He still didn’t say anything.

I kept talking. “It was five and a half months after Auntie Reba died. We had been…” I hesitated, “it wasn’t good. She died sudden, unexpected. It seemed the clouds over our lives would never clear.”

Vance still stayed silent.

I went on. “Nick wanted to make the day special. The sixteenth birthday, for a girl, is important. He bought me a dozen pink roses, because they’re my favorites, and gave them to me in the car. Made me take them with me to the restaurant so people would know it was my day. He had them bring me a cake with sparklers on it.”

Somewhere along the line, while I was talking, Vance started stroking my back.

I relaxed deeper into him. “We had fun. It was the first time since Auntie Reba died that we forgot the hole she left for a couple of hours and enjoyed ourselves. We even laughed.”

Boo got tired of being petted, walked across my waist and settled in a kitty curl at the base of my spine.

“As a present, he gave me a diamond necklace made from Auntie Reba’s engagement ring.”

Vance stopped stroking my back, his arm went tight around me and he rolled to face me. This trapped my hand between us and his other hand went to rest on my hip.

There was a small window at the head of the bed and I could just barely make out the planes and angles of his face in the moonlight.

He still didn’t say anything but I could see he was looking at me.

“I’m sorry about the tequila,” I whispered, changing to a different subject.

Finally he spoke but quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You licked my lip,” I reminded him.

“You tasted of cherries,” he told me.

Oh right, Jet’s lip balm.

“I forgot.”

“Drinking is my problem, I won’t make it yours,” he told me, his deep voice was relaxed, even sleepy, but there was still that fierce undercurrent that he used when he was talking to Roam.

I didn’t say anything.

I waited, a few minutes passed and then I went on. “I can’t believe you shot Sal Cordova in the ass.” I couldn’t help myself, I thought it was funny even though I knew I shouldn’t.

I smiled at him in the moonlight.

“Seemed a good place to aim,” he told me and I felt my body go slightly stiff.

“You meant to shoot him in the ass?” I asked.

“He is an ass,” was Vance’s reply.

“That’s true,” I told him and then relaxed again.

I sighed and was silent for a few beats.

Then I said, “What did you mean when you told me you never expected to get the chance at something so sweet?” I whispered in a voice so low I thought maybe he wouldn’t hear it.

His hands slid along the silk of my nightgown, down over my bottom then I felt the fingers of one hand curl into the material. He pulled it up and then one of his arms went tight at my waist, the other hand skimmed over my bottom and pulled me deeper into him.

What he didn’t do was answer.

Or, maybe, that was his answer.

I held my breath through his movements, my belly fluttering but then his hand and arm went still.

“Vance? Did you hear me?” I said a little louder.

“I heard you.” That’s all he said.

“Um,” I started, knowing it was likely rude but finding courage in the dark and saying it all the same, “from what I hear, you’ve had a lot of sweet things.”

“No. I’ve had a lot of easy things.”

“I know a couple of girls you’ve –”

“None of them smelled of melons, tasted of cherries or ended up worth the effort,” he said bluntly.

I blinked at him in the dark. “Are you saying I’ll be worth the effort?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he responded immediately.

I blinked again, stunned and feeling weird, good weird, bad weird, scary weird, Rottweiler snarling weird.

“How do you know I’ll be worth the effort?”

“I know.”

“How?” I pushed.

“I just know.”

“How?” I didn’t let it go.

“You eat shit most your life, work, sweat and bleed for anything you could get the rest of it, you know sweet when you taste it.”

Oh my God.

I didn’t know what to say to that so I didn’t say anything at all and fell silent.

“You done talkin’?” he asked after a few minutes.

I nodded.

His hand at my waist slid up my back to my head. He tucked my face into his throat and he held me.

I laid there awhile.

Then when I thought he was asleep, I took my hand from where it was pressed against his chest and I wrapped it around his waist.

When I did this, his arms went tight, he yanked out my ponytail holder and my hair spilled over his hand. He ran his fingers through it then I felt him twirling a tendril somewhere in the area between my shoulder blades.

I guessed that meant he wasn’t asleep.

Whatever.

I closed my eyes and settled in.

He kept playing with my hair.

Before I knew it, before I even would have thought it possible, I fell asleep.

Chapter Ten

Mine

I woke up with a belly in the state of advanced fluttering. In fact I was pretty certain in the recesses of my deep sleep I’d already experienced some significant flutterings and thought they were a dream.

I knew by now with Vance’s relentless pursuit of me and all that had happened during that pursuit that what I was feeling was very, very turned on.

This had to do with the fact that Vance’s body was pressed close to my back.

It also had to do with the fact that Vance’s hardness was pressed against my bottom.

But, mostly, it had to do with the fact that Vance’s hand was at my breast and his thumb was stroking lightly back and forth across my nipple.

I moved slightly and so did Vance, pressing into me.

With his mouth at the back of my neck, he said, “Mornin’.”

At the same time his thumb stopped stroking, it was joined by his finger and they pressed together. Also at the same time his other hand slid into the front of my panties and went deep.

I felt a shockwave shoot from my nipple and detonate between my legs.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

He didn’t stop, both his hands worked me and I pushed back into his body, nestling my bottom into his crotch. I started breathing heavily, my still-sleepy mind completely muddled.

I tried to turn, to touch him but his arms tensed and he held me where I was.