But he felt so good in her hand—so thick, so right—the taut skin deceptively velvet, the core like forged steel. And it felt like that all the way from the root to the tip because she tested it to make sure. She couldn’t not. Not with her heartbeat like a tempest in her blood.

Groaning again, he buried his head in the crook of her shoulder, and she knew that his gaze was locked on her hand as she worked up and down his length. Once, twice, three times. A series of rough pants spilling from his mouth.

“Suzy…” he muttered, his hand on her ass tightening.

The use of Suzy was like a lit flare to a vat of oil. Suzanne might just have been able to pull her back from the brink. After all, Suzanne always did the right thing. She was the good daughter, the good friend. She didn’t push or make waves. Her path had been cut out for her in life, and she’d been happy to tread it. She was Simone St. Michelle’s daughter; she forged other people’s art and was happy doing so.

Suzy, on the other hand, was none of those things. Suzy yelled at tough rancher dudes and bribed them and bit their lips. She lied to her parents. Suzy painted her own stuff. And made out on kitchen benches.

Suzy was freaking awesome.

“I need…” His voice trailed away as his gaze searched her face like he was trying to fathom if she also felt this wild kind of recklessness. “I need…”

She nodded. She knew exactly what he needed because she needed it to. She needed him inside her, moving inside her, to be as connected to him as was humanly possible.

To be one with Joshua Grady.

“Me too,” she whispered, releasing his dick to circle her arms around his neck, her nipples brushing the smoothness of his chest. “Me too.”

She kissed him again, their lips meeting in a desperate kind of mashing that had her gripping his hair and locking her legs around him, clinging and grinding herself against him until they were both groaning and panting.

Suzanne wouldn’t have thought it was possible to come from dry humping, but she was damn near there, and she wanted him inside her when she came.

“Condoms,” she rasped, pulling out of the kiss, the air in her lungs thick with desire.

He stared at her, his hair all messed up, the spot where she’d bitten him even more pronounced, his chest rising and falling as he dragged air into his lungs. “Wh-what?” His green gaze was clouded with confusion for a second before it cleared. “Oh shit.” His eyes went distant as if he was doing a mental inventory of his bathroom vanity. “I…don’t think I have a single condom in this entire house.”