if that’s what I want, too?”
Four
Spike
I’m fucked. Totally, absolutely, one hundred percent fucked. Once the guys get wind of this, they’ll rip me a new asshole. Bash will beat my head in. He’s new to the dad gig, but he’s got one thing down pat.
Nobody touches his daughter.
Nobody.
Angel meets my gaze, eyes swimming with emotion. Hope. Joy. Hesitation. Fear. Arousal.
Shit, my dick gives a little twitch.
Our little stare-off lasts a few seconds. Her lips part and the faintest pink rises on her neck and colors her cheeks. She blinks. It’s slow, sensual, and erotic as fuck, then her gaze cuts down and to the side, demure, submissive, perfect for me.
Shit, I know what that means.
Angel’s totally out of her league, but she’s willing to stand her ground. I can’t deny it. She chooses me, willingly, even if the thought of it scares her.
All her bluster is just that. She desperately wants to meet me on equal ground, but it doesn’t change one important thing. When it comes to sex, I hold the advantage, but as far as relationships go, I’m unprepared.
I’ve never dated. Angel Fire took off my last year in high school. I barely graduated, let alone messed around with dating girls. I was all about fucking them, hungry and voracious to make my mark on the world and strut my stuff. I had sex with as many chicks as I could, as fast as I could; a cocksure asshole with shit to prove.
In this, Angel terrifies me.
I’m not prepared for the next step, and that has nothing to do with sex. It’s difficult to swallow past the lump in my throat, but I manage. And in that time, I make a promise.
If I’m going to do this, and for whatever reason unknown to me I want a relationship with this amazing woman, it’s going to be done right.
“We’re going to have to be careful.”
Shit, did that really come out of my mouth?
I tense as she shifts in my arms. Her palms rest on my chest and her fingers spread apart. I like her hands on me. I like it a lot.
Angel’s lashes flutter. She blinks and her eyebrows tug inward. I love the tiny grooves forming across her forehead. She’s thinking. Her green eyes practically glow as the realization sinks in. Happy eyes. Joyous eyes. They lick along my body, making my body shudder and come alive.
“You smell even better up close.” She buries her nose in my shirt and makes a show of sniffing me. “Dark, masculine, yummy.”
“Yummy?” A laugh escapes me. “Is that what’s going through your head? How I smell?”
“You smell really good.”
“You smell sweet and light, like strawberries and lilacs.” And all kinds of bad news.
I cup the back of her head and pull her to me until her head rests on my chest.
Angel’s a good deal shorter than me. I’ll have to stoop to kiss her or lift her until her legs wrap around my hips. Damn, the images going through my mind are positively sinful. I can’t wait to peel her out of those cheeky shorts and wrap her legs around my hips. I’m strong enough, and skilled enough, to make that work.
I mentally mark it on the list of all the ways I want to fuck my girl. It’s growing by the second.
Hard and aroused, it takes all my concentration to keep from fucking her right here, right now.
I’m not massively built like Forest and his Guardians, but I’m taller than most, lanky. Some would say wiry. Corded muscles twine up my arms. I’ve got a chest most guys would die for, a six-pack that drives the women wild, and a cock that…
Holy shit, what is Angel going to think when she sees that?
I don’t advertise all my piercings. That one is going to be interesting. It’s fun watching the shock on a girl’s face when she sees it. Even more fun when she finds out what it can do for her.
Angel looks up at me as her fingers explore the dips and valleys of the muscles on my chest. Christ, if her eyes don’t make my skin heat and shiver. Up close, there’s more green in them than tawny brown. Mesmerizing, I want to fall into their depths. Feathered with thick lashes, she blinks with tender innocence, reminding me she just turned eighteen.
Eighteen.
A week ago, I wouldn’t have blinked at banging an eighteen-year-old.
I take her hand in mine and lift it to my lips. “We should probably talk first.”
“About what?”