.

  “Please excuse the intrusion. I have a brownie for Miss Shelby.”

  Alistair’s jaw flexes, but he nods. “Very well, you will eat now,” he rasps, using his grip on my hair to bring my ear to his mouth. “But after that, little girl. I’m going to eat you right up.”

  Chapter 6

  Alistair

  This house feels different with her inside of it.

  I’ve never wanted to be around another person…at all.

  Let alone so fucking badly. She’s like a steady heartbeat in the middle of a gale, the purity of it, the reassurance of her, drawing me closer. Closer.

  I thought telling her about my past might make her understand why I’m such a bastard—and why I’ll continue to be one. But she clammed up when I tried to kiss her. Have I ruined anything that might happen between us? If I could turn back the clock an hour and change my actions, I would. I’d allow the perfect exploration of her mouth on my cock without turning it into something forceful.

  Better yet, I’d go down on her instead.

  My dick is already hard from being close to Shelby, but it swells painfully when I think of getting my tongue between her thighs. Now that will be an effective apology. Far better than words. But first, I have another impulse that is entirely unlike me. I want to…be sensitive with this girl. Whatever the hell that means. As she revealed downstairs, she knows nothing about sex and knowing that, I should have taken more time to introduce her to the needs of the flesh.

  “Thank you, Pauline,” I say briskly. “You may leave the brownie and go.”

  My housekeeper does as I ask, setting the plated dessert on a side table next to one of the couches i
n the center of the library, bustling from the room again without a word. With my hand on the small of Shelby’s back, I guide her to the couch and sit her down. Then I pick up the plate and take the spot immediately beside her, carving out a bite onto the fork and dipping it in whipped cream.

  “Open,” I say, holding the chunk of brownie to her lips. “Get the taste of my behavior out of your mouth.”

  She accepts the bite and chews it slowly, her green eyes turning dreamy over the taste. “You know, you’re not entirely at fault. I’m sorry for pretending to drown.”

  “As I recall, you tried to give me the perfect apology,” I say hoarsely, my attention riveted by the sensual movements of Shelby’s lips and throat. It takes a mighty effort to stop ogling the lower half of her face and serve her another bite.

  “Is that a normal way for women to apologize?” she asks.

  “I’ve never been in a relationship long enough to have an argument with a woman, nor have I wanted to. I have no idea.” The way she looks up at me with an earnest expression, as if waiting to be taught, has me softening my tone. “No, I wouldn’t say it’s typical. But when…partners have an argument, I assume that sex is a way of reconnecting. So it’s not out of the question.”

  She nods, looking thoughtful as she consumes her next bite. “That tracks. My brothers fight with their girlfriends all the time. And then they go into the bedroom for a little while and…and when they walk out, everything is solved.”

  “I doubt that,” I say dryly. “They’ve just gotten off, Shelby.”

  A line appears on her forehead. “What is getting off?”

  This poor angel. She’s in desperate need of an education about men and women. This kind of thing requires patience, kindness—and I’m sorely lacking in both of those qualities. I’m the only one here, though. Furthermore, the idea of someone else talking to my angel about fucking makes my temper flare. I’d kill another man for speaking to her about any of this.