“I don’t know what to say.”

“Good, because half the time when you open your mouth, I wanna punch you. I’ll be around, kiddo, not that I think you’re going to need me.”

I followed him out of the storage room still reeling. I was going to try to express my gratitude, my overwhelming appreciation, but Asa suddenly stuck his head around the corner and said my name.

“Rome, you need to go outside.”

I jerked my attention to him and scowled. “What?”

He lifted a blond brow at me and frowned.

“You need to go to the parking lot and take a look at your truck.”

Brite and I exchanged a look and headed out the back door. It was easy to see as soon as my boots hit asphalt what Asa had been talking about.

The big 4×4 was listing to its side, the windshield was shattered, all the headlights and taillights were busted out, and it looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to the entire body. It looked like an expensive but mangled red tuna can.

Brite swore while I just stood there in stunned silence.

“You want me to call the cops?”

Asa’s drawl was more pronounced than normal. I hadn’t even heard him come up behind me.

“Naw. Pretty sure it was the same guy that held you up the other day. He’s pissed at me and trying to send a message.”

“Pretty hard message to misinterpret, Rome.”

I nodded in agreement. “You aren’t kidding.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “By the way, you just got promoted to bar manager.”

Asa reeled back a little and Brite burst out laughing.

“What?”

“Apparently I own the Bar now but I also have a kid on the way, so that means I can’t be here all the time. I need someone to have my back, and I pick you.”

Those amber eyes narrowed and I could tell he was trying to judge the validity of my statement.

“You trust me to do that?”

I shrugged a shoulder and fished my phone out of my pocket to call a tow truck. “I trust you until you give me a reason not to, Asa. If you are so inclined to f**k me over, you might want to remember all the ways in which I know how to kill a man.”

I saw him gulp, and he turned around to head back into the bar. “Thanks, Rome. No one has ever really given me the benefit of the doubt before.”

Brite motioned to the truck. “Want me to call the boys in the club?”

“Yeah, but you might want to pass along if I get my hands on that little shit first, there isn’t going to be much left for them to regulate on.”

We shared a laugh and he stuck out his hand for me to shake.

“Thanks, Brite.”

“You are more than welcome, son. Need a ride home?”

I took him up on the offer to avoid the indignity of shoving myself into the Cooper. I had him drop me off at Cora’s and he refused to talk about handing over the bar. Apparently it was a done deal in his mind, even though it was still life-changing to me. Having something to do, something to invest my time and future in, had been my biggest fear since getting back home. In that single, selfless gesture, Brite had knocked it all down. It was amazing, and even though he said it more than once, I still wasn’t sure I really deserved it.

I let myself into Cora’s house. It was always so sunny, so cheerful, just like her. I didn’t see Jet or Ayden, but my girl was in the kitchen singing along to something that might have been music if it hadn’t had a chick screaming at the top of her lungs.

I propped myself up on the long bar of the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and just watched her as she danced around between the stove and the sink. Her short hair was slicked down to her head today. She had on a short red skirt that was ruffly and fluffy that made her look like the princess in a punk-rock fairy tale. Her top was loose and flow-y over a belly that was just starting to round out in the barest hint of baby belly. The flowers on her arm, and the water and fire on her leg, looked vivid and exotic and I couldn’t imagine ever coming home to anyone that wasn’t her. I was in love with her. Plain and simple.

“What are you doing?”

She gave a little shriek and spun around to face me. Her eyes were big in her face and she put a hand to her chest.

“You scared me. What does it look like I’m doing? Gymnastics? I’m cooking dinner.”

I walked up behind her and put my arms around her waist. I flattened the palm of one hand on her stomach and spread my fingers wide. She put one of her much smaller ones over the top of it and ran her thumb over the scar that decorated my knuckles.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

She snorted and turned in my arms to put her arms up around my neck. I liked that she was so short that she had to get on her tiptoes to get ahold of me. It made her skirt ride up higher and her curves press against me.

“It’s not haute cuisine but it won’t kill us either. I didn’t hear the bike or the truck. How did you get here?”

“Brite dropped me off.” I walked her backward until her back touched the counter. “I had a little car trouble.”

She dropped her pale brows and squealed a little when I picked her up by her waist and set her on the flat top of the counter. Her legs parted immediately and I stepped between them. Her eyes were laughing up at me but got serious real quick when I ran my thumb along the curve of her delicate jaw.

“Cora.”

She curled her hands around the back of my neck and swung her legs so that her ankles were locked around my waist.

“Rome.”

“Brite sold me the Bar today and I’m in love with you.” That was my future in a nutshell; nothing else mattered.

Her eyes got huge in her pretty face and her mouth dropped open in a little O. Her legs tensed around me, but that could have had more to do with the fact I was working my hands under her poufy skirt with every intention of getting into her panties than it did with the L-bomb.

“WHAT?!”

I dropped a kiss on her mouth and nudged her with my h*ps so that I had enough room to hook a finger under the lace trim and work her panties down over her h*ps and decorated thighs. She was always so soft and smooth, which was such a contrast to her prickly and sharp-witted personality. I tucked the lace in my back pocket and kissed her on the shoulder where the neck of her shirt dipped down. She always tasted so sweet.

“I own a bar and I want you forever.”

“Rome.” She was breathless and I could hear the undercurrent of fear working in her voice. I knew she wasn’t there yet. She still had reservations having to do with that douche from when she was younger, and because of my dumb-ass freak-out, she wasn’t sold on the idea that I would never do that to her again, but she would get there. I had no doubt. Besides there was no other option. She was it for me.

I shook my head at her and flipped the edge of her skirt over my wrists and grinned down at her.

“You don’t have to say anything, Half-Pint. I just want you to know what this is for me, that I’m not going anywhere ever again. I promise you that, and I’ll prove it to you no matter how long it takes.”

Her eyes were luminous as she stared up at me. I could see a million and one questions chasing across the light to the dark, but she didn’t push me away when I bent down to kiss her like I meant it. Her fingers tightened in the hair on the back of my head and she pulled me closer with her legs. I wanted to sink into her, to remember this moment, the look on her face, forever. Whatever my future looked like, as long as she was at the center of it, I knew I could handle it, even the unknown.

I was really getting into the kiss. I had my tongue in her mouth, one hand up her shirt and under her bra, and the other working on my belt buckle while she wiggled and squirmed on the counter in front of me when the timer on the oven dinged loudly and had her jerking her head away and panting to catch her breath. Her eyes were dazed and swirling with a heat that I was sure matched my own.

“It’ll burn. I have to take it out.”

I leered at her. “I have something hotter you need to take out.”

I adjusted the bulge in the front of my pants for emphasis, which made her laugh like crazy. When she bent over to pull the concoction out of the stove, it was all I could do not to grab her and throw her on the kitchen floor and have at that little peek of her bare ass under all that scarlet material. I would never, ever get tired of this girl; I knew it to the bottom of my soul.

She plopped the glass dish on the stovetop and cranked the dials off. She tossed the oven mitt off to the side and whirled around so that she was facing me. I grunted in surprise when she launched herself at me. I caught her with a hand under her n*ked butt and hefted her up so that we were eye to eye.

“As hot as the idea of you devouring me in the kitchen looking all handyman hot in your work pants and boots is, Ayden could walk in the door at any minute. And while I may have caught her and Jet in a compromising position on more than one occasion, it is not something I care to relive. Take me to bed, big guy.”

I carried her to the back of the house toward her room. When I put her on the bed I hovered over her with my hands on either side of her head. We were almost nose to nose and she was smiling up at me. Right in that moment I knew that all was right in my world.

“We need to find our own place.”

“Excuse me?”

I reached up over my head and pulled my shirt off with one hand.

“If I want to take it to you in the kitchen, on the couch, in the middle of the goddamn living room, I don’t want to worry about being interrupted. This is it for me, Cora. We need our own place.”

She might not be quite ready to tell me she loved me back, but the idea of being stuck with me for the long haul must not have been all that frightening because she lifted her h*ps when I tugged the skirt off and pulled her shirt off over her head. I kissed the slight swell of her belly and she tangled her fingers in my dark hair. I felt her sigh against my lips while I licked across the delicate skin covering our baby.

“Okay, Rome. We need our own place.”

I wanted to cheer in victory, but now my attention was focused on all that pretty pink skin nestled between her legs. I licked across the fire inked on her thigh and felt her tremble against my mouth. Going down on a girl wasn’t something that ever really took much effort. It was a surefire way to get them off so that I could take care of business and not feel like a jerk for not being more attentive to their needs. It wasn’t ever like that with Cora. Maybe because she always took such good care of me, maybe because I cared more about her than I had any of the others, maybe it was the contrast of soft, giving flesh and hard metal that always made rolling her across my tongue a total treat.

I vaguely heard her gasp my name and felt her hands get more impatient in my hair. I flicked that hoop with the flat of my tongue and got the edge of her cl*t with my teeth. She swore and I had to hold her h*ps down as she bucked up against my face. She was all warm liquid and quivering flesh. She was shifting her legs restlessly against me and I had to move out of the way so she didn’t get me in the junk. I laughed against her and swirled my tongue around inside of her while tugging ruthlessly on that piercing I decided I couldn’t live without. It only took a minute to bring her to the edge, and when she went over I swore it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She looked less like a pixie and more like a woman thoroughly worked over and very satisfied by her lover.

I pushed up so that I could get my Carhartts off and ditch my boots. I had every intention of just crawling over her and sinking down into her, but she urged me over onto my back and got on top of me. She looked at home up there. She put a hand on the base of my dick to hold it where she wanted it then sank all the way down. Her ready and willing slide had my breath catching in my throat. I crossed my arms under my head and settled in to watch her have her way with me. She traced the dividing lines between each of my abs and curved her hands over the dip on each side of my hipbones. She gave me a saucy grin and lifted herself up only to slide back down excruciatingly slow.