Ryan had a shit-eating grin on his face. I knew something was up; I just didn’t know what. Then Wren pulled back the curtain, and I felt like all my hopes and dreams had just been delivered to me on a silver platter. There was no way I was letting her get out of there unless she took me with her. I knew that immediately.

I was planning on going straight to her apartment when I left the shop. I needed to work this thing out between us. I couldn’t just leave it hanging.

And, man…when she told me that she didn’t take that pill, my love for her grew even bigger. It’s not because she didn’t take the pill. It’s because she wanted to talk to me about taking the pill. That’s what I want, the give and take of a respectful relationship. I imagine that if she’ll pull, I’ll push, and if she pushes, I’ll pull, but as long as we meet in the middle, we should be all right.

She holds my hand on the short walk to her apartment. She doesn’t say a word; she just looks up at me every so often and her cheeks go rosy.

I tug on her hand. “What are you thinking about?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing, really.”

I laugh and tug her hand again. “Yes, you are. What is it?”

“I was thinking about that one time…” She stops and shakes her head again.

“That one time, what?”

“Stop. Nothing.” She lays her hands on her cheeks and looks away.

I lean close to her ear. “You’re thinking about the time we fucked.” I hold up my hands when she glares at me. “It’s okay. I was thinking about it too.”

“You were?” She blinks her pretty eyes at me.

“I think about it all the time. Every minute, it seems like.” I reach down and adjust my junk, because just talking about it is getting me hard. “Can we finish this conversation when we get to your apartment?”

She nods. “I was just thinking…it was amazing.”

Oh, God. “It was.” I clear my throat, because I suddenly feel like I can’t speak without a growl in my voice.

“I was thinking maybe we should do that again, and go a little slower this time.” She licks her lips and looks down toward my zipper.

“Do you think that we should…maybe…talk a little? First?” I ask. I just said that to be nice. It’s the last thing I want to do right now.

“We could. If you want to.” She gives me a side eye.

A grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “Or we could wait…to talk.”

Her grin grows huge. “We could. If you want to.”

“The last time didn’t last very long,” I admit. No man wants to be quick in the sack, but I felt like I’d been waiting for her my whole life.

“We could go a little slower the next time.” She swings our clasped hands between us. “You know. To see what it’s like.” Suddenly she gasps, stops walking, and stares up at me. “What if it’s terrible?” Her eyes twinkle with merriment.

“Not possible,” I say quickly.

“But what if it is? What if it’s awkward?”

“You mean more awkward than this conversation?”

“There are a lot of things more awkward than this conversation.” She rolls her eyes. We stand outside of her apartment building. As we walk inside, Marcus looks toward the sofa in the seating area. His eyes dart back and forth. I see someone stand up from the sofa.

“Wren,” he says as he stands up and jams his hands in his pockets.

“Shane,” she says. This time, instead of pushing me away, she slides beneath my arm and wraps her arm around my waist. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping we could talk.”

“About what?” she asks, her voice innocent, but she’s stiff as a board pressed against me.

“I saw the tabloids, and I thought…I thought maybe we should talk.”

“About what?” she asks again. She holds the back of my shirt tightly in her fist.

“Can we talk alone?” he asks. His eyes jump from me to her and back.

She looks up at me. “What do you think?”

I think, fuck no, he can’t talk to my girlfriend. “Do you want to talk to him?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I don’t really see a reason to. Do you?”

I kiss her forehead, a warmth spreading through me that I didn’t expect.

She turns back to Shane. “This is my boyfriend, Mick. Mick, this is Shane.”

I extend my hand, even though it’s the last thing I want to do.

“I made a mistake,” Shane suddenly blurts out.

She clutches my shirt even tighter. “What do you mean?”

“Kathy. She was a mistake.”

“Then you should set her free,” Wren rushes to say. “Does she know you’re here?”

“Of course not.”

“Set her free, Shane.” She heaves a sigh. “She deserves better than this.”

I agree. Even if she did cheat with Wren’s boyfriend, the mystery woman deserves better than this.

“She deserves someone who loves her,” Wren says. She looks up at me. “Everyone deserves someone who can love them.”

He snorts. “So, you think you’re in love?” he asks. “With him?”

She shakes her head, and it startles me. “No, Shane. I know I’m in love with him. I don’t think it. I know it. And you know the best part about it? I don’t have to worry about where he’s sticking his dick when he’s not with me.” She looks up at me, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. “Mick, when you’re not with me, do I have to worry about where you’re sticking your dick?”

“I’m not sticking my dick anywhere.” I lean down and whisper in her ear. “Honestly, I’d be happy to stick it wherever you tell me, as long as it’s in you.”

She laughs and presses her face against my chest. “You’re such a sweetie.”

“Hell, if I’d known reserving my dick for you was all it would take…” I shrug and try to look innocent.

“You’re a fucking bitch,” Shane suddenly snarls. He takes a step toward Wren, so I shove her behind me.

“It’s okay,” Wren says, holding on to my arm.

It’s not okay. “Say something else about her, and you’ll be picking the pavement from outside out of your teeth for the rest of the night.”

Shane holds up his hands in supplication. “Can you at least get Emilio to put me back on the tour?” he says to Wren.

So that’s what this is about.

“He fired you?” Wren asks.

“Yeah.” He clenches his fists. “He fired me.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did anything?”

She rolls her eyes. “Because I know you.”

“I failed a drug test. And there was…a little incident with a roadie. But she dropped the charges.”

Wren freezes. “How old was she?”

“Seventeen,” he mutters. And all over again, I fucking hate him, even more than I did before.

“Rot in hell, Shane,” she says, and then she takes my hand and gives me a tug toward the elevator. I turn back to give him a warning, but she yanks harder. “He’s not worth it.”

She’s right, he’s not, but I really want to punch him right in the face.

“I’ll see him out, Miss Vasquez,” Marcus says.

“Thank you, Marcus!” she calls as the elevator doors close. She sinks back against the mirrored wall.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She smiles at me. “It doesn’t do me any good to hate him. None at all. I feel kind of bad for Kathy, though.”

“He wants you back. Can’t say I blame him.”

“No, he wants his job back, he wants me to pay his bills, and he wants to fuck everyone with a vagina.”

In her apartment, she goes to the fridge and takes out a bucket of ice cream. I can’t help but remember that first night. Taking a ladle from the drawer, she dips it into the ice cream and brings it to her lips. Then she gives it a slow lick.

A slow lick that shoots straight to my dick.

“Something wrong?” she asks with a sly grin.

Did I groan out loud? I must have. “I’m really proud of the way you handled him.”

“I can do anything with you by my side.”

I reach out and take a bite off her ladle. “Ditto.”

“I love you.”

“Ditto.”

“I can’t think of anything I want to do more than spend my life with you.”

“Ditto.”

“Is that all you can say?” She alternates between licking her spoon and talking to me.

I take the ladle from her. “I think you should take your clothes off.”

“Right now?” she asks, her eyebrows shooting up toward her hairline.

“I can’t think of a better time.”

To my surprise, she pulls her shirt over her head, toes off her shoes, and shoves her pants down right there in the kitchen. “Now you,” she says. She takes the ladle back and licks it slowly.

Three seconds later, I’m naked in front of her, my dick standing out in front of me like it’s reaching for her. She licks her lips. Then she drops to her knees and takes me into her mouth.

I gasp and lean so that my hands are braced against the counter, and she tongues the crown. Then she takes it deep, and I know I can’t do this for very long. “Wren,” I protest, but it’s half-hearted, because what she’s doing feels really good. “You have to stop.”

She shakes her head, her cheeks pulled in tight as she holds my thighs with her hands, pulling me in deeper.

“Enough,” I say. She doesn’t listen. I pull back, breaking her suction, and she rocks back on her heels.

I pick her up quickly and set her on the kitchen counter, then I yank her panties down her legs. I want to see her tits, so I yank her bra cups below them, and suck one into my mouth. Her hand holds the back of my head, her fingers threading into my hair.

“One of these days, we’re going to have to do this slow. Is it okay if that day is not today?” I ask against her nipple. Then I nibble and bite as she spreads her thighs and pulls me closer with her ankles.

“Fuck me fast and hard,” she whispers right next to my ear.

I pull her forward so her ass rests on the edge of the counter. “Do you want me to get a condom?” I ask as I get ready to sink inside her. I wait. I’ll wait forever.

She shakes her head. “I’m in this. If you’re in this, and we want the same things, then no.”

“I’m in it,” I say as I sink home. Her tight walls close around me, and I know I’m close. Too close. I pull back out, amid her protests, and kiss my way down her stomach, over the bush that I love so much, and down to her slit. She spreads her legs wide to accommodate my shoulders. “I love this pussy,” I say, just as I lick up her slit and suck her clit.

“I love your mouth,” she says. With slow licks and quick pulls, I bring her to the brink, until she’s clutching my hair and writhing against my face. “Mick,” she cries. “I think I’m going to—” Her eyes close tightly as pleasure washes over her face.

Her walls clench tightly around my fingers as she hovers there in the space just before coming.

“Come on,” I growl. “I want to fuck you. Come for me.”

I tip my fingers, and suddenly she comes apart. She holds my face against her heat, and I let her ride it out with slow licks, softening as she comes down, until she’s warm and pliant instead of rigid on the counter.

I stand up and in one thrust, I’m inside her. “I’m really sensitive right now,” she says.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Don’t,” she says with a grin. “Fuck me hard.”

I step onto my tiptoes and fuck her hard and fast against the counter, her ass in my hands as she comes apart again, and only then do I follow her.

“We didn’t use a condom,” she says with a smile as I go soft inside her. My calves are aching from standing on my tiptoes, but I want to stay inside her as long as I can. Finally, my legs and my dick go soft. I lift her from the countertop and she stands in front of me, naked aside from a bra her tits are falling out of.

I brush her hair back from her face. “Come what may?” I say.

She grins. “I don’t know. I might be able to come again,” she says.

“Give me five minutes and we’ll test that theory.” I kiss her quickly and then grab the ladle. The ice cream is now soft, but I don’t care. Neither does she.

“Has it been five minutes yet?” I ask, thirty seconds later.

She lifts her mouth from the ladle. “I don’t know. Has it?” She grins.

“Definitely,” I say as I carry her to the bedroom, and then I show her how good it can be when we make it last a little longer.

She rolls over and tucks herself against me, naked and sweaty and perfect. “Will you marry me?” she asks.

I thread my fingers through hers. “I’ll think about it.”

She slaps my chest and makes a move like she’s about to get up. But I grab her and roll her under me, kissing her until she’s senseless.

“I think I’m supposed to ask that question,” I say. I kiss the tip of her nose. “Not you.”

“You want to get on with that, then?” she asks, smiling at me.

“I need to ask your father first.” I drag my nose down the side of hers.

“Okay,” she whispers. A tear leaks down her face and slides into her hair. I catch it with my fingertip.

“Why the tears?”

“I’m just so happy.”

Me too. I never realized just how happy being happy could be.