Page 20 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

There were a lot of reasons to work the night shift—better pay, less conversation, lower profile—but if you sucked at sleeping like Dev did? Well, then it was a win-win. If he wasn’t getting shut-eye, he might as well be earning money, right?

And bonus, his physical job made him so tired that his body had at least a chance of unplugging from his mind.

Not today, motherfucker. Not today.

A ghost was walking around his studio, and as much as he tried to ignore her, she was the only thing he could see.

Then again, he took minimalistic decor to a frat boy level, so there wasn’t much distraction.

Thanks to his blackout drapes, he was able to get the shoebox nice and midnight no matter the hour, and that was usually the last brick in his REM wall.

The others were following his sleep hygiene ritual, and damn it, he’d done everything right after work had been called for those high winds: He’d taken his shower, thrown a frozen pizza in the oven, and avoided caffeine in all its forms—Cokes in the fridge, coffee ice cream in the freezer, Green Mountain pods by the Keurig.

Seven a.m. he’d been tucked in like a good little boy, and after that, he’d given the eyes-closed thing a shot.

And gotten fucking nowhere.

Maybe the problem was the early send-home that had cheated him out of another three to four hours of working out—

“Bullshit.”

That blonde was the problem. She’d danced around at the foot of his bed in that shimmering dress all fucking day long.

And because she somehow had his remote control in her goddamn little hand, he’d just laid there against his two pathetically flat pillows, with his arms crossed over his bare chest and the rest of his naked body under the mismatched covers, watching the hallucination like it was his favorite frickin’ TV show.

Tell me your mental health had punched out for the day without…

With a groan, he sat up and rubbed his hair. His eyes were sandy and his jaw cracked as he yawned on purpose, not because he had to. He also had a monster hard-on.

Quick glance at his phone: “Thank fuck.”

Five p.m. Finally. Some people waited for that hour to have a drink. Him? It meant he could get out of bed and move about the proverbial cabin.

Getting up, he went into the bathroom and tried to take care of business for the benefit of his bladder.

As he was sporting a two-by-four for a dumb handle, he had to brush his teeth and walk around, thinking of baseball—still not the season, but it did the trick—until things deflated enough to function.

Back out in the open, he went to his dresser and grabbed his insulated running tights and his nylon socks.

He didn’t bother with a shirt, just pulled on his windbreaker and a hat.

Brooks Glycerin 55s went on like gloves—and then he put his actual gloves on.

The last thing he did was grab his phone and his earbuds.

The text telling him there was no work again was front and center where he’d left it when it’d come in at three in the afternoon. Day shift foreman still couldn’t get all the interior electric to come on after that crane at the receiving deck had wiped out the transformer as well as the generator.

Fine, he’d just try and outrun that blonde on the icy pavement. Best-case scenario his route took him to Vermont and back. Worst case? He slipped, fell, and gave himself a concussion that put him in a coma.

At least he’d get some sleep that way.

As Dev stepped out into the hall and locked his door, a voice said, “I made you the dinner then.”

Closing his eyes, he flattened his lips. Then he forced a level tone. “Mrs. Aoun, I told you, I don’t need—”

He shut his mouth as he turned around to find his five-foot-tall, white-haired, aproned neighbor planted directly in his path with a tray full of food. No doubt her door had been propped open—because of course it had—and he was willing to bet she’d been lying in wait for him to come out.

A kindly spider who was determined to put weight on him.

“I have the shawarma, kibbeh, rice, and fattoush. You will eat. You are too thin.”

Bingo.

As she shoved forward that load of bowls that clearly had more than one serving in them, he put his palms up like there was a gun pointed at his chest. “Mrs. Aoun, you’ve got to stop this. You don’t need to worry about me—”

“I told you. My sons are dead and I have no grandchildren. God put me here so that I could feed you and He put you there so I would have someone to cook for. That is the way of it—now take.”

He accepted the calorie transfer because it was either that or he was very certain he would go to Hell as something worse than a murderous sociopath.

Oh, and there was another reason. The stuff smelled amazing.

“You bring the dishes back when they are empty. I will prepare you more.”

Mrs. Aoun nodded her head once, as if they had concluded a negotiation, and then she waddled like a penguin back to her own studio and slammed the door shut.

Dev looked down at the food, and as his stomach let out a roar, he retraced his steps, and wondered exactly when he’d turned into such a pussy.

Balancing everything as he put his thumbprint on the lock reader, he hipped things open and short-tripped over to his little counter.

His fridge was empty except for his Coke stash, some sauce packets, and the three beers he’d intended on polishing off after his run in lieu of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Oh, and there was a jar of cherries he still didn’t know why he’d bought a month ago.

And the coffee ice cream.

Round two with the exiting brought him immediately to the open stairwell and he jogged downward.

The smells of all kinds of different cooking collected in the too-warm air, his nose failing to distinguish any of the food groups.

On the first floor, he pushed through the glass door and passed by the wall of mailboxes, taking a deep breath of the cold preamble to the frigid outside.

Fine, Vermont was too far. His plan was to run across the nearest bridge and back.

Twice.

Putting his shoulder into the final door, he thought maybe he could do three times, given how much food he now had—

As things started to open, he knew before he even caught sight of what was waiting for him on the stoop… he just knew .

Dev stopped in the doorway and refused to acknowledge the flare that came alive in the center of his chest.

His blond ghost had become corporeal and was standing in the lee of the building entrance, just out of the wind.

No glimmering dress tonight. She was wearing blue jeans and sensible trail boots, and had a red woolen scarf linked around her neck.

Absently, he noted that her parka was a proper puffy one, its navy blue and gray contours dwarfing her body.

Good, he thought. She was warm.

“I’m not a stalker, I swear.” She put a hand out like she was a crosswalk guard trying to stop a truck. “Your address was entered into the panel on the robo-cab? And I really wanted to give this back.”

As she held out his construction jacket, her eyebrows were way high, as if she was the one surprised they were face to face even though, given her red cheeks and nose, she’d been waiting for him in the cold for a while.

Just take the coat , he told himself. Take the fucking coat, and tell her to fuck off and never bother you again.

“So here,” she said hoarsely, her eyes slanting away. “As you can see, I have one of my own.”

Dev watched her throat undulate as she clearly forced herself to swallow.

Meanwhile, the wind wafted around them, like a pair of arms urging them close. And even though she tucked her hair behind her ear, strands pulled free to create an aura of gold around her head.

What do you know. She might have found him forgettable the night before, but his memory was razor-sharp and had gotten it all right, the details of her lovely face and her mismatched eyes, her ripe lips and her tall body, spot fucking on.

“Is that why you came?” he heard himself say. “The coat.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”

“Really.”

When she just nodded, Dev took what she was offering him. Then he tossed it somewhere, anywhere.

Stepping into her, he put an arm around her waist and jerked her against him. As she gasped, he focused on her mouth.

“Bullshit,” he growled.

Reaching up with his free hand, he fanned his fingers through her hair and the wind sent it on a wild, swirling ride. Then he snaked a hold up on to her nape and tilted her off-balance.

As she gripped his windbreaker, she still wasn’t meeting his eyes.

But now it was because she was too busy looking at his lips like she was hungry.

Dev dropped his head, hovering his mouth right above her own. “Tell me something,” he ordered her.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Anything.”

The pause was live-wire electric, and damn it, he knew he was being stupid with this shit. He had to live a life without complications, and he didn’t need to fuck this blond to know that she was next-level complicated.

And yet he had to ask, just like he’d had to touch her… just like he had to kiss her:

“Do you like Lebanese food?”