“What I’m sayin’ is, you do not fuck with a woman who means somethin’ to me. And when I say that, I mean, you do not fuck with a woman who means somethin’ to me.”

Oh my.

I got it.

“You wanted to hurt Damian,” I said quietly.

“Hurt? Yeah. In a way he’d feel that pain every fuckin’ day for the rest of his motherfuckin’ life. In a way he’d never forget me. In a way he’d never forget the lesson I taught him. And in a way he’d think about you and instead of you giving precious headspace to wishin’ you never met him, his headspace would be filled with wishin’ he’d never fucked with you.”

Before my mind told me to do it, my body pressed closer to his. But if my body asked my mind, my mind wouldn’t have argued.

I slid my hand up his hard chest, along his corded neck to come to rest on his stubbled jaw.

Looking deep into his eyes, I admitted, “I don’t have words.”

His arm got tighter and his face tilted on the pillow to get closer before he whispered, “Tess, I learned somethin’ early about you. You are the only woman I know who doesn’t need words. Everything you do speaks for you and it never lies. Just your hand on me, babe, said it all.”

He held my eyes and I held my breath because he said that like he liked it, not a little, a whole bunch.

I nodded. His face got soft. It dipped to mine where he touched my mouth with his.

When he pulled back, he murmured, “Hit your light, darlin’.”

I nodded again and rolled. I turned out the light then curled on my side, pulled the covers over my shoulder, shoved my hands under my cheek and called, “ ’Night, honey.”

Half a second later, I found my body hauled across the bed, my ass in the curve of his hips, his knees cocked into mine, his front pressed to my back, his arm tight around my belly and his lips at my hair.

Only then did he murmur, “ ’Night, Tess.”

Brock Lucas spooned.

I fell asleep smiling.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wild Thing

THE SOFT STRAINS of Fiona Apple’s “I Know” forced my eyes open to the early-morning light. I listened to her contralto, her piano, the soft strum of a bass, and the slow gentle beat of a drum for a few long moments before the volume started to increase. Then I got up on a forearm, reached out, and hit the button that would freeze the volume like I usually did so I could listen to my music in the mornings.

When I reached for the covers to shove them off, my body moved backward across the bed and hit something very, very solid and very, very warm.

Oh man.

How could I forget?

Brock was there.