Touching the curves that had been driving him crazy from their first meeting and mapping their sweetness with his hands and mouth had been a beautiful mistake. But it’d been a mistake nonetheless.
He’d lowered his guard, made himself vulnerable in a way that was just short of unforgivable. With any other woman, sex would’ve been a natural, biological release. But Devon was far from “any other woman.” She was the daughter of the man who blackmailed him and threatened his mother. She was the daughter complicit in her father’s machinations, and even though she hadn’t issued the ultimatum, she benefited from Gregory’s deceit and schemes.
Cain couldn’t forgive or forget that. Only a fool would turn a blind eye to the wolf snarling and snapping at his door. And though he’d been played for one by Devon in his mother’s garden, he wouldn’t make that error again. Barron had committed a multitude of sins—abused his son, cheated on his wife, abandoned and hid away children—but he hadn’t raised a fool.
“I know you’re already regretting having sex with me,” Devon said, her low, husky voice like a cannon blast in the silence of the car.
He yanked his attention from the road and glanced at her. But Devon stared out the passenger-side window, giving him a view of the long, thick hair tumbling over her shoulders and back.
“I just have one question for you,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked, not denying her assertion that he regretted being with her.
Material rustled, and when he shifted another look in her direction, she’d turned to face him. Shadows danced over her face, casting her in both darkness and the light from the streetlamps. But her careful, composed expression betrayed none of her thoughts.
Resentment ignited inside his chest before he deliberately snuffed it out. A part of him wanted her to appear as agitated and unsettled as he felt.
“You once listed the things I wouldn’t receive from you in this...arrangement. Fidelity was one of them. You would have sex with other women, but not with me.” She inhaled, and Cain fought the urge to wrap a hand around the nape of her neck, draw her close. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, the other hand on his thigh curling into a fist. “Tonight,” she continued, “was that about you using me to further stick it to my father? Do I need to prepare myself to have this thrown in his face—and mine—at some point? Because if so, I—”
“Let’s get one thing straight, sweetheart,” he growled, cutting her off. “Your father uses women as pawns in his little games—I don’t. You were underneath me on that floor, Devon. You came for me.You.The only agenda I had tonight was getting as far deep inside you as I could, and that hadnothingto do with your father.”
A heartbeat of quiet passed, thunderous and heavy. And so dense with desire it pressed against his skin. His cock twitched against his thigh.
Damn, this was his fault.
He shouldn’t have mentioned her coming for him, because now he swore he could feel the phantom spasms of her slick flesh around him. The craving to have it again, to have her surrounding him, burned him.
Hungering for his enemy’s daughter only spelled trouble. So no matter how hard his dick throbbed and complained, tonight had been the first and last time.
“I believe you,” she murmured.
He shot her a glare. “Then you’re a fool,” he snapped. Ignoring her sharp intake of breath, he pressed her. “You and I aren’t friends. We aren’t lovers. Tonight might not have been about your father but that doesn’t mean I won’t destroy him and fuck the casualties. Even if one of those casualties is you. Don’t believe me. Don’t trust me. Because I damn sure don’t trust you or Gregory.”
He thrust his free hand through his hair, grinding his teeth together.Lie.The word whistled through his head. His father had been that ruthless. That coldhearted, to allow an innocent to be harmed in the course of business.
All his life, Cain’s one goal hadn’t been to run Farrell International as its CEO. It had been to be nothing like Barron Farrell.
But she isn’t innocent.
Images of her in the garden, at the community center, of her crawling across that floor to hug him flickered across his mind like camera flashes. That Devon contradicted the woman he’d seen in her father’s living room, who’d stood silently as Cain challenged her to repudiate Gregory’s plans. To free them both. And she hadn’t. No, the last few hours proved that she desired him, but she obviously desired the Farrell name and connections more.
Once, that knowledge had enraged him, hauling out the emotional baggage of his childhood.
Now, though? Now he was just...tired.
“I’m not naive, Cain,” she said, turning back to the window. He hated the even tone that betrayed none of the hurt he’d heard in that little gasp. “I trusted you with my body tonight, but nothing else. I’m not a fool now, but I was once upon a time. And thank you for the reminder of what could happen if I forget that.”
What the hell are you talking about? Who were you a fool for? What happened to put that hollow note in your voice?
The barrage of questions slammed a path toward his throat, clamoring to emerge and desperate for her answers. But he locked them down. He didn’t have the right to ask. But that didn’t prevent a dark, ugly emotion with claws from tearing at him.
Jealousy.
He didn’t even bother with the pretense of denying its existence. The snarling, green-eyed beast in him wanted,demandedshe confess this other man’s name, the details of what he’d done...if she’d loved him.
Dammit.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, his five-o’clock shadow abrading his palm. He had no claims on her, regardless of the contract his father and Gregory had signed.
