A hot little breathy laugh came from her throat. One filled with decadent, wicked pleasure. One that amped his heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure until his skin felt too tight.

And then she lowered the rest of the way on his cock. Slowly. Slowly. So damn slowly.

The road swam in his vision. But a shadow on the right exposed a turnout. Wes braked, turned the wheel, and bumped over the turnout’s rough gravel base. That rumble also made Rubi bounce on his lap, and he pushed so deep, he could have been in her throat again.

She was half laughing, half moaning when he shoved the truck into Park, fisted her hair with both hands, and jerked her head down to kiss her. Her curved lips instantly opened and molded to his, her tongue tasting.

Wes groped for his seat belt, released it, and slid out from behind the wheel, carrying her with him. His hands moved down her back to her hips. With his feet braced on the floor, his hand on her ass, he had everything he needed to dig in. She was perfectly tight. Lusciously wet, and with all the need pent up over the last few days, all his frustration, all his desire, he tightened his ass and pushed with his thighs, driving into her. Over and over and over with frantic and sudden fiery need.

“Oh God…” she said, her voice high-pitched and tight.

“Insane.” He needed more, so much more. And faster. And longer. But this was a quick, urgent surge of lust. The kind that snapped with the heat of an explosive. “You feel so good.”

His orgasm came barreling at him, like a brick wall in a stunt crash, only this time he wouldn’t bail before impact.

“God…”

Her teeth closed over his shoulder and a scream rumbled in her throat. Her pussy clenched around him, the muscles convulsing, squeezing his orgasm forward. He let his own scream of release come, filling the cab with the guttural sound of pleasure. Let himself feel the thrill roll through him in waves.

Rubi’s forehead rested on his shoulder. Her hot breath streamed through the cotton of his T-shirt. Her heart beat quickly against his chest. And Wes felt the impact of that figurative brick wall, his head wobbly and dazed.

“Lawson,” she said between breaths, “you rock my world.”

That tickled something inside him, and laughter rolled up his throat. Then he had to catch his breath again before he said, “You fucking…floor me.”

“Well…we’ve got that…going for us, right?”

He dropped his head back on the seat and lifted a hand to push the hair from her eyes. They were heavy-lidded, smoky, and sated. Her full mouth a little more swollen from his assault. Christ, he’d missed her so much, it hurt to look at her. He kissed her gently. “We’ve got a hell of a lot more than that going for us, baby.”

So relaxed after that blockbuster quickie, Rubi almost fell asleep on Wes’s shoulder. He was warm and quiet, his arm tight around her shoulders, his fingers sliding through her hair in a barely there caress that soothed her toward sleep.

Then the car slowed, turned, and gravel crunched under the tires.

She came awake quickly and with a fresh ball of unease in her gut. In the headlights, the house where she’d met Birdie and Claudia stood illuminated. But now it didn’t look at all tranquil. The quiet country home bustled with activity. Cars and trucks lined the drive. Golden light spilled from every window. People stood in the kitchen, sat in the family room, wandered the living room. Children streaked between the rooms, and their voices reached Rubi all the way out where Wes parked, a dozen yards or more from the house.

“Um…” She lifted her head from his shoulder as he turned off the engine. “Are they having a party…or something?”

Wes grinned, but it wasn’t as wide or bright as his carefree smile. “Not exactly.” He unwrapped his arm from around her shoulders. “My parents are back—they went to Kansas City today on business. Looks like Whitney is here, and, well, a few other relatives.”

“A few?”

“We’ve got a big family that seems to congregate whenever there’s a wedding, birth, death, holiday…or, in this case, surgery.”

A flutter in her stomach carried the knot toward her throat. “Ah.”

Her mind was busy darting between skipping out—she could think of a million excuses—and staying. For Wes. She knew meeting his family was important to him, and she already felt bad over the realization that she’d originally come for selfish motives.

Wes opened the door, slid out, and turned, reaching for her. He gripped her waist and pulled her into him, kissing her as he lowered her feet to the ground. His lips were gentle, the kiss slow and tender. “I can’t wait to get you…”—he kissed her again—“in a bed…”—and again—“for an entire night.”

Rubi’s nerves coiled. The idea sounded blissful in some ways, terrifying in others. And that streak of discomfort that kept popping up whenever she experienced a solid foundation of happiness annoyed the hell out of her. Even acknowledging the conditioned response for what it was didn’t do anything to make it less terrifying.

“Hey.”

Rubi turned her gaze from the house—where she hadn’t realized she’d focused—back to Wes.

“You don’t have to meet them tonight,” he said. “You’ve had a long day. Want me to find someplace to stay? We’ll go there.”

She couldn’t stand the disappointment in his eyes. “No. It’s fine. I just…”

I just don’t know how to socialize in normal situations. Put her in a bar, a club—even a sex club, and she knew how to control the situation. Put her in a group of studly men, like the Renegades, and she could pull their strings like a puppeteer. Put her in a business meeting, and she could hold her own with the brightest minds in the industry. At a photo shoot, she owned the cameras. On the runway, she possessed the crowd.

But put her in a room full of relatives, people who had a myriad of invisible connections with each other, who loved each other, felt obligation and fondness and duty to each other, and she was a sailboat in a storm.

“I’m just warning you,” she said, sliding her hands over his biceps, “I’m not good at this.”

“You do it with me and Lexi and Jax and the other guys all the time.” He threaded their fingers as they made their way up the stairs. “We’re like family. Just think of this as meeting extended family.”

Easier said than done. Especially for someone who didn’t understand the concept of family. But for Wes, she smiled and nodded.

Approaching the house, Rubi realized the scene inside was even more chaotic than she’d first suspected. There weren’t just people in the kitchen and living room, but milling deeper in the house as well. And there were more children, more than just Wes’s two nieces.

Anxiety sang over her nerves. For a reason she couldn’t begin to understand, she flashed back to her life as a kid and all the turmoil with her father. Their millions of fights. Her dozens of nannies—only a few of whom were ever good to Rubi.

At the door, Wes leaned forward and gripped the handle. But he paused, settled those beautiful gray eyes on Rubi. “I’ve got your back, okay? Just be yourself, baby. I know my family, and if I love you, they’ll love you.”

One of the kids inside squealed—the pitch so high, the sound so loud, Rubi winced. A houseful of laughter followed, but that didn’t settle Rubi’s nerves. Wes opened the door and pushed it wide, his other hand settled on her lower back, ushering her into the house.

Panic gripped Rubi. Stepping over the threshold felt a hell of a lot like stepping off an emotional cliff. And she had the most surreal sensation of time slowing as she stood there on the polished hardwood floors, just where she’d been earlier today.

The house slowly went eerily quiet as conversations stopped and all attention turned on them. Correction—on her. She swore every person in the room gave her a slow sweep with their eyes, from the very tip of Rubi’s head to the pointed heels of her pumps. She calculated most of the gazes filled with shock. Not exactly a surprise she didn’t fit in.

Most of the guests were dressed down in jeans, T-shirts, and boots, including the women. One older man wore overalls. Overalls. Rubi didn’t even know they made those anymore. The women kept their hair mostly one length, their faces mostly clean of makeup, their bodies bare of jewelry but a simple wedding band here and there.

If she hadn’t felt awkward over fitting in before, she sure as shit did now.

“Hey, Uncle John.” Wes’s voice seemed to kick-start time again, jolting Rubi out of her funk, and the room churned back into real-time speed again. Guests’ gazes, ones that had seemed frozen, strayed back to their conversations and sound filled the space. Rubi felt like she’d just come off some mind-altering drug.

He closed the door at her back, and, keeping one hand on her shoulder, he offered the other to his uncle standing near the door. “Great to see you.”

The older man, silver-haired and attractive with those familiar crystal blue eyes, grinned. Rubi wanted to like his family, she really did. And despite Birdie calling her Missy, Rubi had found the woman kind. But there was a familiar look in the man’s eyes as he surveyed Rubi that told her he wasn’t a guy she’d like.

“This is my girlfriend, Rubi.” Wes’s introduction was as casual and noncommittal as they came, but the label “girlfriend” made her restless, as if the simple thought of being assigned to one man gave her the urge to escape.

“Well, Wes,” John said, offering his hand to Rubi. “You always snag the beauties, don’t you?”

Rubi didn’t like the inappropriate dig at Wes which mentioned other women in front of his “girlfriend,” and she didn’t like the insinuation that she was no different from the other women in Wes’s life—but she smiled politely anyway.

“Where did you come from?” he asked with a derogatory note in his voice.

She pulled her hand back and smiled. The worst thing she could do was let him rattle her. “Some days it feels like Venus, but I live in Los Angeles. You?”

“Kansas City.”

“You look great,” Wes told him. “Took off a few pounds?” He gripped the man’s bicep beneath a crewneck sweater. “Beefing up?”

“That heart scare last year did the trick. But it’s tough for me to get to the gym.” The man’s gaze slid toward Rubi, his mouth curved in more of a smirk than a smile. “I mean, it’s not like I get to play games and set my own schedule at work like Wes does, right? Some of us have responsibilities.”

John laughed at his own joke with way too much satisfaction. Rubi’s temper flared and Wes tensed beside her. His hand tightened, signaling an intent to move on. But she wasn’t done here.

“Or priorities. I know Wes works some long-ass days, but he’s always at the gym at five a.m.” Rubi gave John a smile designed to make his circuits blow. “So what do you do?”

“Doctor,” John said, his tone carrying an edge of my-work-is-more-important-that’s-why-I-don’t-get-to-the-gym. “I have my own family practice.”