She made a whimpering sound where she was buried into the center of my chest and I felt her fingers curl into the base of my spine right above my ass.

“Have you ever told her that?”

I blinked a little as she pulled back and smoothed a hand over her long hair.

“No. But I’ve apologized to her more times than I can count.”

Her long lashes dipped down over her gaze as she stepped all the way out of my embrace. “When she comes to town next week, tell her that, Asa. Apologizing for what happened or what might happen is a waste of an opportunity to tell her that you like who you are for her now. That’s the moment you need to focus on with her.”

We stared at each other for a long, intense moment until she reached up and put a hand on each of my cheeks and pulled me down for a smacking kiss. “Now take me home and take me to bed.”

Thank fuck. That was something I could do without all the introspection and soul-scraping thought.

I kissed her back and put her hastily in the Nova so we could race back to her apartment on Capitol Hill. When I parked in front of the Victorian, it was a stroke to my ego that she seemed just as eager to get through the front door as I did. She threw her purse absently on the small table by the door and her keys hit the floor with a clatter as I shut the door behind us. She turned around to face me and I felt every predatory instinct I still harbored claw at me to pounce on her to make her submit and give me everything I wanted. I started to prowl toward her, and whatever she saw on my face must have startled her because she took a stumbling step back. Finally she was getting smart and running away from me. Too bad she had nowhere to go and was now trapped in a room with my raging desire and the raw, unsatisfied edge she had sharpened with her little game at the warehouse.

“I might not be able to pick out a whole lot of things that I like about myself, but I sure can pick out about a thousand things I like about you, Red.”

She kept backing up as I stalked toward her, her dark eyes wide in her face as her tongue darted out to slick across her bottom lip. “Is that so?”

I nodded and kept advancing on her until the back of her thighs hit the side of her couch that took up most of the available space in her living room. It brought her retreat to a sudden halt and allowed me to trap her between my hips and the arm of the couch as I caged her in.

“Yep. I like that you won’t sway your thoughts on right and wrong. I like that you stand your ground and call me on my stupid shit.” As I talked to her I snaked my hands down the outsides of her toned thighs until I got to the hem of her skirt where it hit her knees. I heard her suck in a breath as I started to work the fabric up her legs, making sure to drag my fingertips across every smooth inch of her skin that I could reach. “I like that you have no problem watching girls take off their clothes and dance around. I like that you have a penchant for putting your hands down my pants in public.” I grunted in surprise when my hands got high enough to grab ahold of the sweet curve of her ass. I was a little surprised that a whole lot of naked skin was what greeted me, but then I remembered that she had shown up at my place in the middle of the night in nothing but a trench coat, and a grin of appreciation pulled at my mouth. “I really like that you seem to detest underwear and that I now know the next time we go on a date I should be the one putting my hands in your pants.”

Her eyebrows shot up high and she didn’t say anything as she started to work the buttons loose on my shirt. Her eyes were locked on mine and I could tell she was weighing the validity of everything I was saying to her, so I made sure to be as blunt and honest as possible. I squeezed the firm flesh of her backside and put a knee between her legs once I had her skirt all the way up around her waist so that she was naked and exposed where our hips pressed together.

“I like that even though I almost made you cry, you still let me come home with you. I like that you obviously want for me to be better than I am but you’re willing to settle for what’s right in front of you. And I really, really like that even though we both know you deserve so much better, I’m the one you want.”

She flattened her hands on my chest after she had worked all the buttons loose on the front and smoothed her hands up across my pecs, taking the fabric with her. I shrugged it off and reached a hand up under her fancy top so that I could wrap a palm around the heavy weight of her breast. Her nipple immediately puckered and stabbed into my palm as her eyelids drooped a little and she whispered, “I do want you. This you, Asa, not a better you. Only you.”

I brushed my thumb back and forth over the turgid peak, pressing hard into my hands until she was grinding her center against the thigh that was pressed high between her legs and she was bending backward trying to get closer.

I leaned closer to her so that I could kiss her throat where the elegant line was bowed in pleasure. Her hands curled around my biceps to keep herself upright while I nibbled and sucked a tantalizing trail all the way up to her ear. Once I reached it, I traced the tender shell with the tip of my tongue and told her, “And I more than like that you’re going to let me turn you around and fuck you against this couch.”

She gasped just a little and tried to put a little space between us, but her hands tightened reflexively on my skin and I could feel her heartbeat skip under my still-questing lips. I captured the nipple I was still playing with between my fingers and gave it a tweak that was just on the edge of too hard and her mouth fell into a surprised O.

“Remember, you were the one that told me some games are always better with two people.” I felt like I should remind her that she started this with her clever hands in the burlesque club.

I think she could feel all the coiled readiness I was harboring because she simply let out a long breath and reached for my belt. She made short work of it and of my zipper, her touch light as her fingers brushed against the rigid erection she released. The chocolate in her eyes was all melted and warm when she told me, “There is no one else, Asa.”

I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement but either way the answer was no. There wasn’t anyone else in my bed and there wasn’t anyone else that could chase the dark away and cut some of those iron ties to the past so I was light enough to move toward her. “There is no one else, Royal.”

She smiled at me and again I felt something inside me break and then fuse together in a better way. “Good, because that means we don’t need to use protection.”

She turned around, wiggled herself out of her clingy shirt so that she was in front of me in nothing but her bunched-up skirt and miles of mahogany hair cascading down her back. For a split second I wondered if I had died again and this was what my heaven looked like. I reached out a hand to move her long curtain of hair aside so that I could sweep my hand down the flawless curve of her spine. I stepped closer so that I could kiss the back of her neck, which made her mewl softly and rub her naked backside against my throbbing cock. There was no more talking after that. There was no more trying to convince her of anything because she knew I wanted her and she wanted me, too. The time for any kind of games was long over.