But not like the real thing.

Nothing like it.

Not even close.

“Sweetie,” she called, her tone tentative, and Joker stopped watching his thumbs move over her flesh and looked to her.

He saw her body was tense and her neck was twisted, her eyes on him unsure.

He pulled out, flipped her over, lifted her up into his arms and put a knee to the bed. He moved them from the edge and dropped her to her back, his weight hitting soft body, pressing it into the bed, feeling it against him, her thighs holding him tight at his hips.

He lifted a hand and pulled a tangle of ringlets out of her face.

Then he bent and kissed her, soft, deep, so fucking sweet, and he kept doing it until she was holding on tight with all of her limbs.

Only then did he break it and ask, “You good?”

“Yeah,” she whispered but she didn’t need to. The uncertainty was gone. She was gazing up at him, dazed, her body warm and loose under his even if her limbs were still wound tight.

Suddenly, she looked to his nose.

“I liked the part where you… um, flipped me around. Or, I should say the, uh… parts.”

He grinned even though he wasn’t the kind of man who settled in for a blow by blow processing of a great fuck.

But if she wanted that, he’d give it to her.

“And when you had your, well…” her eyes dropped to his mouth, “mouth between my legs.”

He grinned bigger.

Her eyes skittered to his then to his hair and finally over to his ear.

“And the…” she bit her lip, let it go and brought her gaze to his, “edge of the bed thing. It felt…” her hand slid up into his hair and her voice dipped quiet, “kinda naughty.”

That was cute but if she thought that was naughty, and she liked it that way, he had a lot to teach her.

Even as he got off on that idea, something bothered him about it.

Her words came to him.

Don’t stop.

She’d said that in his bed in the Compound.

Fuck, she’d even said it when he was fingering her in the shower.

And he knew why she did.

Her ex stopped. Her ex didn’t go the distance with her before taking himself there. Her ex didn’t fuck her on her knees at the side of the bed.

Jesus, with a hot little number like Carissa, what was that asshole’s problem?

“Joker?” she called, and he focused on her.

Part of him wanted to ask. Part of him wanted to know if she’d ever been taken care of in any way, in bed or out of it, by Aaron Jackhole Neiland.

The rest of him didn’t give a fuck. He’d give her that every way he could.

“Right here, Carrie,” he muttered.