Her eyes widened and then her obscenely long lashes dropped as she nodded timidly. “Okay, since you asked so nicely.” The humor was now thick around every word and she was laughing for real as I carefully wrapped my arms around her.

I sighed into the top of her head as I pulled her to my chest. Her hair smelled like flowers and felt like silk as I rested my cheek against the soft strands. We stood like that for a long time, me with my arms curled around her as she stood stock-still. I could feel her heart beat and I wanted to think it was racing like it was because she was affected by my touch rather than because she was terrified of being so close to a man she didn’t know all that well.

I told myself not to breathe, not to move a single muscle, as her hands slowly lifted and gently touched my sides above the tops of my jeans. It felt like her palms were burning their imprint into my skin as they slowly, achingly started to inch their way around my back so that she was lightly holding me in return. I heard her make a sound that may have been one of pleasure, but just in case it was one of fear, I leaned away from her so I could see her face.

Her gaze was centered on the tattooed candle that was burning bright and surrounded by light and smoke right on the center of my throat. She watched the movement as I swallowed hard and her gaze drifted up to mine.

“No one has ever asked me for permission for anything before. No one has ever cared what I wanted before.” The murmur of her words brushed across the base of my throat and my cock went instantly hard. I knew she felt it because her eyes popped wide and her breath hitched as she looked up at me and ordered quietly, “Ask me what I want right now, Wheeler.”

I was equal parts terrified and intrigued by what her answer was going to be, so I tightened my hold on her and lowered my head so that my lips were hovering right by the tantalizing curve of her ear. “What do you want right now, Poppy?” I would give it to her no matter what it might cost me. I’d never had much but it seemed like everything compared to what she had. I wanted to take the entire world and wrap a giant bow around it and hand it to her. I’d tried to do that for Kallie, but she’d never appreciated it. Something told me Poppy would never dismiss anything that she was given because the only thing she was used to taking from people was their bullshit and abuse. Anything gifted from the heart and with kindness would be cherished and treasured.

I could see some kind of internal battle waging behind the glow in her fantastic eyes. She was balanced on the precipice of something, trying to decide which way she wanted to fall; lucky me she picked the option that landed her in my arms.

“I want you to kiss me.”

Like I said, I couldn’t look away, not for a minute, because the girl was full of surprises. It was my turn to chuckle lightly. “Well, because you asked so nicely.” I tossed her words back at her right before I bent and touched my lips to hers.

Poppy

I t was too soon … probably for me and most definitely for him, considering he was all set to marry someone else up until very recently, but that didn’t stop me from blurting out what I really wanted from him.

I didn’t know what it was about this guy that made me do things that were totally outside of my comfort zone. I’d never made the first move in my life. I’d never had to because the few men that had been in and out of my life had targeted me and hunted me like I was easy prey … I was. Too young and naive, too broken and scared, both physically and emotionally. Like the predators they were, they could see my weakness from miles away, so they came to me. They never gave me a chance to decide if they were what I really wanted or not because they moved in for the kill so fast that I was consumed by them. They took me down and left me bleeding before I understood what was happening. There was no time to decide if I wanted those angry kisses and those hard hands on me. There was no room to move if I felt threatened or afraid.

Wheeler was different.

There was no question that I wanted to know what his lips felt like when they landed on mine. I’d never been touched by tattooed, work-roughened hands, and more and more I found myself drifting off wondering what that would feel like. He tore apart things that were battered and beaten down and put them back together so that they were shiny and new. He took something that was worthless and made it priceless. I couldn’t deny that there was a part of me that wanted to know if he could do the same thing with me.

Plus, I wanted a kiss … just one. A single kiss that I wouldn’t regret later on down the road. One I’d asked for. One that was mine. One that wouldn’t make me kick myself and say “I should have known better” because I did know better but I was asking him to kiss me anyways. I wanted a kiss that was given, not taken.

He didn’t touch me even though I’d given him permission to do so.

He let his hands fall from my back, where they had been resting when he hugged me. I got the sense that he didn’t want me to feel trapped, that he wanted me to be able to pull away at any moment if I changed my mind. His silent consideration and unwavering thoughtfulness made me even more certain that I wanted him to close the few inches that separated us. I wouldn’t have asked him to let me go but I realized as he leaned down from his far superior height that I was glad he did. I was the one moving closer. It wasn’t him pulling me. I couldn’t see anything beyond the burning blue of his eyes.

When his lips touched mine I stopped breathing. I barely felt them but I felt the heat they generated all throughout my body. It was a featherlight hint of pressure but the impact almost took me to the ground as my knees started to quiver and shake. I had to put one hand on the center of his chest and the other on the countertop to keep myself from folding and falling to the ground.

He tasted like beer and something else that was infinitely male. He tasted like excitement and fantasy. He tasted forbidden and destined all in the same sweep of my tongue across the barely opened part in his lips. If this was kissing, then I’d been doing it wrong since day one. This felt like being kissed by someone that knew how important it was for a girl to get kissed right. He erased the greedy and selfish lips of the college train wreck and he obliterated the painful, punishing lips of the man that had married me and then done his best to end me.

Wheeler took a step closer, our chests pressed against one another, and instead of feeling crowded or controlled, I wanted to press myself more fully into him. It was the freedom he gave me to get away that kept me moving closer in. I moved the hand that was capturing each beat of his heart up the solid wall of his chest and curled it around the side of his neck. He had a bluebird tattooed there, and with each pulse of his heart it felt like the wings were fluttering delicately under the tips of my fingers as I traced the vein that ran under the inked skin. This was by far the closest I’d willingly been to a man in ages and I didn’t stop to process the fact that I wanted to get even closer.