Ash could get used to the feel of her, all pressed up against him. She was making a sexy noise in the back of her throat as he palmed one breast and watched her lose herself. He couldn’t get over how beautiful she was. Something about her warmed his blood to a fiery heat, and he was hard as a damn granite slab.

The house was quiet—his sister had probably been asleep for a few hours, and she always slept with her headphones and eye mask on, measures that helped her sleep while it was still light out.

No way they were getting caught.

Helena threw her head back when he dipped his mouth to her nipple again. He watched her as he sucked her nipple and ran his tongue around it. This wasn’t alcohol. He’d seen drunk girls before. This was different.

She was lost.

Ash kissed his way back up her body and took her mouth again. Her hands hadn’t left the waistband of his pants, and he was almost itching to get inside her.

“You’re sure you want this?” he asked, just in case the alcohol had worn off. The last thing he wanted was any question in his mind.

“I told you,” she said, breaking away from their kiss. “I have plans.”

“You do?” he said with a smile.

“You want to know what they are?”

Hot damn, she’s amazing. Those hooded, sexy-bright eyes. That certainty. She knew exactly what she wanted, and it was him.

“What if I said I wanted to know,” he panted.

She pressed her mouth to the naked flesh above his nipple, over his heart, and kept kissing down. “I would tell you… I have a whole list… of sexual positions… I want to try…”

Ash sucked in a breath as her lips feathered the skin above the waistband of his pants. “Shit, girl. You know how to dirty talk.”

“I Googled it,” she said innocently, staring up at him from her knees. God, she was so damn sexy. A strange, protective instinct reared up in him. He wanted always to see her like this. The girl who wanted what she wanted so much, she went looking for it.

“And what did Google tell you?” he asked, letting his leg have more of his weight, and then wincing when it became too much.

“Well, there were twelve on the list that looked worth attempting. But there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to try…” Her fingers pulled on his zipper. She turned him around so that his back was against the door. He could feel the tiny press of cold glass on one shoulder blade, and he realized that the lace curtains which usually hung over the little window weren’t closed like they should have been.

Shit. They weren’t even hanging there.

Helena had his jeans unzipped before he could do any more thinking, and her warm hand closed around his erection so solidly, he let out an audible sigh.

“Oh, fuck,” he panted. “Helena.”

She laughed, her eyes moving up to his in a seductive, hooded gaze. “I think you’ll like this one,” she purred out, passing her tongue over the tip of his dick and sending him almost into convulsions.

He was about to argue when she took him into her mouth, and then all he could do was lean back into the door, snapping his head a little painfully against the glass. But he didn’t care. Her mouth was warm and wet and pure heaven, and Ash’s hips bucked as she took all of him, using her hand as a guide.

The rhythm she set was faster than he would have preferred, but only because the faster she went, the faster it would all be over, and he wanted to savor her. He wanted more of her list. Soon, he’d be making lists of his own. The lights were all off on the porch and in the foyer, and the only illumination was the pale light cast by the nearly full moon. He couldn’t see as much of her as he wanted, but he didn’t dare turn the light on, in case someone walked by outside.

He didn’t want anyone other than him to see Helena like this.

She made this amazing noise while she sucked on him, and Ash ground out as much encouragement as he could muster given that all the bones in his body had suddenly turned to mush. Damn. She was good.

He hadn’t expected her to just drop to her knees and suck his dick like this. Then again, he hadn’t expected the lick of tattoos on her hips either. There was nothing he liked more than unexpected.

Ash felt the pool of tension in his abdomen and he looked down at Helena. She was so beautiful, and damn, her mouth on his dick was hot, but… he didn’t like this. He wanted to slow down. Spend some real time with her body. Not spill himself in her mouth after five minutes.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, she practically dropped her jaw and sucked him all the way into the back of her throat, and he stopped being able to breathe or think. She was milking the head of his cock down her throat, and that little groan she made undid him.

He slid his fingers into her hair, pulling the dark strands off her face so he could see into her eyes as he came, and as she drank him down. Fuck. Ash ground out her name again and again as he sagged against the door. A wave of warmth took him, washing him in a deep, hot emotion he’d never felt before. It overwhelmed him. Took his breath.

God, this woman.

Helena kept sucking on him while the last wave of his orgasm finished and he thought he might have to collapse. But when she pulled off him and stared up into his eyes, she finally smiled.

“Did I do that right?” she whispered, her hand still stroking him. “I read about that, y’know. About deep-throating. I’ve always wanted to try it.”

“Shit,” he panted. “You’ve never done that before?”

She shook her head, not letting up with her hand. “Did I do it wrong?”

“Holy fuck, Helena. You did not do it wrong. It was damn perfect.” He put his hand along the side of her face, stroking her hair. “I don’t think I’m gonna walk for a week.”

Her smile was back. He loved that smile. It made his chest feel warm and right.

“That’s not as much of a compliment as you think it is,” she said, running her fingers from his dick down to the top of his boot.

A rap on the window portion of the door startled him so much his heart felt like it hammered its way up into his throat. He turned, filling the little window with as much of his chest and shoulders as he could manage.

He heard Helena fumbling around for her shirt, and he pulled his pants and boxers up, looking straight in the eyes of Tyson Herrick. Ty had a big, shit-eating grin on his face, but at least he wasn’t looking at Helena.

“You finally get out of jail?” Ash said, nonplussed by his friend’s appearance. He noticed a few of the rest of the crew making their way up the dark stairs.

“Yeah, and no thanks for checking in on us.” Tyson’s grin disappeared. “No charges, by the way.”

“Eli told me they wouldn’t be pressing charges.” Ash looked down, trying to find Helena, but he couldn’t see her. He whispered toward the dark of the house, “Did you find your shirt?”

“I found yours,” she whispered back.

“That’s okay,” he said toward where it sounded like she was hiding. “I don’t need it. You wear it. Let me know when you’re decent. I think Tyson wants to come in.”

“Who’s Tyson?”

“Come on, man,” Ty called, tapping the window again. The doorknob turned. “Let us in. We can’t go back to the bar tonight.”

“It’s okay,” Helena said. “You can let them in.”

He could finally see her, curled against the shadowed door to the living room, wearing his gray Long Rock County Fire Department T-shirt and looking so damn sexy he was desperate to send his friends away.

“She said we can come in.” Tyson pushed through the door and Ash stepped back, coming over to Helena’s side and pulling her into his body as all his friends piled into the foyer where he’d just had the best blow job of his entire life.

It was weird.

“You heard that?” Helena said, the end of her sentence sounding a little strangled. He held her tighter, hoping it wouldn’t be too weird with his friends there.

Oh shit. They heard her talking. That meant...

Tyson’s grin got bigger and Ash gave him a hard look. The things he’d said to her… Those had been private.

“Let me in, jagweeds,” said an angry voice from behind the group. Finally, the last of his friends came in and closed the door behind him. JT Walker. Joe’s little brother. It was the magnificent seven. And Helena.

Dammit. He just wanted to be alone with her.

“Why are y’all over here?” Ash asked, rubbing Helena’s arm and feeling warmth roll through him.

“We’re all leaving in three days.” Tyson kept his hands out. “We gotta hang while we can, or we won’t see you for who-knows-how-long.”

“Well, I kinda have other plans.” Ash looked down at the girl beside him and, for the first time in a long time, felt the warmth of belonging. Whew. It was heady.

Part of him liked having Helena around the guys. It felt as if she belonged, as if they belonged. But a bigger part just wanted to keep Helena to himself.

“So I heard,” Tyson said, but someone punched him from the back of the group.

“Ass,” JT hissed.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Sullivan.

There were general murmurs of approval, but Tyson was enjoying this too much. He loved seeing Ash squirm. They were practically brothers, or Ash would have punched him in the face for insinuating that he’d heard Helena giving head.

“Do you have alcohol somewhere?” she asked, her voice more chipper than he would have expected. But he didn’t like the smile on her face. It was the same one she’d been wearing when she walked into Joe’s Bar earlier in the night. The one she’d pasted on for someone else’s benefit.

“Helena, you don’t have to.”

“There’s a liquor cabinet right around the corner,” Tyson said with a big smile. “In the living room.”

“You have any bourbon?” She looked up at Ash, and his heart constricted a little. Yes, she was hiding again, and he didn’t like it one bit. Not when she’d been so uninhibited with him a few minutes ago. He wanted that Helena back.

“Head on in and I’ll be there in a second,” he said, pushing her into the living room.

When she was gone, he stepped up to Tyson and looked at his friends each in turn. “Look, guys. I’m glad you’re out of jail. Let’s hang tomorrow night. Tonight… like I said… I have plans.”

The sound of the door opening shocked him, but that was undoubtedly JT. He knew, sometimes, you had to stop Tyson before he did something stupid. Like attempt to play grab-ass with a chick who knew about fifteen different martial arts.

Sullivan grabbed Tyson by the shoulder and made eye contact with Ash. “We didn’t know you’d have a girl here,” Sully said. “Or we would’ve left you to your…plans.”

“I didn’t even know,” Ash found himself saying, as his friends filed out of his foyer. He followed them out to the porch. “But you find a girl like this, you don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Yeah, we heard,” Tyson said with a smirk, and Ash found himself taking the swing before he knew what he was doing.

Fortunately, Ty dodged quick, and Ash basically whipped his fist through the air. All for the better. If he’d really hit his friend, there would have been some kind of scene. He just wanted to get back inside to Helena. But he really hated hearing anyone talk about her like that. Especially Tyson.

“Call us in the morning,” Sully said. They filed down the sidewalk, likely toward Joe’s Bar again, where their trucks must still have been parked. Ash waved, heading back through the door and locking it behind him.

He hated that Helena had done this amazing thing for him, and his friends…well, Ty…had made a mockery out of it. She really had given him the best head he’d ever had in his life—better than he’d thought possible. She would now be the face he saw behind his eyes whenever he thought about the best sex he’d ever had.

And they hadn’t even had sex yet.

But Ash already knew.

There was something special about this girl.