Falling into the Horror Boss's Lap novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Door

Billie shames Dalton in front of his men, then climbs into Donovan's lap on purpose and kisses him until he says, ask me tomorrow.

Donovan drove me himself, and he did not say a word until we reached my street.

"Noreen stays with the car," he said. "I go up with you."

"You don't have to."

"I know."

My building was a four-floor walk-up in Canton, and my door hung open on its broken frame.

The light in my little hall was on.

I could hear men talking in my living room, and a drawer being pulled out and dumped.

I walked in first, because it was my apartment.

Dalton stood in the middle of my rug in his tuxedo, with his skull mask shoved into his hair.

Two men in dark jackets were pulling books off my shelves.

My father's cardboard boxes had been slit open and emptied onto the couch.

My easel lay on its side, with a half-finished painting of the pier stamped under somebody's boot.

"There she is," Dalton said, smiling.

"Where's the ring, babe?"

"In your father's champagne."

"Okay. Cute." He stepped over a pile of canvases. "Here's the deal. Your dad had something he wasn't supposed to have. A tape, a book, I don't care. Hand it over and we all go home."

I looked at the two men.

One was young and nervous and kept glancing at the door behind me.

"What did you tell them it was?" I asked.

"Don't do that," Dalton said.

"Because you didn't tell them the truth." I raised my voice, so the one by the shelf could hear every word. "Ask him who gets the pier after I fall. Is that what you get paid to carry boxes for?"

The nervous one stopped with a book half out of his hand.

"Shut up, Billie," Dalton said.

"He's going to marry me and bury me. You two are the ones holding his coat."

"She's lying," Dalton said, too fast.

The nervous man looked at the other.

The other man looked past my shoulder and went gray.

Donovan Stroud stood in my broken doorway with his hands in his pockets.

He had not touched anyone, or raised his voice, or even stepped inside.

He just stood there, taking up most of the frame, with every light in the hall shining on his face.

"Go home," he told the two men, quietly.

They went.

They went straight past Dalton without looking at him, and the stairwell swallowed them.

Dalton's smile fell to pieces.

I crossed the room, picked a pint jar of black acrylic off the floor, and unscrewed the lid.

"Billie," he said. "Don't."

I poured it down the front of his tuxedo.

It took a long time, and it made a very satisfying sound.

"You can keep the tux," I said. "Tell your father he's got a stain."

Dalton opened his mouth and found nothing to put in it.

Then he looked at Donovan, and walked out wide around him with black paint dripping off his hem.

I stood in the wreck of my living room, breathing hard.

Behind the couch, in the corner they had missed, my father's old green shoebox of cassette tapes sat exactly where I had left it.

I picked it up and held it against my chest.

I didn't remember crossing the stairs.

I remember the car, the back seat, the door shutting, and Donovan sliding in beside me while Noreen started the engine.

My hands were still shaking.

Donovan reached over and took the shoebox out of them, and set it on the floor.

Then I climbed into his lap.

I did it on purpose this time.

I swung a knee on either side of his thighs and put both hands on his face.

His skin was warm, and he went absolutely still under my palms.

"You didn't throw me off the first time," I said.

"No."

"You were warm."

"Yes."

I kissed him.

I kissed him hard, with paint on my fingers, and for one second he didn't move at all.

Then his hand came up into my hair and held my head, and he took over.

His kiss was slow, fierce, and deep with years of pent-up patience.

His mouth was slow and deep, and he tasted like cedar and black coffee.

His other hand slid down my back and pulled me flat against him, and I felt exactly how much of him was not still.

I made a sound I didn't recognize.

He answered it with a low sound of his own, against my throat.

My cardigan slipped off one shoulder.

His mouth found my collarbone, and I rocked down against him, shameless, and his breath went out of him in a hard rush.

"Billie," he said, rough, and it was the first time he had said my name.

"Say it again."

He lifted his head.

His eyes were black in the dark, and his thumb came up and pressed against my lower lip.

"Not on adrenaline," he said. "Ask me tomorrow."

"I'm asking now."

"Ask me tomorrow, and I'll say yes."

The thumb stayed on my mouth, and neither of us moved.

In the front seat, Noreen cleared her throat.

"Donovan," she said, in a different voice. "That was the house. There are two police cruisers at the gate."

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