He set the bottle down and slanted her a glance. “I used to.” He exhaled. “I don’t want to, now.”
Lacey covered his hand with hers, the long, strong fingers so beautiful to her that they made her want to weep. “Don’t,” she whispered. “See me as me.”
Dev curled his fingers around hers. “You want to go?”
Lacey nodded. “If you do.” Her heart skipped, thinking of what might happen next.
Then Dev drew to attention, as if scenting the wind. The band had begun the first few notes of a slow song. He turned back to her. “We can’t leave yet. This is my favorite song in the whole wide world.” He drew her onto the dance floor again, and into his arms.
Then Lacey recognized it, and whatever was left of her heart tumbled at Dev’s feet. “My Girl,” the song by the Temptations that had made millions of women swoon.
Lacey swayed in Dev’s arms, held close and safe as he moved them gracefully across the floor, humming the words in her ear. Her throat filled with something that felt a lot like tears.
They should have been dancing to this song for the last nineteen years. They should have been making love and having babies and holding each other in the night.
Lacey burrowed into Dev’s chest and wanted to weep for all the lost years, for all that had been taken from them on that dark, terrible night. She should have stood up for him, should have seen the man he would become. If she had, maybe he would never have been forced into that fateful decision, but she knew now that whatever his reason, she would give him a fair audience because she had played a part in all of it. If she had been honest with her father and not sneaked around with Dev, perhaps her parents would have accepted him. Perhaps they could have—
“Shh,” Dev murmured, his voice smoky and low. With his fingers, he dried her tears. “Don’t think about the past, Lacey.” It was as if he had read her thoughts. “Think about now…tonight.” He lowered his head. “Think about this.”
Then Dev covered her mouth with a kiss of such poignant sweetness that her heart felt as though it would explode from the press of all she wanted to say to him.
He pulled back slightly. “This is our song now. And tonight is our night.” He brushed her lips with his thumb. “Let me take you home, Lacey. Let me love you tonight. Whatever else happens, we deserve this much.”
In his voice she heard a note of foreboding, and she wanted to tell him that nothing outside them would ever matter again. She would not let it.
But his eyes pleaded for a ceasefire from the past. So Lacey merely nodded, lifting to her tiptoes and giving him back a soft kiss. “Please, Dev. Take me home. I want the night we should have had.”
She saw a shiver ripple up his spine and felt a rush of gratitude that she could affect him so deeply.
Tonight is ours, Dev. But I want more.
But it was too soon to say such a thing, so Lacey merely smiled and rested her head against his chest.
Dev pulled her tightly under his arm and headed for the car.
The ride to her townhouse was silent, but the silence was charged with layers of emotion: the low hum of intense desire, the yearning after so many years lost, the newly-discovered comfort of each other’s presence. Dev held Lacey’s hand the entire way, keenly aware that—even after what she’d done to him back then—he never wanted to let her go. He’d been kidding himself to think he didn’t still love her.
Please. Make this enough to shield her from hurt. Don’t let me be part of the pain. Let me be her comfort, not her tormentor.
He didn’t want to screw up the revelation of her true identity. He wanted to manage it so perfectly that she could see the richness of having two families to love her. In addition to Lacey’s parents’ devotion, Maddie had enough love in her for the whole world. Mitch and Boone would give her strength.
But at heart Dev wanted to steal Lacey away from all of this, to keep her for himself, to be her guardian from all harm.
You’re an ice-cold witch, he told Fate. After all these years, after I thought I’d gotten over her, tried to forget that she even existed, you bring her back into my life and you make me the instrument of the biggest shock she’ll ever have to weather.
Damn you, Dev thought. Fate had pulled another fast one on Devlin Marlowe. But it was the gentle creature beside him who would bear the brunt if he didn’t do this right.
He pulled into Lacey’s drive and shut off the car, at war with himself over whether or not to say it now, to get it over with.
Lacey snatched the decision from him, sliding across the seat and wrapping her arms around his neck. Her silvery eyes glowed in the moonlight. “Thank you, Dev,” she whispered. “This is the best night of my entire life.”