Live For Me (Blurred Lines #2)(17)
Author: Erin McCarthy

What I didn’t trust was my ability to be normal around him.

I’d already almost cried and he’d felt the need to comfort me. What next? Would he see that I was attracted to him? Probably. Men like that knew. They could smell interest and use it to their advantage.

“Why am I here though, if there are cameras?” I asked. “Just to keep you in doughnuts?”

He smiled, standing very, very close to me, but not touching me. “You must think I’m such an arrogant ass. And in some ways you’d be right. But no, that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because there is over a million dollars worth of shit in this house and the insurance company won’t cover it against theft, fire, flooding, unless someone is in residence. So you’re here to make sure the art and furniture I don’t even like don’t go up in flames or drown under a burst pipe.”

That would have never even occurred to me. A shiver rolled over my skin. I glanced around, as if I could see dollar bills bursting out of the sofa cushions. I hadn’t realized I was responsible for protecting so much.

“Oh.”

“You didn’t know?”

I shook my head.

“My assistant is usually more informative, so you take your duties seriously. On the other hand, Hattie likes to think she needs to keep all of my secrets.” He raised his eyebrows up and down in mockery.

I remembered her comment about Devin not liking to come to the house, but no explanation as to why. “What secrets?”

“What are my secrets. Hmm. I hate the color yellow.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “You don’t want to dig around in my secrets and regrets. Boring.”

“But why don’t you like this house?” I asked again. If he hated it, why didn’t he sell it?

For a minute he didn’t answer and I thought he was either going to ignore the question or give me some sarcastic and flippant response. He was close enough to me that I could smell his light cologne, or maybe it was just his deodorant. See his bare skin, that golden chest, like the color of a roasted marshmallow, close enough I could reach out and touch it. I wondered what his body would feel like. All those muscles. All that hardness. My experience with guys was limited to a few skinny high school boys who had wanted to cram their fingers down my jeans while trying to inhale my mouth with vacuum lips.

They had been boys.

Devin was a man.

It intrigued me and terrified me at the same time. I wouldn’t know what to do with him. It would overwhelm me. But that didn’t stop me from craving him.

As I studied him, my chest rose up and down faster and my lips parted without me realizing it. But he noticed. His gaze dropped down, swept over me, and my ni**les hardened under his scrutiny. When he spoke, his tone was completely different. Not joking, teasing, mocking. But serious. Sincere.

“I never wanted this house. I wanted a smaller one. More like a cottage, a cozy place to escape to. But my ex-wife wanted this one because it’s good for entertaining. What I didn’t realize was that by entertaining she meant having sex with an aging rock star while I was in New York.”

I winced, involuntarily. “I’m sorry.”

“You are, aren’t you?” he asked, puzzled.

His bewilderment puzzled me in return. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m sure it hurt you.”

But he shook his head. “Most people take some small bit of satisfaction in knowing it happened to someone other than them. They feel smug.”

Was that the world he lived in? I suppose it was the world I’d grown up in as well. How many foster siblings had I encountered who were grateful when I arrived and could take the heat off of them? But I still believed there were good people and I still believed in honesty and loyalty.

“I don’t feel smug,” I said truthfully. “I feel sad that someone would take the vow of marriage and then just screw anyone who showed interest in her. If someone loved me enough to want to marry me, I would be loyal to him. Day in, day out. I would live for him.”

Devin reached out and touched my chin, cupping it with his hand, thumb stroking over my skin. I shivered. “And he would be a very lucky man, Tiffany.”

For an agonizing second, as his amber eyes studied me, I thought he was going to kiss me. I felt the air shift, felt his body lean towards mine, felt my breathing slow and my eyelids drift lower.

But then he stepped back and the moment was over. “Wait here,” he said roughly. “I’ll get that shirt.”

Chapter Six

Devin threw the stick for Amelia and we watched her bound after it. It was freezing outside, the wind sharp and biting. But it was what I was used to. “I wonder what it’s like in Florida,” I mused. “Is it like August here?”

“You’ve never been to Florida?” He was wearing a thick navy-blue coat, a knit hat on his head. I had no experience with wealth or luxury, but it was obvious everything he owned was expensive and well made. The stitching on the cuffs of his coat was straight, the hat free of fuzz.

I shook my head. “I’ve never been outside of Maine. Never outside of this area, actually.”

“Really?” The thought seemed to horrify him. “No wonder you’re so… untouched.”

“It doesn’t make me ignorant,” I said defensively, cramming my hands in the pockets of my cheap thrift shop puffer coat. “I’m educated. And I can research anything on the Internet so it’s not like I live in isolation.” Except I did. Emotional and physical isolation.

“And do you always believe what you read on the Internet?”

“About the same way I believe what people say- after I’ve cross referenced it.”

He laughed. “I actually meant it as a compliment. You’re not… I don’t know. Harsh.”

“My grandmother would tell you otherwise. She told me just about every day what a mean ass bitch I am.”

“Well, she must have deserved it then.” Devin bent down and rubbed Amelia’s head as she brought him back the stick. “Because I don’t see anything bitchy about you at all. How do you see yourself?”

How could I describe myself to Devin? What was the truth? I knew myself, having spent the majority of my life in that isolation. No siblings, no parents, no family. Just me. I thought that despite the fact that I’d drawn a bit of a shit card I was playing the game pretty damn well. Being alone had taught me what was important, and that while I might not have money or a family, I had my intelligence, my belief system. No one else had to honor that code of values. But I did.