“That was the last thing I wanted.”

“Obviously. Which is why I admire you. You set a good example for your brother.”

He snorted. “Yeah. Lying, cheating, and stealing are great examples.”

“You did what you had to do since you had no other resources. I’m sure he understood that you did all those things because you loved him.”

“I’m no hero, Shadoe. Don’t think of me that way.”

She smiled, refusing to let him denigrate himself. “You’re not a bad guy either.”

“You still don’t know me at all.”

“I know more about you now than I did an hour ago.”

“I’m not a nice guy.”

He stood and she did, too, bending down to grab her boots.

“I think you’re a really nice guy.” She didn’t care that he didn’t think so. She needed him to hear it, to understand it. He probably never heard it often enough.

“I’m really not a nice guy, Shadoe,” he said again.

She was about to argue, but she didn’t expect the lightning quick move he made, sweeping one arm under her, using the other to jerk her against him. Shocked, she dropped her boots and gasped.

She had only a fraction of a second to see the need, the anger flash in his sharp blue eyes before he bent down and slashed his mouth over hers. She didn’t have time to ponder why he was doing this. Her mind went utterly blank and she forgot everything but the feel of him against her, the taste of his mouth, and the full blast of awakening inside her body.

EIGHT

SPENCE’S KISS WAS ANGRY. IN THE BACK OF HER PASSION-MUDDLED mind, Shadoe recognized that he wasn’t kissing her because of any sudden urge to make out. He wanted to punish her. He was striking out at her, trying to prove to her that he was anything but a nice guy.

She didn’t care, because his kiss was mind melting, toe curling, and everything she’d always wanted out of a kiss. To be swept off her feet, rendered senseless by a man who knew exactly what he was doing, who knew his way around a woman’s body.

The way he touched her—not tentative in the least, but bold, with no hesitation, grabbing her ass to haul her up against his rock-hard erection—was anything but nice. Did he think she was going to push him away because he was rough with her? Anything but. Her ni**les tightened at the fierceness of his passion, the hungry need evidenced by the way he dug his fingers into her arm, swept his hand along her ribs to lift her shirt so he could feel her bare skin. And all the while his lips moved over hers in this driving, claiming way, his tongue a velvet torture device that made her weak in the knees. Her pu**y wept with joy at the way he devoured her.

She wanted more, and let him know by clutching his arms and drawing closer to him, moaning against his lips, rocking her h*ps against him. He answered by growling, and, oh man, did that excite her. She’d never been with a man who was so amazingly animalistic like Spence. Hell, she’d never been with a man who was so much like a man. So primal, even in the way he smelled—earthy, sexy, potent. She wanted to strip him down right there, push him onto the grassy slope and f**k him hard.

Instead, he pulled away from her and dropped to his knees, using his hands to stroke her hips, her thighs.

She held her breath as he stopped there, his fingers teasing the hem of her skirt before sliding up inside. He began to lift her skirt, inch by slow, torturous inch. Every touch of his fingers against her legs made her pu**y swell, her cl*tquiver in anticipation.

“Spread your legs for me, Shadoe,” he said, keeping his gaze focused on her legs—between her legs.

She parted her legs, and he continued the slow rise of her skirt, raising it over her h*ps to reveal her black thong panties. He removed her hidden sheath and knife and laid them on the ground next to him, then leaned forward, spread his fingers wide over her ass cheeks and buried his face into the vee of her crotch.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. Her knees went weak and she laid her hand on the top of his head. His breath was hot against her sex, making her wonder if she’d be able to keep standing if he was going to continue doing this to her.

“You smell good. Like a hot summer and wildflowers.” He pulled her panties aside and licked along the curve of her thigh. Her legs buckled and Spence reached up to hold her hand. She whimpered as his tongue trailed along the outside of her pu**y lips, teasing, tantalizing, promising . . .

“These panties are in my way, Shadoe.” He didn’t ask for permission, he wasn’t gentle, just gave a hard tug and they were gone, shredded and tossed aside, and she was bare. Spence tilted his head back, and she’d like to say it was a smile he gave her with the slight tilt of his lips, but that devilish gleam in his eyes didn’t really go with a smile. It was more of a threat—a “prepare yourself for this” kind of warning. Because then he leaned in and his mouth was on her sex, covering her clit, his tongue licking along her folds. Hot, wet, devastating. She moaned and quivered uncontrollably as he dominated her pussy. She bucked against his lips, but she had nowhere to go. He cupped her buttocks, held tight to her, licked her with the long, measured strokes of his soft tongue, lapping her up like a quickly melting ice-cream cone. She was dying from the sweet, hot pleasure, seared from the inside out, unable to stop the flood of sensation that hurtled at her at uncontrollable speed.

Spence was relentless, his mouth everywhere, exploring, dipping, licking, and sucking. He bit the inside of her thigh, and the painful pleasure rocketed her. He licked her from one end to the other, and she wanted to cry out and beg for more. When he took hold of her cl*tand sucked, she wanted to scream.

And then she did, because her orgasm rushed at her out of nowhere, blindsiding her with forceful heat and swirling sensation. She rocked against Spence’s mouth, craving contact with his tongue as she rode out the crest of the wave, then crashed over again, surprised that her cl**ax went on seemingly forever. It had been such a long time since she’d been with a man, the drought had ended in a torrential downpour. When she was spent, when the contractions inside her had died down to tiny, pleasurable pulses, she looked down at Spence, embarrassed to see his head tilted back, a watchful expression on his face.

Her cheeks flamed hot. She’d never had a man watch her come before. All her experiences with sex previously had been rather . . . benign and uneventful. Certainly nothing like this, and never in public. And never with a man so incredibly . . . male.

She didn’t know what to say, or what to do. She’d always been in bed with other guys.

Spence stood, licked his lips, that same expression on his face as he loomed over her.

“You are so goddamn gorgeous when you come,” he said, drawing her against him. “You make my dick hard.” He grasped her wrist and placed it on his erection. She shuddered at the feel of his shaft pulsing against the palm of her hand. Her lips parted with her panting excitement when he held on to her wrist and rubbed her hand back and forth across the steely ridge of his cock. “I want to f**k you, Shadoe.”

“Yes.” All embarrassment fled at the rough demand in his words, the promise of the actions to follow.

He dropped down to the ground, pulling her on top of him. He laced his fingers through her hair and held on while his mouth found hers in another kiss that devastated her senses. How was she supposed to think straight when he kept plundering her into mindless oblivion? Did it even matter, when all she wanted to concentrate on was the feel of his lips against hers and his hard c**k pressed between her legs?

She gave no more thought at all other than to her senses. The way he smelled, the feel of his hard body against hers, the way he looked at her when she lifted up to catch her breath. For someone who seemed so light and easy and filled with humor, he could sure get intense at times—especially now, when his eyes turned a stormy blue, and he frowned at her like he was angry. But she knew it wasn’t really anger that fueled him; it was passion, the same driving need that compelled her to rock against him, the need to feel his c**k rub against her pussy.

He grabbed her h*ps and rolled her over so that he was on top of her now, the hard ridge of his erection angled right on her sweet spot. She gasped.

“Like it there?”

“Yes,” she managed, though she was panting pretty heavily now. Damn him, if he kept moving against her cl*twith his c**k that way, she was going to come again. “Spence, please.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck me. Hurry, I’m going to come again.”

He arched a brow. “Are you?”

Instead of giving her what she wanted, he rolled to the side and palmed her sex, dipping his fingers into her wet pu**y and spreading her juices all over her clit. She tightened, and when he swept his hard, hot hand all over her sex, she splintered, holding tight to his wrist to keep him right there while she rocked against him, crying out as the sweetest pleasure imaginable sizzled through her.

She felt wasted. Sweetly, perfectly wasted. But still, his hand lingered on her pussy, his gaze never wavering from her face. She bit down on her lower lip as he began to move his fingers around her clit, teasing her pu**y lips. When he slid one finger inside her, she gasped.

“Wet,” he said. “Hot.”

He entered her with another finger, and she let out a low moan, the fire she thought was banked now growing again, gathering momentum.

“I’m going to make you come again, Shadoe. And this time I’ll be inside you when you do.”

She’d never been overly sexual. Yes, she enjoyed sex. She liked getting off when she was with a man. But never . . . never . . . three times in such a short period of time.

“I don’t know if—”

“You will. Look how fast you got off those two times. I’ll make you come again.”

He was so sure of himself, of his ability to get her there. She believed him. God, did she ever believe him. The way his fingers moved inside her, made her believe. He was magic, seemed to know exactly how to touch her, with his palm pressing down over her cl*tat the same time he finger f**ked her with deep, measured strokes. Her pu**y tightened around his fingers as he dragged a response out of her she thought was impossible. She lifted against him, craving more.

“I want to get you na**d and lick you all over,” he whispered against her ear, with each word sliding his fingers deep inside her, only to pull them out ever so slowly. “But not out here, not in the grass. I want to be able to see you bathed in the light, to take my time. And my dick is rock hard and I want to bury it balls deep inside you until I come hard. You ready for that?”

“Yes. Fuck me.” By the time he pulled away from her she was shaking. He settled between her outstretched legs and got on his knees, pulled a condom packet from his pocket, and unzipped his pants, drawing his jeans down just enough to pull out his cock.

Damn, it was beautiful. The head was wide, a deep, angry purple, his shaft steely thick just like the rest of him. She wanted to touch it, to slide her fingers and her mouth all over it, but instead he slid the condom over his c**k and settled between her legs.

“We’ll play later.”

She was counting on it. She spread her legs wider and lifted while he placed the head of his c**k at the entrance to her pussy, slid one hand under her butt, and eased inside her.

Shadoe tilted her head back and absorbed the sensation of Spence filling her, the way her pu**y squeezed his shaft as he drove all the way in, the way she pulsed around him in welcome. He fit her perfectly. Hot and hard and oh, God, he was an expert at f**king, going slow at first, letting her feel every glorious inch of his shaft, then driving in hard, quick thrusts that made her delirious with pleasure.

And his hands—the man had incredible hands, and he used them to touch her everywhere. She wasn’t even na**d, yet he lifted up her shirt to skim his hand over her breasts.

“When I get your clothes off I’m going to suck your nipples.” He tweaked the bud, flicked it with his finger. She felt that all the way to her clit, and it made her pu**y clench around his cock.

“Ah, Shadoe, your pu**y squeezes me.” He rocked against her, grasping her hip in a tight grip, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. He instantly let go.

“Don’t.”

“Can’t bruise you. You’re on tomorrow night.”

Dammit. She wanted him to take her hard, to leave marks on her, to make her his. She couldn’t explain this primal need; she only knew she wanted it, had to have it. She lifted against him, wrapped her legs around him. “Touch me, Spence. Be rough. I don’t bruise easy.”

With a low growl he took her mouth, sliding his tongue in to wrap around hers. He kissed her deeply, tucking his arm around her and using his hand to arch her upward. And then he began to dig hard, driving his shaft against her with deep, rhythmic strokes.

The sensations were so intense she couldn’t hold back, didn’t want to hold back. She raked her nails along his upper arms as she shook with uncontrollable spasms and splintered around him, her pu**y gripping him in intense, quick bursts as she came.

“Ah, Christ,” he murmured against her lips, then she felt his own control shred, reveled in it as he pumped hard and fast, then shuddered, sliding his mouth down her neck to bite against her shoulder while he rocked out a loud, intense orgasm of his own.

She held him, smoothing her hand along his arms, wishing they were both na**d so she could feel his sweat-soaked skin against her own, but loving this anyway as he came apart and held her in his strong embrace.

It took a while before she became aware of the wet grass underneath her. Spence rolled her over on top of him and swept his hands over her back, smoothed her skirt down over her na**d butt. He looked at her like she was a stranger, his brows winged in a deep frown.