She’s gunning for your balls, dude. And not in the fun way.

The rubber ball rolls off my fingertips, gliding into the air, pausing for a second, then falling back into my hand. I picked it up for James’s mutt but forgot to give it to him last night.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t be over tonight.

I text Bax back. Did she sign the contract?

She has it with her.

Fuck does that mean?

Guess you’re gonna find out lol

There are moments, few and far between, but there are moments I hate these fuckers.

A car door slams, then slams again. Only a few people have the code to my gate, and only one has a car door that doesn’t always close properly.

Gunning for my balls or not, the fact I’m about to lay eyes on my girl has my smile so big it hurts.

My front door slams too. I swing my feet to the patio and stand up, stretching the kinks out of my back.

It takes her just that long to make her way through the house and out to the pool area, slapping a folder onto a table before stalking over to me and jabbing me in the chest.

“You fucked up my grand gesture, cockbag.”

Damn it feels good to get called that again.

“Your what?”

“Grand gesture. The huge ‘look how sorry I am’ thing in movies.”

“The part right before the make-up sex?”

She’s so damn cute with her eyes narrowed and her fists on her hips.

“I tried to quit my job today.”

“Huh? Quit?” We were sort of counting on her getting fired.

“Yeah. Quit. Because you’re, this, us, us is more important. Only you fucked it up.”

I blink. “By…getting you fired?”

She knocks her open fist into my sternum. It barely registers. “By wrecking the sexist asshole’s whole company, which is what’s going to happen, eventually, at great cost to the band — don’t even try to deny it — and then offering me a job at holy fuck more than what they paid me.”

“Yeah, that would be…grander. I guess.”

She huffs. “You guess?”

“Okay, let’s back up. Did they tell you we’d been looking into other effects companies for a while?”

“For the next tour.” She enunciates each word. “When that contract’s option was up. Not in the middle of a tour for a huge penalty.”

“You might not have been available then.”

She’s winding down. “You did this for me.”

Her hair is a mess, what ends are still in the bun sticking up all over the place, and over half of it hanging around her face. I brush a few locks behind her ear, then give her earlobe a little tug. She swats at my hand, but amusement sparks in her eyes.

“Yeah. We did this now for you. If you want the job. This isn’t a package deal, Evie. You can have the job and not me. Or vice versa. It’s in your contract.”

“Along with some very generous severance packages. Who gets a choice in those?”

“You do. Along with a few other people on the payroll.”

“Because you want people taken care of, even if they leave.”

“Sometimes things change. Doesn’t mean people aren’t still family.”

“It’s going to take me a while to get used to that one.”

The boulder that’s been lodged in my chest the past few weeks starts to break up and a deep breath finally fills my lungs. Her skin is warm and a touch damp, but silky under my hands as I weave my fingers together at the back of her neck.

Like a cat, she stretches her chin forward, her eyes drifting closed as I pet her scar. My lips will be on it soon enough.

“I wasn’t supposed to see the options list, was I?”

Her eyes are open, sharp, when my gaze meets hers.

She wasn’t. Someone, most likely David, slipped it in anyway.

“Uh, I take it you don’t want your own pyrotechnics division in our staging company, then?”

“I think you’re all out of your damn minds for putting something like that on the list.”

“You’re about to run everything pyro for the rest of this tour. Supply chain, costs, everything. We have to change some proprietary things because of the contract, so you have to do that too. You’ve designed other shows and stuff. It’s not a stretch.”

“About to run? Am I?”

Her expression is that carefully blank one women get that’s impossible to read.

I drop my hands, and take a step back, my fingers now tangled in my own hair as I push it back from my face. “Dammit, Evie, you are, aren’t you? Please tell me you signed the contract and you’re coming with us next week.”

She drags it out, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what we were up to. It was all standard business until you got pulled. That’s when we knew Steve was a mole for BlastFX. He’s been fired, too, by the way, along with all his buddies, effective about two minutes after Simon fired you. We did it as fast as we could.”

“You did it even after we fought?”

“What does that have to do with anything? We fight all the time.”

“We bicker. Banter. Bitch on occasion. But that was a fight.” She cringes. “And it was pretty bad.”

“Yeah, it completely sucked. Let’s try not to do that again.”

She nods but looks at her feet.

“Okay, on three?” I hold my hand out.

“On three what?”

“We rock-paper-scissors for who apologizes first. Or we can just do it at the same time.”

“We’re not going to…”

“Talk it to death?” I shake my head. “No. We both got blindsided and shot our mouths off before we had time to think and then it just blew up.”

“Yeah. It blew up.”

The boulder crumbles under the realization. “Yeah, fire woman. We blew up.” I use my rock star voice as I saunter back to her. She’s right to be suspicious, moving back as I near. “We threw a fucking torch into a lake of gasoline and bombs.”

The image widens her eyes.

“Bound to cause mass destruction.” I nod, getting within an arm’s reach. Her eyes dart to the left, but there’s only the pool. On the right, she’s backed herself beside the bar. Behind her, a heavy table.

Nowhere to go.

Perfect.

“No matter how careful you are with it,” I continue. “But how many effects have you set off, Evie? How many fireworks, how many flash pots, how many fireballs? How many plumes of smoke? How many firecrackers?”

She’s trying to come up with a number, and it’s taking a while.

“You don’t even keep track anymore, do you? Don’t have some sort of ‘this many days without an accident’ poster?”

Her eyes are all the answer I need.

“Thought so. We’re going to burn out bright, Evie. Over and over and over again, the same way your effects do onstage. We’re not going to burn to the fucking ground.”

“How do you know?” Her voice is small, cautious.

“Because I hate that crazy kind of relationship shit. I’ve got a pretty good outlet for getting that out of my system.” Like two hours on stage, screaming and running around and letting it seep from my pores.

The tension eases from her shoulders, my meaning sinking in.

One large step and I grab her, framing her face in my hands and taking her mouth, owning it. That’s one impulse I can bring offstage, as long as I use it wisely.

She fists my shirt, rocking up on her toes, tighter against me. I’m hard in an instant, weeks of uncertainty and frustration and just missing her welling up.

Slanting my mouth the other way, I deepen the kiss, pulling at her shirt.

“Is this the make-up sex part of the program, then?”

Her bun is long gone, my hand buried in the tangled mess. I hold her still as I lift my head. Because I have to ask, have to know. Have to hear her say it.

“You ready for that, fire woman? Because that was the only time we’re ever going to be apart that long. Wherever this takes us, one of us is getting on a damn plane on the regular. You’re going to be sick of my face.”

“Guess we’ll just have to fuck in the dark then.”

My grin is feral, even more than when I let the rock star loose.

Her shirt rips as I yank it over her head.

“Better idea.” I spin her around, her palms slapping against the table as I bend her over it. Her cargoes hit the ground around her boots, and I shove her cotton panties, bright white in the last rays of setting sun, down with them.

“The first time you called me a cockbag.” Wet heat greets my fingers as I cup her pussy, leaning over to growl into her ear. “I was standing behind you at the control board.”

She bucks against my hand, her ass pushing against the front of my own cargo shorts. “You threw a bottle of lozenge at me.”

“That’s right. Because you were so fucking good at pretending I didn’t exist and all I could think about was bending you over that board and fucking us both stupid. Just like this.”

Maybe I’m an eternal optimist, but I have condoms in my pocket. The foils rips and I’m suited up in seconds.

Sliding into Evie’s body feels like everything in my world clicking into place. Her back arches, sharpening my angle, and we both gasp. So damn right.

In the dark glass of the table, I can see the reflection of her upper body. The long line of her throat, the roundness of her shoulders. A shadow below the sharpness of her collarbones, then the points of her breasts, tight.

One thing is missing. My hands, kneading the soft flesh. I let my fingernails drag around her hips and up the soft curve of her belly. Goosebumps rise on her skin.

“More.” The word is almost lost in the breeze her voice is so low and raspy.

I lean closer, grinding into her, and circle my palms over the hard peak of her nipples. “What was that?”

It’s all I can do not to moan the words her pussy grabs me so tight.

Her hips buck on a little demanding sound. My control is in shreds, the need to mark her, to stop trying to drag this out and just fuck.

I brace a hand beside her head, right above her shoulder to hold her in place, and her fingers wrap around my wrist. “More, you said?”

There’s no mistaking the yes that drops from her lips.

So I give her more. I give her everything. Until sweat is running down my back and my lungs are so tight I can’t pull air.

Orgasm tingles in the backs of my teeth but I force it back, cramping my feet with the strain. She’s going to come first. And hard enough we both see spots.

Just a tiny shift of my weight and her hips lift enough to slip my hand between her and the table. She’s so wet I can barely keep my fingers on her clit, but it doesn’t take much. Just a bit of pressure and a bite at the base of her neck and she’s clenching, slamming her palm against the table and almost breaking my wrist with the other.

I ride it out, grinding my teeth as hard as I’m still grinding into her. But her small cry breaks through, the push against me when she can’t take it all anymore. I pull my hand away from her core and slap it onto the table.

The first spurt jerks out of me before I’ve even braced for it. The second right on top of it, buckling my knees. I’m brought to my elbows, face against her hair by the time the third winds down.

Spots, stars, maybe even a little birdy or two.

“I love you,” I blurt, having no more control over the words than the orgasm. “Not the most romantic time to tell you, but fuck. It’s true.”

Her cheek is resting against the table, her pants leaving foggy patches on the cooler glass. “You were going for romantic? I thought you were going for fucked stupid.”

I gather her against me and somehow manage to fall into the lounge chair and not to the hard patio. There’s a shake in all our limbs, including my fingers, so she has to help me with the throw once I finally manage to pull it from the back cushion.

“No one said those things were mutually exclusive.”

“Did the loving me start the night you threw the bottle of lozenge at me too?”

My mouth quirks even though I’m still breathing through my mouth. “Yeah. Probably. Maybe even before then.”

I’m unfazed that she isn’t saying it back. It’s been a long couple weeks, and she was pissed at me for most of it. Neither of us really likes the chaos.

“You took me for ice cream to distract me from Bax’s debauchery.” She nuzzles the base of my neck, wiggling into a more comfortable position.

Most of my blood is still making its way back to my brain. “Huh?”

“When I started to love you. It was at the club gig in Vegas, when you took me for ice cream after I walked in on that orgy in the green room.”

“Fuck.”

She raises her head, a little furrow between her brows.

“I owe Bax money now.”

“You made a bet about when I started to fall in love with you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And you lost?” She’s getting riled up. “To Bax?!”

I put my hands up and the blanket puddles around our hips. “At least I didn’t bet on the Vegas Orgy Incident.”

She blinks. Then again. “The Vegas Orgy Incident.”

“Yeah.”

“It has a fucking title?”

Slowly, I nod.

Another long pause, then she slaps her hand to her forehead dramatically and crumples against me. “We’re a Bourbon Suicide legend?” Her laughter starts as a series of small jerks. “How the fuck is this my life?” she bellows.

I grab her face and kiss her, not easy with the way I’m grinning. “It’s our fucking life now, fire woman.”