Page 10 of The Devil's Playground

ROYCE

Itried to stay away tonight.

I really did. It hit me last week, when I was sitting in my car, watching Nicolette’s house from just down the street, hoping for a sliver to appear in her dark windows… it hit me that I can’t keep doing this.

I’m obsessed with a woman I can’t have. It’s as simple as that. I think about her constantly. I fantasize over her more than that, and it’s fucking sick. Since I offered her the waitressing job at the Playground, I haven’t said more than two words to her. For fuck’s sake, she’s off-limits as one of my employees.

Three months now, I’ve convinced myself that I was only watching over her because I sensed she needed it. That she was in trouble. But what if I’m the trouble that she can’t escape?

No. I told myself that I needed to stop. If she really is in danger, she’s affiliated with the Sinners now. Even if I’m not the one to protect her, we have at least a hundred soldiers in Springfield who are loyal to the organization. That’s not even counting the inner circle. Nicolette might now have Link’s mark on her—only full-fledged members of the syndicate get the devil horns and tail—but by working at our club, she’s one of ours.

Untouchable to anyone in town who might want to hurt her, definitely, but even more off-limits to me.

I know better. Considering how much trouble a McIntyre has gotten into for obsessing over the wrong woman… I know better. And, sure, it took me a few months to accept that I needed to give up on torturing myself by watching her, getting close enough that I can catch a whiff of her perfume before slipping past her as she waits tables. Spending hours at a time in my car, imagining what she could be doing in that house of hers alone… because, damn it, she better be alone—and the jealousy that washes over me when I think about another man touching her was the nail in the coffin for me.

I had to back off. Before I fucked up and did something I’d regret, I needed to leave her alone.

That lasted six fucking days. Six fucking days of blue balls, of snapping at All-Thumbs and Banks when I needed to mediate some stupid fucking argument the soldiers was having, of going home alone because it was too damn tempting to pick up a date—and the one time I tried, my stomach twisted so tightly because she was Nicolette fucking Williams that I thought I was going to hurl.

The nausea only disappeared when I slipped into my apartment, stripped off my clothes, pulled up a candid shot I took of Nicolette smiling at some no-name wallet, and jerked my cock until I was shooting my load down the drain. With one hand braced against the glass shower stall, the other gripping my erection tightly, I knew I was in even more trouble when I realized that some innocent blonde who existed so far out of my reach isn’t just the reason I’ve gotten hard these last three months.

Fuck. She’s the reason I come. The reason I got any release, any pleasure, and relief at all from the weight of my shoulders. Being the underboss is my job, it’s my life, and that was the only thing that mattered to me… until her.

I still don’t know why I fixated on this one woman. Honestly? I don’t want to know why. The logical side of my brain says it has to do with watching Link and Ava. Deep down, I want a love like that. A love that defies reason and rationality, that can survive a fifteen-year separation and still have the two of them utterly devoted to each other now.

My whole life, I’ve equated success with money and power. I still do. But now? I want what Link has. I want a woman who will put up with all the bullshit that comes with being in the life, know exactly what kind of man I am, and still willingly sleep next to a man who spent the evening cleaning up a murder scene.

Is that Nicolette Williams? I don’t know. But so long as she’s my employee, I’m not going to find out.

So I decided to go cold turkey. And, like I said, that lasted about six damn days—and when I do see her again, it’s not even my fault.

It’s Link’s. Well, no—it’s more complicated than that, but because I don’t want to think about that until I’m sitting across from my boss and I’m forced to, I blame Link.

And I do it with a crooked smile.

It isn’t often that I get a summons to the Playground. Considering how often I spend my evenings at our club—and, if not our club, than the Sinners property attached to it—he doesn’t have to call me over. I’m usually here. It’s Link who only comes to make an appearance, to keep his men, customers, and girls in line.

Since his marriage to Ava Monroe, Link has better things to do than sip his drink while casting a dark eye over his domain. Of course. If I had a wife like that… I wouldn’t be wasting my time here, either. There are still a thousand other things that take up his time—as the mafia leader, he’s even busier than I am—but when he could go home to Ava or sit down and have a drink with me?

I’m his trusted second. His closest friend. No fucking way he wants to sit in the booth that’s considered ‘his’, looking at my mug if he doesn’t have to.

I wish I could pretend I didn’t know what this was about. Unfortunately, I’m as on top of what goes on on our turf as Link in; more, really, since it’s my job to bring any issues to him. So when I got the call earlier that he wanted to talk to me about something personal, I had a clue what was going on. And though I knew that Nicolette was working at the Playground tonight so my odds of going seven days without seeing her in the flesh aren’t ones I’d play, I find myself maneuvering through the throng of customers toward Link’s shadowed corner.

He’s already seated on one side, an untouched shot in front of him. When he sees me, he nods, and I notice he has another one waiting for me.

Oh. One of those kinds of talks.

“Hey, boss. How are ya? How’s Ava?”

Link leans back in his seat, arm stretched out over the back of the booth. A self-satisfied smile tugs on his lips as he says, “Fucking glowing. Carrying my kid looks good on my wife.”

He’s not wrong. Ava is pretty in that ‘girl next door’ way, but though she’ll complain about her swollen ankles and the way her belly is sticking out now that she’s firmly in her second trimester, she wears her pregnancy well.

Plus, with her knocked up, Link is in an infinitely better mood these days. Part of that has something to do with the ring on her finger—and his name tattooed around her knuckle beneath the wedding band—but, more than that, the devil of Springfield just needed to get laid regularly to put a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Hey. I tried to get him to fuck off some of his aggression. He never took a mistress, though not for a lack of trying on my part, and now that I see him with Ava, I finally understand why.

For Link, it wasn’t about getting off. It wasn’t about chasing a quick nut, or finding release in a willing woman’s body for the night. It was that connection he had with his childhood sweetheart, and if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want anyone else.

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