Page 44 of The Devil's Playground

“When was that?” she repeats. “Somewhere around the time you started fucking me.”

“Are you mad?” I ask.

“Mad that my gorgeous date couldn’t keep his hands off of me?”

“Yes.”

Pausing on the other side of the street, Nicolette turns into me, bracing her hands on my chest. She tilts her head up. “Mad that you want me so bad that you couldn’t wait until after, that you just had to fuck me then?”

“When you put it like that, you better not be.”

She pats my chest. “I’m not. Surprised, maybe, but not mad.” Going up on her tiptoes, she strokes a lock of my hair. “You’d make an excellent Raoul.”

I give her a questioning look.

“I don’t know. The suit. The hair. The way you’re loaded, and you whisk me on these adventures even though I’m poor as fuck.”

Her voice is light, but a muscle tics in my jaw as she adds that part.

Money is a sore point between us. It’s not just the I’m her boss; I have more money than that, and that bothers Nic. She’ll accept dates and dinner, and even a new diamond nose ring that I bought after she playfully confessed hers was cubic zirconia. She told me that she understood that my love language was spoiling her with gifts, and if she rejected them, it was the same as rejecting me.

I’ll admit, I had no fucking idea what she was talking about, but after I dropped her off at her place that night, I parked my car around the corner and Googled the shit out of it.

There are a bunch of different love languages. Nicolette’s not wrong when she says that I show my affection by giving her everything I think she deserves. As for her, after doing my research, I decide that her love language is ‘words of affirmation’.

She needs to hear me to tell her how fucking amazing she is, and how much I’m into her. Once I started to do that, so much of her hesitation seemed to melt away over the last few weeks. Throw in her praise kink and how happy it makes her to watch some old musical with her, and it’s almost like I unlocked the secret to making Nicolette Williams want to be with me.

Now Nic accepts my gifts, and I give her my cock while rumbling that she’s my ‘good girl’, and we’ve settled in a rhythm that works. Which is why I don’t say anything about what she just said… unless she finishes her thought.

“If the Phantom’s the bad guy in the story, Raoul’s the good guy.” Nicolette presses a kisses to the underside of my jaw. “You’re the good guy to me.”

Me?

I’m a killer. Doesn’t matter that I never fired a gun—I’ve never had to. I’ve lost track of how many lives I’ve ended with a nod, or how many I disappeared after Link decided they were expendable, a threat, or just because he was in a shitty mood that day. For fuck’s sake, I run guns, allow Breeze to be sold openly at the club, and enable a very well-run prostitution ring.

I’ve manipulated her into a relationship that I will never, ever willingly end… I’ve stalked her and, though I pretend we don’t have a power imbalance, I’ve done everything I can to keep her… and I’m the good guy?

I don’t say anything to that. I can’t. If there’s one thing I can say, it’s that I won’t lie to Nicolette. I might not tell her the truth, either, but a flat-out falsehood? Nah. She’d never trust me if I did, and while I can justify a lot of shit I do, purposely deceiving her isn’t one of them.

Letting her come to the wrong conclusions, though… I can’t help that, can I?

I don’t know. But because she’s looking up at me with such adoration in her soft brown eyes, all I can do is say, “It’s chilly out and your legs must be freezing. Come on. Let’s go see if any of these restaurants have a table.”

We never make it that far.

Later, I’ll blame myself for being distracted by Nicolette. Growing up in the seedy underbelly of Springfield, if you’re not aware of what’s going on around you at all times, you’re dead. Just because we were in the suburban Riverside instead, that doesn’t mean that danger doesn’t lurk around every damn corner.

In this case, danger comes in the form of a dark-haired, pleasant-faced, hard-eyed bastard in a long duster, a pair of black jeans, and a smile that instantly makes me thinking about slugging him when he calls out to Nicolette from behind us and, immediately, she tenses.

I’m not afraid of this fucker.

Nic is.

It happens so quickly. One second, we were discussing whether we wanted seafood or Italian. The next, a male voice is hailing my Nicolette, calling her by her full first name to catch her attention. She didn’t turn around, though she did stop.

Me? I spun on my heel, getting my first look at him.

Whoever he is, he’s not familiar. I’ve never seen his face before, but when our eyes meet? It doesn’t matter that he’s not someone I’ve ever met. Like knows like, and whoever he is, he’s a dangerous bastard.

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