Wrong,

This is wrong.

All of it.

I’m a criminal. I steal cars.

For her dad.

She’s too young.

I’m too much of an asshole.

She’s too honest.

All I do is lie. To get what I want. To avoid trouble. To start it. Just for the hell of it.

She’s too innocent.

And I’m guilty as sin on about a hundred different levels.

But fuck if any of that matters to me right now.

Right now, it’s all I can do to keep from stripping her naked and fucking her on the check-out conveyor belt.

And she’d let me too.

No one else has touched her before. I suspected as much but I knew it for a fucking fact the second I slipped my hand into her coveralls.

The way she held her breath while my fingertips skimmed the swell of her breast.

The way her cheeks flushed pink when my knuckles grazed her rock-hard nipple.

The muddled look on her face—half relief, half disappointment—when I pulled the kitten out of her coveralls.

I went to high school with the cashier. Her name is Connie. She was a few years ahead of me and makes small talk while she scans my cartful of shit.

“She’s cute,” she says. For a second, I think she’s talking about Tess but then I catch the look she’s giving the kitten.

“Thanks.” I don’t want to talk to her. I throw a glance at Tess. She’s waiting by the front entrance, studying the bank of prize machines harried mothers use to bribe and distract their kids. Instead of closing up her coveralls, she’s stripped them off to the waist, tying the arms around her waist. She’s wearing a ribbed white tank top. The kind guys wear. She’s not wearing a bra and I can’t stop staring at her.

“Does she have a name?”

“No,” I say without looking at her.

“Something that cute should have a name.”

Jesus. Is she flirting with me? “How’s Jake and the kids?” I say, finally looking at her. Jake is her husband. They got married when he knocked her up their senior year. That’s how it works around here. You fuck around enough, you end up putting a baby in some girl you barely know and five minutes later you’re married and working some shit job while she keeps popping them out and nags you into a heart attack by the time you’re fifty.

No, thanks.

“They’re fine.” She flushes and stops talking.

When my total flashes on the screen, I reach into my pocket and pull out a wad of cash. Connie’s eyes go wide while I peel off a few bills and toss them on the counter. A few seconds later the drawer pops open and coins rattle down the shoot to roll around in the bottom of the dispenser. Scooping them up, I tuck the cat tighter into the crook of my arm. “Keep the rest,” I tell her, walking way, cart in tow.

“Here,” I say, handing the kitten to Tess when I’m close enough. As soon as the transfer is made the little furball lets out a yowl of protest. Dropping a few quarters into a random machine, I give the crank a few turns while Tess fights the kitten as it tries to claw its way up her shirt.

The machine spits out a small clear plastic container and it hits the heavy metal flap with a muted thump. Reaching in, I pull it out and give it a shake before I toss it to her. “Here you go.”

She catches it, despite the furball she’s wrestling and gives me a wry smile. “Is this my prize for being a good little girl?”

“No,” I tell her, letting my gaze slide down her frame. Letting it linger a little too long on her breasts before lifting it again. “You weren’t that good.”

Leaving her where she is, I push the cart toward the automatic sliding doors leading to the parking lot while she scrambles after me. I parked on the other side of the lot, as far from the store as I could get, behind the store’s delivery truck because I followed her here and had no intention of approaching her until I was actually standing behind her while she stared at bags and buckets of cat litter.

I am so fucked.

It doesn’t take her long to realize what I’m doing. Where I’m going. “If you think I’m getting into a—” She stops herself before she says something incriminating but the heat in her tone tells me she hasn’t forgotten about last night. Or forgiven me for pulling her into my bullshit. “car with you, you’re nuts.” When she says, she’s right next to me, glaring up at my face while she hurries to keep up. She doesn’t mean car. She means stolen car.

“It’s not a car, Tesla.” I dig a set of keys out of the front pocket of my jeans. “It’s a minivan.” I hit the button on the fob and it lets out a chirp. I pull up short in front of the silver, late model Sienna. “More specifically, it’s my mom’s minivan.” I pop the hatch and start loading bags and boxes into the back of it while she stands there and stares at me like I’m trying to kidnap her. Irritated, I slam the hatch closed and look at her. “You can’t walk—not with all this shit to carry. The carts have a perimeter lock on them. Can’t take ‘em out of the parking lot—so quit posturing and just get in.”

I swear to god, if she wasn’t holding that damn cat, she would’ve swung on me.

How fucked up am I that the thought makes me want to drag her into the back of my mom’s van and get her naked.

“I hate you.” She pushes it through gritted teeth, eyes narrowed and glittering on my face.

“Good.” I want her to hate me. I need her to because that’s the only way this doesn’t go from bad to worse. The only way I have even a snowball’s chance of keeping myself in check.

Without warning, she spins on the heel of her boot and stomps her way to the front of the van. When I slide behind the wheel, she’s sitting in the passenger seat. Her cheeks are flushed pink beneath her smooth olive skin. Her lip parted so she can breathe through her mouth. Her chest heaving slightly like she’s out of breath, each exhale pushing her dark, rock-hard nipples against the thin material of her shirt.

I meant to stick the key in the ignition. Start the van. Take her home. Get her the fuck away from me. I bought enough shit to last the cat most of its life. I met my responsibility. I can go back to ignoring her and the way she makes me feel. Makes me want.

That’s what I meant to do.

But that’s not what I did.

I don’t even realize it until I hear the keys hit the floorboard. Until I’m reaching across the center console and dragging her toward me. The kitten lets out a squeak and I pull it out of her hands and drop it on the seat Tess was sitting in only a moment before.

Stop me.

Stop me.

Stop me.

That’s what my brain starts shouting, the second I get my hands on her.

She doesn’t stop me.

Not even close.

As soon as I have her in my lap, her arms snake around my neck. Her fingers push through my hair. She sighs softly and parts her lips when my tongue licks its way into her mouth.

I have a brief moment of clarity and think I’m going to do the right thing and push her away but the moment passes. Spins away from me when she strokes herself with the raging hard-on I have pressed against her pussy.

Fuck.

When this ends—whatever the hell this is—it’s going to be bad.