Page 78 of Only the Devil

“What’s going on? You okay?”

Everybody wants to know if I’m okay.

But I really do not want to talk about it.

So I reach up and pull Jake’s mouth down to mine, and with my other hand, cup the seam of his jeans. He hardens beneath my probing fingers.

Yes, this is what I want.

“Daisy...”

I press my fingers to his lips.

“No talk.”

I push him back onto the sofa and straddle him, pulling at his shirt, wanting it off. All I want is to fuck. To not think. To get this icky feeling off my chest, away from my body, and these last few weeks with Jake have taught me one surefire way to forget everything but the physical.

I don’t miss the concern in Jake’s crinkled eyes, but I don’t want to see it, so I place my focus on the button and zipper. His large hands cover mine, stopping me, and I sit back on my calves, feeling like he just dumped a bucket of ice over me.

“What? You don’t want to?”

“Of course I want to.”

He brushes his thumb along my stomach, sliding my bra aside to tweak my nipple.

“I always want you,” he repeats softly. “But something’s going on, baby. If you need to use my body, fine by me—trust me, I’m game—but I feel like you’re hurting.”

My fingers wrap around his wrist, and there’s something about the messy intimacy, his pants half done, the tip of his erection peeking out of the band of his briefs, his hand on my half-exposed breast, and him slowing me down to check on me that has my eyes burning.

I’m not a crier. I don’t cry. I just don’t. Yet here I am, blinking back tears that shouldn’t even exist. What the hell is going on in my brain?

“I’m just in a funk,” I say, huffing out an exhale and immediately breathing in to try to stop the out-of-place, illogical tears.

Just fuck me is on the tip of my tongue, but I hold it back because I know if I utter those words a watershed of tears is going to follow.

“Hey,” he says in a deep, comforting rumble. He pulls me in against his chest, tucking my head against his shoulder. “Come here, baby.”

“You don’t want to fuck me.” Jesus, I sound like such a whiner.

His chest shakes hard twice, and his lips press to my forehead and he pulls me back so he’s stretched out on the sofa and I’m in his arms, pulled into his side.

“Like I said, I always want you, but you’re on the verge of tears. And if I’m right about why, making love isn’t really going to make it better.”

Making love. Did he have to use those words? What a subliminal scold for my choice of words.

I twirl the golden chest hairs mixed with caramel brown scattered across his broad, muscular chest.

“This isn’t really what they’re paying you for, is it? Comforting me when I’m having some kind of breakdown.”

“Darlin’, I’ve seen breakdowns, and this isn’t one. But let’s see, where to start.” His chest vibrates beneath my fingers when he speaks, and I like the sensation, the warmth emanating from his body. “Whether it’s a breakdown or just a bad day—this is where I’d want to be, and not because anyone is paying me.”

His fingers glide back and forth across my arm, ever so slowly. Maybe that’s the difference between us. For him, intimacy is connection. For me, sex is escape. Love asks for honesty, and right now, that feels terrifying.

“You got that?”

“I suppose.”

“Hey.”