She used her index finger to trace a sensitive pattern between the piercings that decorated the head of my exposed c**k and told me in a quiet voice, “You always made me really happy, Rowdy. I’m sort of infatuated with all the different ways you make me happy now that we’re all grown up.”

Between the words and her touch there was no stopping my dick from twitching in her hand or the tiny bead of excitement that leaked out of the tip. She caught it with the pad of her thumb and looked up at me with a grin. I was going to ask her what she was smiling about when she suddenly dropped down on her knees in front of me and had the slick head between her red lips. If there was ever a sight that was going to push me into an orgasm with very little effort on her part, it was that. Her pretty mouth, with that glittery ruby above it, open wide, was sucking me in as I gritted my teeth and exhaled hard through my nose as pleasure raked its claws up and down my back in a ruthless way.

“Salem . . .” Her name was a guttural sound as my fingers clamped tighter into her hair. She didn’t respond, obviously, but she did use one of her hands to wrap around the base of my straining erection to squeeze and rub in time with the bobbing motion of her head. It all felt like a wet fire and the best place my dick had ever been.

She was twirling her quick little tongue around and around all the metal that lived in the head of my dick. She was sucking and tracing the throbbing veins that ran underneath the shaft. She was twisting her hand at the base in way that was making my eyes roll back in my head and there was no way I was going to hold out much longer under her talented and intent manipulation.

I tugged on her hair, the red pieces somehow managed to tangle all around my fingers, and I told her in a voice that sounded like it was coated in whiskey and cigarette smoke, “If you want me to be any use to you anytime in the next twenty minutes, you better let up.”

She just laughed and I felt it everywhere. My dick twitched hard in her hands and in her mouth as I leaned more of my weight on the back of the couch because I wasn’t entirely certain my legs were going to be able to hold me up any longer. I said her name again—this time in warning, but instead of pulling back or letting up, she snuck a hand between my braced thighs and gave my already overstimulated balls a little squeeze. It was too much.

My fingers clamped down on the sides of her head, I let out a surprised shout and let the pleasure and sensation she had whipped up inside of me go. I was panting and most definitely weak kneed when she finally pulled back. She leaned forward and placed a soft kiss right on the center of the sea beast that covered my abs in angry ink. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to soothe more than one monster with the sweet gesture, but one way or the other she succeeded.

I let my hands fall limply to the curve of her shoulders as she rose to her feet in one elegant move. One of her eyebrows danced up and she tapped me on the chin with her index finger as I just stared at her with passion-drunk eyes.

“Grown-up Rowdy has so many fun things to play with.”

That made me snort out a laugh as I pushed off the couch to test the steadiness of my legs. They would work well enough to get her to the bedroom. I snatched her hand and started towing her down the hallway behind me. Really my room was the only room in the apartment that I used, so it was the only room that looked lived in.

“You never asked teenage Rowdy to play, so how would you know?”

I turned her around and pressed her against the bedroom door so I could start getting her clothes off. The tank top came easily and so did the black bra that was underneath it. The skirt was so short and tight I was thinking it might just be easier to push it out of my way as my hands moved eagerly across her chest, stopping to play with her metal like she had done with mine.

“You were too young and I was too focused on escaping.” She gasped out a high-pitched squeak when I tweaked one nipple just a little harder than the other. I bent down and soothed the puckered tip with my tongue.

“I wouldn’t have known what to do with you back then. Hell, I barely know what to do with you now.” I got one hand under the hem of her skirt and started to push it up and out of my way. Tonight she was actually wearing something underneath. Lace panties were separating me from the damp arousal I could feel pressing into my middle. That was enough to have my c**k twitching in renewed interest.

She groaned as I moved the fabric out of my way and used my thumb to trace her slick folds. Everything about Salem was nuclear hot. I just wanted to jump into the fire and melt into her.

“Oh, I think you know exactly what you’re doing.” Her head lolled from side to side and I pressed inside of her heat and zeroed in on that place that had her eyes drifting closed and her teeth sinking hard into her lip.

I used my thumb on her clit, pressed hard, and stroked it up and down. I added a couple more digits and scissored them inside of her until she was squirming hard between me and the solid surface I had her trapped against.

“Watching you leave with that deadbeat killed me, Salem.” She somehow always had me wanting to pour honesty and the raw emotion that it churned up out at her feet. It was like lancing old wounds so they could finally heal.

She sighed just a little and ran the backs of her fingers across my cheek. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you like that.” Even though I could see she meant it, I don’t think she knew how deep that hurt had run or how long it had stuck with me.

I felt my brow furrow. “No one that loves me ever does.” I needed to change the subject before all that sensual arousal faded out of her eyes and was replaced with doubt and regret.

Her na**d chest was rising rapidly and every time her pointed ni**les brushed against my own bare chest my dick twitched a little more. She was close, I could feel her body tightening, feel the flood of desire and release coating my fingers. I put a hand under her bottom and hefted her up so that she could wrap her legs around my waist. I was so tempted to just slide inside her welcoming body, but that was a dangerous thought considering neither one of us had had the protection talk. I stumbled over to the massive bed in the center of the room and worked on getting the rest of her clothes off and out of the way.

When she was na**d and laid out before me like some kind of offering to the gods, I reached into the drawer of the nightstand and dug out a condom. After getting everything situated, I wasted no time in sliding into her. I loved the way her body gripped me, held on to me like it never wanted to let me go. It had only been a few days since I had been inside of her, but it felt like forever. I got lost in the infinite darkness of her eyes as we both started to move.

We just fit. For every thrust, every tilt of the hips, every touch of a mouth on a needy body part, the other had the perfect response. She moved with me, held on to me, and used her body to make it more than sex. I felt her inside of me somewhere making a place for herself. I kissed her and licked at the jewel over her lip. She pulled on my hair and dug her heels into my ass. I bit her just a little bit on her neck and she left fingernail impressions all across the breadth of my shoulders. When she came she said my name like a prayer. When I came I said her name like a curse. I didn’t know what we were going to do with each other in the long run, but I did know that no one had ever looked so at home in bed or under me ever before and that was a first that might just matter more than a first love ever could.

CHAPTER 10

Salem

I GROWLED AT MY PHONE in frustration at threw it on the coffee table, where my feet were propped up. Rowdy looked at me out of the corner of his eye and reached out to mute the loud action movie he was watching.

It had been three weeks since our date at the park. Three weeks in which I no longer went to bed alone or had to chase him or run away from him. After the night at his apartment we just sort of fell into a place where we decided without words being spoken that we would rather hang out together, spend time with one another than be alone. We alternated apartments on a pretty regular basis, which meant Jimbo had two sets of stuff and my fridge now looked like a college frat boy had stocked it.

“What’s wrong?” He titled his head at me when I sighed and puffed out a breath to send some of the dark hair that had fallen into my face out of my eyes.

As close as we had gotten and as at ease as he seemed around me now, there was one thing that still set him off and still made me get buried under doubt and hesitation—Poppy. We both pretended to ignore the fact that she was still there, a specter hovering in the middle of this thing we were building around us, but I was in over my head now and I couldn’t keep tiptoeing around her or the past she shared with either of us.

“Poppy. She’s married to this awful guy and she never answers any of my calls or texts me back. I’m worried about her because this dude is a total control freak and she doesn’t have anyone in Loveless to look out for her best interests. I don’t think it’s a very happy situation for her.”

He stiffened next to me and made a noncommittal noise in his throat. I saw his jaw go tight and reached up to rub a finger along the tic that started to work in his cheek.

“It’s that bad, Rowdy? I can’t even bring up her name?”

Those baby blues shifted away from my probing gaze and I saw him struggle with himself to get his emotions under control.

“Nothing changes the past, Salem.”

“No, but holding on to something that happened so long ago so tightly that it’s keeping you anchored to the bad moments and keeping you from moving forward into new, good moments isn’t okay either.”

He curled his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him so that he could kiss me on the temple.

“I think I’m moving forward just fine.”

I sighed and put a hand on his tight stomach muscles. “Not if I can’t talk to you about my sister you aren’t. She’s my family, the only member of my family I really have. I love her, and if I can’t even bring up her name without you turning to stone, then you are still very much back there in that place. I know she hurt you, we both did, but if you can forgive me you have to work your way to that place with her as well.”

He twisted some of the long strands of my hair around his fingers and took a long minute before responding.

“I had a crush on Poppy from the first second I saw her. She was so sweet. She just seemed like everything I had never experienced before. She loved her family. She was settled deep into the church and school. Even when I was that young I knew her roots ran deep.” His tone dropped a little lower and the light from the TV cast weird shadows on his face, making him look almost sinister as the memories swallowed him up.

“She never understood me, never grasped why she was so important to me, and when you left she was my only tie to family, to love and acceptance. I knew I only made things worse by clinging to her, by deciding that all of my happiness was forever going to be tied up in her. It was too much to ask of anyone, let alone a young girl that had never been out of her hometown and out from under her father’s rule.”

He dropped his chin down so that it was sitting on the top of my head. I moved my arm around his middle so that I was hugging him and rested my cheek on his heart.

“Her terrible taste in men, her endless desire to please your father—I take the blame for some of that. I was smothering her and I think she was doing whatever she could to get away from me without flat-out telling me to get lost. Poppy ended things in a really final way but I think I drove her to it. So along with the heartache I have carried around for a long time, I also lug around some pretty heavy guilt. I don’t like to think about it. I like to pretend none of it ever happened.”

“You fell in love with Poppy because you knew she was never going to leave?” It sounded incredible but in my heart I knew it made a lot of sense. Rowdy’s mom had died when he was so young and he was used to being unwanted and bounced around, so it totally followed that my sister’s simply being part of the fabric of Loveless would be appealing. She was a safe bet and not a threat to his fragile heart.