About midmorning—after three cups of coffee and plenty of time spent with me gripping a handful of Anabeth’s ass as I fucked her against the kitchen counter—I finally heard from Gage. He’d gotten stuck because of the flooding the night before and hadn’t wanted to risk coming up to the house in the dark, but he’d be on his way after a shower. Which meant I had about half an hour to get Anabeth naked again before we were invaded and forced to behave ourselves.

I could do a lot in thirty minutes.

“Gage will be here soon,” I said as I walked into her bedroom…

And stopped dead in my tracks.

Anabeth stood against her dresser, wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of lacy pink panties and a questioning expression. “For what?”

But I didn’t want to think about Gage at the moment. I didn’t want to think at all. That lace—something about it, about the way her skin peeked through the thin fabric, drove me out of my fucking mind.

Thirty minutes wasn’t nearly enough time. “You getting started without me?”

She smiled, truly smiled in a way that reached her eyes and made her look so fucking real. Killing me with a look.

“I was about to take a shower. We’ve gotten a little sweaty since the last one.”

I tossed my phone onto the bed and dropped my pants. “Let’s go, then.”

Saucy little smirk on those cock-sucking lips I loved, she bent at the waist, keeping her eyes on mine as she dragged the slip of lace around her hips down, down, down those long legs she’d had wrapped around my waist not too many hours before. My waist, my chest, my face…good times. And about to get even better.

I chased her into the bathroom, enjoying every laugh she gave, every smile. My girl was happy, and that made my long-dead heart practically sing.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Anabeth asked as I herded her under the warm spray of water.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to swallow me whole. You look like you want me in your throat.”

This girl. I laughed, unable to hold it in. “That’s the way I’m looking at you? Because that wasn’t at all what was on my mind.”

“Oh. Then maybe that’s what was on mine.” She shrugged and lowered herself to her knees, looking up at me in a way that made my heart slam in my chest. My god, was she pretty. Those curves, that smile, her kneeling in front of me with her lips so close to my cock and her hands on my thighs? A dream come true.

I didn’t get the chance to respond to her, though. Before I could even move the shower spray so she didn’t end up cold or drowning, she had me in her mouth. Her hot, wet mouth. Sucking hard. Pulling deep. Making me dizzy with lust and the need to fuck that pretty face.

“Good goddamn.” I rocked my hips, unable to hold back as she sucked my cock deep. No teasing, no tentativeness, no slow start—she went all in from the first swallow. I groaned and growled, thrusting gently into that sensational mouth of hers, loving how her pink lips looked stretched around me. “Perfect. Your mouth is so fucking perfect. Made for sucking my cock, isn’t it?”

Anabeth groaned, one hand resting on my thigh while the other tugged on my balls. Pushing me to the edge so fast. She enacted an all-out assault on my dick, and I loved every second of it. Not that there were a lot of them. The woman drove me wild, and watching her suck my cock ranked right up there with some sort of fantasy come true. I was ready to blow in an embarrassingly small number of minutes.

“Gonna come, Firefly. Gonna cover you in my come, mark that wicked body as mine.” I grunted as I fisted her hair, fucking her harder. Stronger. Faster. Until there was nothing but her, nothing but sensation, nothing but her lips and her tongue and that mouth that was made for sin.

Until I pulled out, shivering and shaking as I groaned her name. As I painted her neck and chest with my come.

“Have mercy.” I nearly fell backward, my legs too weak to hold me up, as she ran her tongue over the length of me one last time. “That was fucking amazing, but I’m not as young as I once was.”

“No, you’re not.” She rose to her feet, rubbing her breasts up the length of me, her hand still teasing my cock. “You’re even better.”

Ah, fuck. My saucy girl. I yanked her against my chest, kissing her deep. Nibbling on her lips and stroking my tongue against hers as I moved us under the spray. Five minutes. If she could just give me five minutes to recover from that mind-blowing orgasm, I’d fuck her good against the shower wall. I’d pin her with my hips and hold her hands above her head so she couldn’t move, and then I’d make sure she saw exactly how much better I was.

Okay, if my half-hard cock was any indication, I might only need four minutes.

“You want me to fuck you right here?” I bent down to suck on her nipple as I slipped a hand between her thighs. Soft and wet met my exploring fingers, her thighs spreading to give me room. Wanting and needy, just the way I liked her.

I popped off her tit and licked the flesh one last time before dragging my tongue back up to her neck. “Fuck, Firefly. I think you liked me fucking your mouth almost as much as I did. You’re so fucking wet.”

“I did.” She groaned and rode my hand, hips snapping as I pressed a knuckle against her clit. “I want to come so bad.”

“I’ve got you. I’ll always take care of this pretty pussy.” I slipped two fingers inside her, grunting when I felt how soft and hot she was. Wanting that wrapped around my cock. But first, I needed to tease her. To wind her up. So I fucked her with my fingers, and I kept the heel of my hand against her clit as she rocked and jerked on me. Teased her nipples with my tongue and teeth until she became a writhing, whining, needy mess of girl flesh without words.

Once I had her exactly where I wanted her, I grabbed my cock and directed him inside her. Slammed home with a thrust so hard, her hips smacked against the wall and she cried out. And then I fucked her. Hard and fast, rough and unyielding, I fucked her against the tile, holding her in place with my body, pinning her hands above her head just as I’d imagined I would.

“Your mouth is a sweet sort of hell, but there’s nothing like your pussy, Firefly. Nothing feels as good or as right.” I slid almost all the way out, holding myself still with just the tip inside her. “Is this what you want? You want my cock buried deep, splitting you apart as I thrust home? You like me to take control and do what I want to you?”

She groaned what sounded like a yes, her hips jerking, trying to pull me deeper. I couldn’t say no to her—never could. I plunged back inside, growling as I dropped a hand down to assault that clit the way I knew she liked. The way I knew would get her off.

And when she came—screaming my name with her head back and her body bowed—I followed, unable to hold back. Pressing deep inside her and filling her up. Good. So fucking good. So fucking mine.

I kept our bodies pressed together, holding her up as I caught my breath. As the feeling of rightness and bliss and want for more circled through my head. As she dragged her fingers along my spine and gave me goose bumps.

“I think we exhausted the hot water tank,” Anabeth said, chuckling. I had to join her because yeah, we had. Cold water rained down on us, not that I’d given a single fuck for that. I’d been too busy to care, but now…

“Let’s get out of here and find some clothes before we freeze.”

“Good call,” she said. But as soon as I shut off the water, she grabbed me and dragged me back for a long, slow kiss. The kind that would probably lead to us wrapped up in her bed again. The kind that made my exhausted cock stir. But when she broke it, the smile on her face seemed sad almost. Not at all what I’d been expecting.

“Anabeth?”

“Just…more that I missed.” She snuggled closer, shivering as I wrapped my arms around her. “I missed how good we always were together.”

Yeah, so had I. “Me too. Though, the first time wasn’t so good for you. I thought it was amazing, but I think I lasted all of two minutes.”

Her body shook as she chuckled. “Well…yeah. But that was to be expected. We got better.”

“We did. And we will again.” That was a promise I’d do anything to keep. I grabbed her hand and kissed her palm before tugging her out of the tub. “Let me get you dressed and warm.”

She followed me into the bedroom, quiet but pliant. Clinging to me. I helped her into her yoga pants and a soft sweatshirt, even dropping to my knees to slide fluffy gray socks over her feet. And all the while, she stared at me, reaching out to touch as much as she could. Keeping us connected. I understood it too. I didn’t want to be apart from her. Not at all.

But reality was coming in the form of my best friend, which meant I needed to not be naked when we left Anabeth’s bedroom. I found my jeans from the night before easily enough, choosing to go commando underneath them. A clean, black tee I’d thrown in my jump bag did the rest of the job, then I dragged Anabeth down the stairs and toward the kitchen. She needed a cup of tea—she always needed a cup of tea.

But when we made our way into the kitchen, her hand squeezed mine almost painfully. Finn sat at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. Gage sat beside him with his long, thick survival knife resting on the table. The blade on that fucker put my Ontario Mark 3 to shame, hard and sharp-looking even from across the room. It was a knife for killing, for gutting and skinning.

“Morning,” I said, heading for the coffeemaker. Anabeth let me go as she moved to fill her kettle, silent and almost distant all of a sudden. It had to be the knife. She’d just seen those scars on my body the night before—the knife had to be too much too soon.

Once I had my coffee made, I settled at the table next to Gage, kicking him for good measure. “Why don’t you put that thing away?”

He grunted, glaring in my direction. “I was going to sharpen it.”

“She doesn’t need to see that.”

“Why?”

“It’s fine,” Anabeth said, waving me off. “I understand it’s a part of the job.”

I didn’t buy that, though. She still seemed off. Stiff. In fact, so did Finn. Neither of them seemed comfortable in their own skin.

“So,” Anabeth said as she leaned a hip against the counter, her favorite mug in her hand. “What’s the plan for today?”

Gage fielded that one. “We need to run recon in the woods. Make sure no one’s hanging around out there. That’s why I brought Finn. Figured he could guard the girl while we scouted.”

The girl? Aw, fuck no. “She has a name.”

“I do,” Anabeth chimed in, raising her eyebrows over her mug. “I have a name. But considering I’m the only female in this group at the moment, I understand who the girl is.”

Gage shot me a sarcastic sort of smirk.

“Jesus.” I sighed and stretched back in the chair, the idea of roaming around the woods in the rain not exactly the most inviting thought. Especially after how I’d spent the last—I glanced at the clock—forty minutes. Ten minutes longer than I’d planned, but I wouldn’t have traded a second of that time.

Gage grabbed his knife, flicking along the length of the blade with his thumbnail. “How far out should we go? All the way to the burn site?”

“What burn site?” Anabeth asked.

Shit, she still didn’t know. “The Soul Suckers set up a meth lab on your property. We made sure to shut it down.”

“Here?” She clutched the mug to her chest, her eyes big and round. “They set up a meth lab here?”

“Down on the eastern slope. There was an old barn Finn found out there. I’d never known—”

The crash of her mug hitting the wood floors stopped everything, the pings as pieces landed the only break in the silence for three solid seconds. Shards of ceramic flew, chunks of white and tan littering the dark surface beneath our feet. And Anabeth stood in the middle of it, shaking. Trembling.

Looking more upset and scared than I’d ever seen her.