Curled up on the cat bed, I might have got him, that sits in front of the heater.

“Here, apparently.”

“Saint,” she whispers, “I want to kiss you, but . . . Sin?”

I stroke my fingers over her lips, tracing along the bottom one, dipping into the wet heat. There’s plenty I could say, like we talked about it, but I get it. I think. “Nothing going on there. It’s been over a long time now.”

“She’s so gorgeous.”

“Yeah.” I lean in. “But so are you. And my taste seems to run to pretty red-headed teachers. And I never do things I don’t want to do. That includes her.”

Her gaze slips down, and she says, “I know. She’s just . . . you.”

“Don’t tell Sin that.”

“Not what I meant.” Her gaze snaps back up to me. “Just that she’s the perfect person for you. A biker, a free spirit. Thrilling. I’m not.” She goes to pull away, but I don’t let her. “Crap. I sound pathetic. It’s not what I mean. I just . . . I guess I don’t get why you like me.”

“Anyone would, Red. I like you because you’re funny, smart, and sweet. You’re fierce and honest and good. And you’re fucking hot in bed. You taste like the best kind of sweet with an edge of dark spice. I just fucking like you.”

I go silent.

Those words.

They’re all true.

I just. I don’t. Fuck. I’m not a guy who goes around fucking saying shit like that. Yet with her, I wanted to, and I meant every word.

There are so many words pushing to get out, words I don’t know what to do with, so I just shut them down by hauling her right up hard against me so she knows exactly how I feel. She can’t not, I’m so damn hard.

Then I use the language I know. The language I’m good at. The non-verbal kind.

I kiss her.

Her mouth opens, and we combust, the kiss turning wild, hot, and erotic in moments flat. I walk her back until I hit the workbench, lifting her so she’s on it and her legs come around my waist.

It’s a kiss born of wild, untamed things, the sort of things better felt than said. And I want her. I want her bent over the table. I want to fuck that sweet cunt, feed her ass my dick.

She breaks the kiss, biting me on the chin through my beard. The sharp little bite’s a livewire down south, and though I didn’t think I could get harder, I do.

“I want . . .” she says, breathing hard, “I want to do this.”

Belle pushes me back, and then she gets off the table. Her fingers slide into the waistband of my jeans, right at the front. She fumbles, undoing the belt and then the buttons of the denim, and she reaches in.

Oh fuck. She wraps those fingers around my cock. They’re cool, and yet they make me hotter. The tug, the slide over the tip.

“Belle, stop.”

“No.”

“Belle, you don’t have to?—”

“I know.”

But she is. She slides down onto her knees and frees my cock, and then she takes me in her mouth.

I’ve had technically better blowjobs. I’ve had women do some really fucked up porn-style things.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, is as hot or as erotic as Belle’s mouth on me.