Page 62 of The Fire We Crave

“You got a weird definition of romantic, babe,” Ember says.

“Feel like my old lady might be the only one with any sense,” Atom mutters, and I chuckle at that. Not sure any of us bikers are vanilla, but Atom falls on the more pleasure Dom side of things.

“What about you, Quinn?” Dawn asks. “Do you think it’s romantic?”

There is silence inside, and I’ve never needed to hear an answer to anything more than I do this question.

Atom and Wraith both look at me expectantly.

I flip them both the bird, but we all remain quiet.

“A hundred percent, yes. I dream of a man capable of stopping the whirring thoughts in my head. Pretty certain you can’t overthink things when you’re sprinting half-dressed through the woods. But more than that, wouldn’t it be special to have a man who knows you that well? Who knows that’s what you need?”

My mind reels with the possibilities.

And it explains why she did as I said in the bedroom. Why she almost came so quickly. She’s a submissive who needs more than vanilla sex.

“I think I already found mine,” Raven offers, and Wraith grins as he eats.

I flop my head back in the chair. Trust me to find the perfect woman in the one person I’m not supposed to have.

Yet, I want to fuck her. I want to spank her. I want to tie her up and blindfold her and deprive her of her senses. I want to fuck in the field on a sunny day and the back of my truck in a rainstorm. I want to use my fingers and my cock and a wide variety of toys to help her get off as often as she needs.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with all that information?” I say, shifting the junk in my jeans away from the zipper.

Atom huffs a laugh. “Claim your woman and fuck her. Or go home and jerk off in the shower.”

“Oh, shit, the window is still open,” Ember says, and she leans out the window. “You couldn’t hear all that, could you, babe?”

Atom looks over his shoulder to her. “Not a word, babe,” he lies.

18

QUINN

Smoke’s mood seems lighter when we get into his truck to drive home. Spending time with Atom and Wraith, outside in the cooler evening air, was just what he needed. And it’s not lost on me that Bones is sitting on his lap as he drives.

“That’s not safe,” I point out.

Smoke gestures at the open road, then the dial on the dash. “Doing half the speed limit,” he says.

Bones looks up and whines, as if telling me off for interfering with their situation. I rub Bones’s soft fur on the top of his head. “Fine. But don’t complain to me if you go flying through the windshield.”

“You didn’t pay attention in science, did you?” Smoke asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Force equals mass times acceleration. Newton’s second law of motion. You need a lot of force to smash through a windshield. And force is equal to a thing’s mass, which in Bones’s case is tiny, and the speed at which it’s going, which in the truck’s case is slow. Worst case if I brake hard, he gets a small jostle but doesn’t even leave my knee.”

“Stop bringing science to a sarcasm fight.”

Smoke grins, and I realize it’s been rare to see him so carefree. “Did you enjoy book club?”

I lean back in the seat of the truck. “I did. I always do. I think reading can be the foundation for good debate on everything from sex to politics.”

Smoke glances over at me. “Romance books get political?”

I chuckle at that. “Oh, God. Yes. There’s a big debate about whether romance books are political or not. I say that they are. They reinforce the idea that women’s choices about their bodily autonomy are their own. They illustrate what healthy and balanced relationships look like.”

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