Bad Billionaire (Bad Billionaires 1)

I hadn’t seen him since last weekend. Was it possible he looked even better than he had last week? It was hard to tell. He was parked across the street from Gratchen Advertising, in the Chevy I remembered from the night he picked me up from art class. He was standing waiting for me, leaning against the passenger door, his arms crossed. He wore jeans and a dark button-down shirt—casual, but beautifully made. He’d been buying new clothes.

He watched me come out the door, his green eyes never leaving me, the corner of his mouth smiling as I crossed the street, which was damp with rain. At the intersection, a woman nearly tripped over the curb, staring at him as she walked.

I stepped up close to him. “Hi,” I said.

He was preoccupied with something, I could tell. But he looked at me, and without a word he uncrossed his arms, cupped my face, and kissed me. Properly and deep. Right there on the street. I hoped everyone from Gratchen was watching.

He broke the kiss, but his hands still cupped my face. “Date?” he asked.

I shook my head, pressing against his palms. “Let’s order in.”

“Okay,” he said. “Get in.”

In Diablo, he showed me more of the house. It looked a little lived-in now, with clothes i

n the closets and a few dishes in the sink. He took me into the back yard, where we stood in the damp greenery, looking at the professional gardens that were starting to become overgrown. His grandfather’s contract with the landscaping company had expired. Then I followed him into the garage, where he showed me his grandfather’s old cars, including the classic Mercedes he’d fixed.

“These cars were just sitting here?” I asked him, running my hand along one of them.

“I know,” Devon said, watching me. Something was definitely bothering him, but I knew better than to pry it out of him yet—and whatever it was seemed to be slowly loosening its hold the more we talked. “It’s weird. The keys are hanging on a hook by the door. He just had these cars, which didn’t run, sitting in the garage of the house he never went to.” He looked around. “It seems like a waste.”

“Maybe he thought he’d get them running someday.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “But he had all of this money, and all of these things, and my neighbor says he was lonely. My father was his only son, and he was a disappointment. His wife died young.”

“But there was you,” I said, turning and leaning against the car, crossing my arms. “And your brother. He could have contacted you, taken you in. He didn’t have to be lonely.”

Devon was quiet. He seemed to be thinking this over.

“It was a choice, Devon,” I said softly. “To not have connections. To be alone. To have an empty house with no one in it. To be that way all the way to the end of his life.”

Still he stayed quiet. This was one of the mysterious things I loved about Devon—his ability to stay silent when he wanted without the need to fill the air with words. Silence terrified most people. I had yet to come across a single thing that terrified Devon Wilder.

I glanced at the tattoo on his hand again, visible below the cuff of his shirt. No Time. Graham had chosen loneliness; it couldn’t be lost on Devon that he could choose it, too. He could end up the way his grandfather had. He was tough, solitary, an island. I could see it even now, as he stood in front of me, this man I’d shared more with than anyone else in my life. And now the money would isolate him further. I felt a soft pulse of worry deep in my gut, along with the throb of sexual attraction that never quit when Devon was anywhere in view. I hope he can be happy. I hope he finds a way.

“Are you going to find your brother?” I asked into the silence.

He shifted, tense, and put his hands in his pockets. “I’m hiring a detective agency,” he said. “I paid the retainer this week. Cavan has been hiding long enough. It’s time to track him down.”

“He really just vanished? You have no idea where he is?”

“He split after our mother died,” he said, the words a little short. “Let’s go inside.”

We didn’t even bother ordering in. We scrounged some bread and cheese from the kitchen, and found a bottle of wine in Graham’s wine cellar, and that was all we needed. We didn’t even get halfway through the wine before we ended up in Devon’s bed, pulling each other’s clothes off.

And it started again. The heat, the madness that always came over me when Devon touched me. I just needed his hands on my skin to turn into someone else, some Olivia I wasn’t familiar with, who dug her hands into Devon’s hair and bit his lip softly. I’d been a good girl for a week, but now I had this man—this big, sexy, muscled, complicated man—in bed with me, and I was done being good. I pulled up my work skirt and he took my invitation, sliding his fingers into my panties as he kissed me hard. I moaned and arched up into him, urging him to rub me harder.

After our last time, I’d found bruises on my skin. One on my inner thigh, now turning yellow. Two on my hips, in the shape of his fingerprints. There were red marks on my breasts from his teeth, and my skin had been tender and burned from his stubble. My lips had been raw, my bones sore, and I’d had aches in muscles I hadn’t even known existed. It hadn’t been tender, sweet lovemaking. I had gone to work aching, my clothes feeling harsh on my skin.

I had never felt more alive. I wanted more.

I unbuttoned his shirt, and he pulled it off so I could run my hands over his shoulders, his chest. He kissed me again, his mouth delicious and familiar on mine, and for a second I was so overwhelmed with it that I was almost afraid. Afraid of who I was, of who we were when we were like this. When he broke the kiss and pressed his mouth to my neck, undoing my blouse, I said, “Have you been with a lot of women?”

It took him a second to process the question. He paused and lifted his mouth from my neck. “What?”

My heart was pounding, my ears ringing. I wanted to slow down the panic, but at the same time I also wanted to know. He must have gotten all of this experience somewhere. “It’s okay if you have,” I said. “I just—I’d like to know. About you.”

He pulled back and looked at me, his green eyes bemused. But instead of scoffing or telling me to be quiet and get on with it, he answered the question. I felt my heart cave a little further in my chest.