Taken by the Pirate Billionaire(8)

Pausing in the midst of pushing around hashbrowns on the plate, Renee glanced up again and frowned.

"Two hours? Maybe three?"

"Yeah. That's about what I got too."

Renee shifted in the hard plastic seat of their booth. Her body was sore  in areas that hadn't been sore in awhile. And she'd had to put on a  scarf to hide several marks he'd left behind. She looked like hell and  knew it.

She took a moment to glance at Lucy and really analyze her friend for a  moment. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun.  She'd skipped the contacts, and had worn her glasses. Add in the  sweatshirt and yoga pants, and she looked a little worse for wear too.

Giving up the pretense of trying to eat, Renee set down her fork. Since  arriving at the emergency, must meet breakfast, they'd ignored the  elephant in the room. Which would be anything pertaining to the party.

"So are we going to talk about it?" Renee asked, her voice low and  intimate, ensuring none of their neighbors at the neighborhood café  would hear.

Even though she didn't glance up from her plate, she could see Lucy's eyes widen.

"I don't even know if I can," Lucy whispered. "Renee...the things we saw-"

"Were crazy as shit. I know."

"Yeah they were. And," Lucy hesitated, and lifted her gaze, "kind of intense and sexy in a weird way, too. Am I nuts?"

"No." Renee lowered her gaze to her plate. "I'm feeling the same thing."

"Did you, um, participate?"

"With those groups? Oh hell no." Renee could feel her cheeks reddening.

"Me neither." Lucy ate a bite of food, chewing slowly. A moment later,  "I'm assuming you didn't find the brooch, or you'd have told me right  away."

"No, I didn't find the brooch. I didn't even get close to discovering if it even exists."

"Hmm. Did you figure out who Devon was? I was introduced to him shortly after we arrived."

"I figured it out, yeah." There was no doubt about it, she was definitely blushing now.

"Oh my God. The way you said that. The look on your face. What the hell  happened between you guys?" Lucy leaned forward and whispered, "Did you  get it on with him?"

Crap. She should've known she couldn't hide this sort of thing from her best friend.

"Kinda."

"Kinda? As in his penis kinda went in your vagina?"

"Yeah, that, um, pretty much was how it went down."

Lucy shook her head, her mouth agape. "So you went to steal from this guy, and instead ended up sleeping with him."

Renee pressed her lips together and nodded. She wrapped her hands around her steaming coffee.

"Oh wait, I get it. You must've slept with him before you realized he was Devon?"

That certainly would've been more logical. "No. I knew who he was by the  time we had sex. Though not when he did that feeling you up thing at  the door."

Lucy's fork paused midway to her mouth. "Wait. He did your prep?"

"Yeah. I stupidly thought he was just one of the bouncers for the first half of the party. Who did your prep?"

"Eric." Lucy's lashes dropped, hiding her gaze. "He was very insistent that no one else touch me."

"Interesting. Talk about a hell of a first date for you guys, huh? I  still think it's crazy as hell that you're dating one of the co-founders  of Overshare."

"And you're sleeping with the other one."

"This is weird."

"Totally." Lucy cleared her throat. "And on that note, why don't you  elaborate on the part where you slept with Devon. How? Why?"         

     



 

"How...well he must've been onto me the minute I arrived on his  doorstep, because he showed up at the door pretending to be a bouncer."

Something flickered in Lucy's gaze before she looked away quickly.

"But he let you in anyway," Lucy murmured, before Renee could ask what that look had been.

"Yes he let me in. Maybe to give me enough rope to hang myself with."

"And did you?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. He thought I was a reporter. He has no idea why I  was really there, and I slipped out when he fell asleep."

"Sounds like a solid move to me. Was the sex at least good?"

"Phenomenal."

"Wow. You've told me you've had good, even great sex, but I've never heard you use the word phenomenal."

"Because nothing has ever been like this," Renee said softly.

"Are you going to see him again?"

Wasn't that the question of the hour? She gave a small shrug. "I doubt  it. Pretty sure I left a bad impression in just about everything I did.  And even if I did see him, it would just be to try and find the brooch."

"I'm sure not everything you did left a bad impression." Lucy winked.  "Besides, if he's interested, you won't have to do a thing. He'll find  you first."

Renee gave a weak smile. Now why did the idea of that sound like more of a threat than a thrill...?



If she didn't look ready to hit the floor in a dead faint, Devon  might've smiled at the sheer shock on Renee's face as she opened her  front door.

Renee. He'd been relieved to learn it was actually her name. Though he  was struggling to merge the woman in front of him with the woman from  last night.

The woman from his party had been sex in stilettos, poured into a tight,  seductive outfit. She'd worn a face full of makeup, with her long brown  hair shiny and sleek.

The woman in front of him now wore jeans, a t-shirt with the image of a  dog wearing hipster glasses, was barefaced and had her hair pulled into a  high ponytail.

Surprisingly, he was just as attracted to the dressed down version of Renee, as the made up to the hilt one.

"May I come in?"

She gaped at him for a moment, before squeaking, "How'd you find me?"

He allowed a slight smile now. "I was hacking into secure government  websites while still in middle school, Renee. Finding out who you were  wasn't much of a challenge."

"Well." She gave a weak laugh. "Aren't you special."

"My mother certainly seems to thinks so." Seeing that Renee wasn't  acting quickly enough to his request to be invited inside, he simply  stepped past her into her apartment.

The inside of her place was well kept and decorated with black and white  photos of animals. Ones she took, or had purchased? Regardless, they  were pretty damn good.

"I wanted to congratulate you," he murmured, turning his attention back to her.

For a moment, her eyes rounded. "Congratulate me?"

"On your most accomplished disappearing act. I didn't even notice you leave last night."

"Oh." She glanced away, but her cheeks filled slightly with color. "I'm not really good at the afterwards bit."

"I would've helped you through it."

"Are you," she hesitated, "disappointed I left? Honestly, I figured I was doing you a favor."

"So many assumptions. Including the one where you assumed I'd forget that little bit where you crashed my party last night."

He watched her, but there was very little reaction now, only that he could nearly see the wheels turning in her brain.

"Guilty as charged. Which we talked about last night."

"Yes, but I'm not quite sure I believe your reasoning, sweetheart."

She took a few steps away from him. "Whether you do or not is  irrelevant. But as I said, I was just eager to try some stuff and heard  your parties were the place to do it."

"The fact that you heard about my party and managed to get all the way to my front porch shows that you didn't act alone."

This time she did react. Panic flickered in her gaze and her chest rose with the sharp breath she drew in.         

     



 

"Save your energy from giving me another lie. I know that Lucy was responsible for tipping you off."

The panic shifted to disbelief and fear. She shook her head. "We had breakfast together. She didn't say a word."

Not a surprise. Lucy had probably been too dazed by her own turn of  events last night. When Devon had realized it had been Eric's guest  who'd given Renee the information on the party, all it had took was a  few carefully chosen words. He knew his friend well enough to recognize  the quiet fury inside Eric, before he'd left promising to deal with his  date.

But the other couple couldn't hold his thoughts, right now he was more interested in the woman in front of him.

Devon closed the distance between them again, and caught Renee around  the waist. Her breath hitched and yet she didn't pull away. There was no  titillating perfume on her today, just the clean, soft scent of soap.

He was tempted to press a kiss to the wildly beating pulse in her neck  and see if she tasted as fresh and tempting as she smelled.

Catching her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he asked, "So are you still eager to ‘try some stuff', as you put it?"

The pulse in her neck quickened, and her pink tongue darted out to  moisten her lips. There was blatant indecision in her eyes. Clearly, the  urge to pull from his arms and run like hell. And then there was the  dilation of her pupils, the sensual awareness of him. He was most  intrigued by the flicker of calculation in her eyes.