Almost as if he could read my mind, he pointed out, “You just described your girlfriend.”

I grunted in agreement, not wanting to think about how easy it would be to talk her into doing something so risky and dangerous. She still lived wild, even though she had taken up permanent residence in my townhouse. It was going to be impossible to keep her away when I told her what I was doing. Her righteous streak was a mile wide and now that she had a taste of setting things right, she wanted more. She was a bona fide crusader. I wondered if I could talk her into a spandex body suit and a cape?

“If anything happened to her . . .” I trailed off because he didn’t need me to finish that statement.

“You don’t let a damn thing happen to her and she makes sure nothing happens to you. No one else has as much of a vested interest in watching your ass.” That was true.

Grumbling under my breath, I stuck my hand out and watched as he gave it a firm shake. “Thanks for,” letting me know I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t crazy. That I wasn’t the only one on this great, rotating rock that had been molded into something I never wanted to be. For making me feel slightly more normal and accepted. For getting involved when it didn’t benefit him at all. For giving a shit. “Everything.”

“Everything comes with a price, Stark. Don’t forget that.”

Like I could when he constantly reminded me. I gave him a gruff farewell and made my way out of the club. I ran into Chuck on my way out so we bumped knuckles and he congratulated me on a job well done. He was a man who had spent most of his life watching out for the girls of the Point, so he didn’t bother to disguise his glee that I’d made a couple of abusers bleed. He told me he heard about the beat down I gave the lawyer and urged me to get in the circle. I told him I was a thinker not a fighter, and he laughed and told me I was both.

Wanting to get back to my bed and the woman in it, I didn’t try and argue. I’d only ever used my fists to protect the things I cared about and I wanted to keep it that way. If I fought just because I could, just because I knew how and was good at it, I’d be no better than what the men who took me from my family and killed everything inside of me wanted me to be. I was ready to be more than that.

When I got back to my townhouse, I started stripping as soon as I hit the steps that led to the bedroom. I kicked off my boots, dropped my belt on the floor, and stripped my shirt off. I was leaving a trail to the bed that Noe was going to bitch about in the morning, but I didn’t care. I wanted to feel her soft skin pressed into mine. I couldn’t wait to be wrapped up in her sleepy warmth.

I tossed my glasses on the nightstand and my jeans landed on the floor with a thud as I pulled back the comforter and slid underneath. I was reaching for her at the same time she moved into me. Her dusky skin shone in the pale light coming from outside and her eyes roved over me, making sure I was in one piece.

“What did he want this time?” She wasn’t a fan of Nassir’s midnight business meetings and now that she was in my bed, neither was I.

“He offered me a job.” I pushed my knee between her bare legs and pulled her closer until we were pressed tightly together. She had on one of those shirts that barely covered her tits and stopped halfway up her back and a pair of cotton underwear. I never knew that the combination of sexy and serviceable could be such a turn on, but then again, anything on her made my dick hard, even when she dressed like a boy.

“Man, you’ve got job offers pouring in from all over the place lately. What did you tell him?” Her voice hitched when I caught the side of her panties between my fingers and started to work them down over her slim hips. I’d fucked her in the shower before we went to bed and she’d sucked me off this morning before we’d gotten out of bed. We couldn’t get enough of each other and I silently prayed that it never changed. I’d never been the beast people compared me to until she came along. She turned me into a hungry, uncontrollable animal. She made my mind go quiet and my body scream. She brought out my carnal side and I embraced that primal part of myself.

“I told him I was in as long as I got to call the shots. I’m too smart to say no to Nassir.” I kissed her on the top of her nose and used my thumb to press my dick into her soft cleft. She was warm with sleep and silky in the way that only women were. I stroked my erection through her folds, making sure to catch her clit with the tip as her sleepy body started to respond. “He has some pretty clear ideas about how you fit into everything as well, but we can talk about that later. Were you dreaming of me?”

One of her hands had wrapped around my neck and her fingers were scratching lightly over the skin there. The other was resting on my ribs as her knee hiked farther up on my hip so I could rock more fully into her growing moisture.

“Maybe. Maybe I’m still dreaming.” Her lips touched mine, her tongue darting out to trace the divot in my upper lip. “Sometimes I think you’re too good to be true. It all has to be a dream.”

When her breathing quickened, I grabbed the back of her thigh and pulled her leg even higher up. I grabbed the base of my cock and lined myself up with her entrance. I felt her body pull at mine, always eager, always ready, and it made me less than gentle as I pushed into her. I took her hard, settled in deep as she quivered along every hard inch. She shuddered against me, her hand slipping from my ribs to grab onto my ass. The muscle clenched reflexively as I bottomed out inside of her. I wanted her ruined for anyone who wasn’t me. I wanted her to feel the loss of my cock when it wasn’t buried deep inside of her.

I grunted and deepened the playful kiss she gave me. I thrust into her harder with each word I spoke. “I was caught in a nightmare before you, Noe. You woke me up.”

She sighed against my lips, held me close. “Your mouth. I like it when it’s filthy, but I love it when it’s sweet.”

That made me grin at her and I proceeded to move into her and over her as I told her she was the best I’d ever had. I told her she was sexier than anything I’d ever seen, that I could taste her on my tongue when I closed my eyes, that she made me hard when she smiled at me and when she pushed my buttons. I told her I liked her mind and her body. I told her I was entranced by her fire and her fight. I swore to her that I wouldn’t leave her and promised her again that if she left, I would find her. I whispered that she was the reason I remembered what it felt like to love someone. She was the only person I liked every single piece of.

When she came, she did it crying and screaming my name at the same time. I had claw marks on my back and her legs wrapped around my waist. When I came, she told me I reminded her what home felt like and that I was the only person who made her feel safe. She told me I was the only person she liked every single part of.

This was intimacy, the connection we’d both been missing. We were good together when we fucked. We were good together when we fought. We were unbeatable when we put our minds together. But more than any of that, we were the best versions of ourselves when we were together . . . period.

Nassir had to fight for his humanity, I’d had to find mine. It was dressed like a boy living on the streets and running from a past that was almost as bleak as mine. She reminded me I was a man and not a machine. She made me bleed and beg. She made me promise and pray. She turned all the metal and iron inside me to soft, malleable things.

I was putty in her small hands, and I’d never been happier to be shaped into something new and vital.

I was never going to be the man my mother wanted me to be or the one my sister needed. I wasn’t going to be who my father tried to mold me into or who the government trained me to be.

None of that mattered, because at the end of the day, I could and would be Noe Lee’s hero. The man who kept her safe. The man she leaned on and turned to for help. I could be the man she trusted and relied on. I was the only man she let in, the only one she let catch her, and that was all I ever needed to be.

Noe

For a guy who obviously liked the finer things in life, Aaron sure had a crappy security system. It only took a minute to bypass the alarm and even less time than that to make sure the automatic call to the police when the system cut out was routed harmlessly to the burner phone in my pocket. Breaking into the townhouse that actually reminded me a lot of the one I was currently calling home with Stark was easy. Getting up the nerve to come here and confront my past was much harder.

I’d finally found my place. I woke up in the morning with a smile on my face and a rock-hard body between me and the rest of the world. Snowden Stark wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to me, and he wasn’t going to hold me down. I could run, because he was always going to be faster than I was. When Stark explained what Nassir wanted me to do for him, I agreed, shocking both my man and the man who made the offer. I told him I would forge identities and legal paperwork for his clients, as long as I also got to help his wife get the girls who were tired of the Point and hard living off the streets. It was much easier to start over somewhere new when you showed up to that place as a brand new person. Keelyn Gates and I made a good team and I finally felt like I was making an actual difference in the lives of the people who needed it most. If someone had offered me a way out back when I desperately needed it, maybe I would have that more that Stark told me I deserved. I had everything I wanted, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to help other young women from reaching for the brass ring. They deserved more just as much as any of us.