He starts to pull away but I grab the hem of his shirt. “Zach. Stop.”

He freezes in my grasp and tilts his head up—doing everything he can to not look at me. I study his strong jaw line and the slight stubble growing along it. I hate that I’m hurting him. Fighting with him is the last thing I want to do. I wish he could understand why I didn’t say anything to them. He has no clue how hard it’s going to be facing my parents and telling them how irresponsible I was in their eyes for dating this gorgeous rock star before me, throwing my career away in the process. My father doesn’t believe in doing crazy things in the name of love.

How can I explain to Zach while I love him with every inch of my being, my father and his hard-ass ways still scare the shit out me even though I’m an adult? I know it doesn’t make sense, but I still can’t bring myself to succumb to my father’s views on life in general.

I take a deep breath. I brought him here to make them understand. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told my parents, but I knew if I did over the phone they wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t know how special you are to me. I wanted to introduce you in person and make them see.”

Zack tips his head down and stares into my eyes before pushing my hair behind my ear. “I get it. Just because they’re our parents doesn’t make them the best people sometimes. I know that as well as anyone.”

I lean into his hand that lingers against my cheek and think about how great my family life was compared to his. And how I’m being such a baby over things and he’s still so understanding. “Thank you.”

He smirks. “Besides, you probably didn’t want your mom Googling me and seeing some pictures of her daughter’s boyfriend in um…” He clears his throat. “Compromising positions.”

I smack his arm. “Ugh. Gross.”

He laughs as he walks to the passenger side door and opens it for me. “What? You don’t think she needs a little man candy in her life? I’m sure she does after dealing with The Judge all these years.”

I take a couple steps toward him while I groan. “My parents don’t have sex, okay?”

Zach rests his hand on top of the door while I squeeze between it and the car and face him. “Of course they do. How else do you think you got here?”

My stomach turns at the thought of my parents that way. “Okay, so maybe they did it two times, but that’s it—once for me and once for my brother. No more. “

He laughs and I scrunch my nose. Zach stretches out his index finger and taps me on the nose. “Wishful thinking, Kitten. Everyone has sex.” I open my mouth to protest, but he quickly cuts me off. “Everyone. When we hit our fifties, we’ll still be having hot, porn-like sex every day. My stamina has no expiration date, babe.”

When he wiggles his eyebrows a laugh escapes me. There’s no doubt in my mind that this sexy beast before me will probably still have his most favorite body part standing to attention well into his golden years. It’s just funny thinking of this wild man as ever being old. He’s too strong willed and virile for me to picture him in any other state than he is right now—a tatted up rockstar with muscles galore.

I tug on the bill of his ball cap and then take my seat inside the car. “Come on, sex machine. You have some parents to impress.”

“No worries. Moms love me.” He winks at me after he shuts me in.

I shake my head. It’s kind of gross that he’s dead on. I’ve seen the way women throw themselves at my man. I’ve seen the cougars in full effect. Apparently, lust has no age limits.

Once we’re on the road, I stretch my legs out and take in the familiar scenery that covers the landscape on my way to my childhood home in The Woodlands, in northern Houston. “Make a left here.”

Zach let’s out a low whistle as we finally pull onto my street. “Wow, looks like I’m dating a spoiled, little, rich girl.”

“I’m far from rich. The Judge is the one that’s loaded, not me,” I remind him.

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Maybe so, but I guarantee you never went without.” When I don’t immediately have a snappy comeback to argue that I didn’t have it made like he thinks, he smiles. “That’s what I thought.”

The truth is I did have it made as a kid—as long as I played by my parent’s rules. I was never one really to push the boundaries the perfect child role they expected my brother and I to play, but I didn’t fully embrace the uppity lifestyle, either—which probably explains why I started dating the bad-boys in college. They were so different from the guys I grew up with in high school. They hated rules and loved their freedom, and deep-down I discovered the same thing about myself once I was out in the real world and could make my own decisions.

Zach pulls into the drive and cuts the engine before turning his head my direction. “Anything else I need to know before I walk in there?”

My mind wonders through a few scenarios of how this first meeting could go down. The last boy I brought home was clear back in high school, and he was nothing like Zach. While my mother knows I tend to get my heart crushed by loser men, she’s never had the pleasure of meeting my new type. She’s used to seeing me with uptight jerks like Isaac, so I’m not sure how she’ll react. I pray they remember their manners and are polite to him, whether they approve of our relationship or not. If not, I’m going to have to put on my big-girl panties and tell them to fuck off.