Page 1 of Devil's Kiss
The Call
Present Day
DEREK PEARSON PUSHED open the door of Leighton, Finley & Associates, and stepped out on the paved sidewalk. It was the first day of August, and if the sweltering Florida sun was any indication, today was going to be hotter than hell’s waiting room.
As he strolled toward the curb, he pulled a pack of Marlboros from the pocket of his shorts and flipped open the top. He needed a fucking cigarette after watching Daniel Finley and his damn professor get all sappy and shit. That was gonna get old real quick if he had to stomach their nauseating displays ofI love youslonger than the fifteen minutes he’d been in there. But he’d known he had to make an appearance sooner or later; otherwise Danny boy would’ve shown up asking questions. Questions he wasn’t ready to answer.
There’d been a reason he hadn’t come around to see Finn when he first moved back from Chicago two months ago, but it wasn’t something he was in the mood to talk about yet, even if he was one of the two people on the planet who would understand all the shit he’d been dealing with.
Yeah…He just wasn’t ready to go there.
With a smoke between his lips, he lit up, then shoved the pack back in his shorts. He was so damn antsy lately, and for that he could thank his brother, Alan.
He walked around to the side of his Jeep and pulled open the door. After climbing inside, he grabbed his cell phone and stared at the dark screen, contemplating his next move.
Am I really planning to do this?
Fuck,it seemed that he was, even when he knew better.
If he did this, it would be nothing more than a Band-Aid over the real problem. A shot to numb the more painful issues he was dealing with right now. He would be slipping back into a pattern he had pulled himself out of. An addiction he’d broken free from. But he was also aware that if he didn’t do it, the alternative would be to spiral out of control, and solitude was no longer helping his fucked-up nerves.
He brought the phone to his ear and waited. The phone rang and rang, and fucking rang, until he was close to hanging up—and then it connected.
“You free?” were the only two words out of his mouth. He waited, not caring to pursue small talk. That wasn’t what this was about. All he cared about in that moment was getting what he needed.
When an affirmative came through the phone, he hung up, tossed it on the dashboard, and brought the Jeep to life. As he sped across town, he white-knuckled the steering wheel and didn’t allow himself to think about the consequences of what he was about to do.
It took him less than ten minutes to pull into the underground parking garage of the Palisades and take the elevator up to where his drug of choice waited for him. He glanced up into the camera in the corner of his metallic confines and stared boldly into the face of the one who was waiting at the other end of this ride.
Yeah,he was about to fall off the fucking wagon big time. Was about to slide back into the one place he promised himself he wouldn’t go again. Yet as the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened, there was no denying this was exactly what he wanted.
“I have thirty minutes,” were the words that greeted him.
Derek walked off the elevator and over to the naked man waiting for him. He took the haughty chin between his thumb and forefinger and promised in a voice thick with arousal, “I only need ten. Take me to your room, Jordan. Time’s a wasting.”
PAST
“I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
Bout a home I'll never see.”
~ Superman
Five for Fighting
Chapter 1
Eleven Years Earlier
LIFE IN THE Pearson household was pretty standard week after week. That was the one sure thing that Derek relied on to survive, day in and day out. He knew his father’s routine as well as his own and made it a habit to give the fucker a wide berth whenever he could—less trouble for all of us in the long run that way.
Three nights a week, his dad worked the graveyard shift and dragged his sorry ass in just as the sun was rising. So each morning, Derek’s goal was to be out of the house and running his way up the long stretch of hard-packed sand by then. That way, when he finally finished his morning exercise his father would either be passed out drunk in his recliner or facedown in his bed.
Isn’t life grand,he thought, as he came to a stop at the back of their tiny, run-down home that morning, and looked up at the screen door. The bottom of the three stairs that led up to the patio was broken, and one side of it was wedged down into the sand, making it a hazard to anyone who wasn’t aware should they try climbing it. But that wasn’t really an issue, considering no one in their right mind would bother coming to visit the Pearson household. If anything, they steered clear of it—one of the perks of being the town’s pariahs.Well,hewasn’t so much because he kept his head down and his attitude in check…most days. His father and brother, however, were a different story.