I bit into it and looked back at Creed, saying through sugar and fried dough, “Coffee?”

He scooted a white paper cup across the counter toward me.

I picked it up, sipped and closed my eyes.

Ah, good.

“What was that about me bein’ an asshole?” Creed asked.

I opened my eyes but only to narrow them on him.

He burst out laughing and I glared at him while he did but I multitasked, glaring while taking another bite of donut and sucking back another sip of coffee.

He stopped laughing and trained his eyes on me. “Have a good night?”

“No. I lost two hundred dollars playing pool.”

“Meet your match?”

“No. I suck at pool. Fuck drunk texting. Drunk pool betting is where your shit will get burned.”

That got me a full blown smile before he asked, “Where’s your ‘Vette?”

“A parking lot outside The X, hopefully resting easy under the benevolent eye of the Kickass Car God.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” he reassured me.

I took another huge bite of donut, chewed twice and said through partially chewed dough, “I hope so.” More chewing then, “She isn’t, I’ll curl up in the closet and I swear, I won’t come out for a week.” More chewing, I swallowed then, “And, just saying, I’ll take my gun with me and if you open the door for any purpose other than to toss in food and beer, I’ll shoot you.”

Through another grin, he muttered, “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“Don’t think I’m joking.”

He kept grinning.

Then his grin faded before he asked, “How’d you get home?”

“Don’t know. Ride for a blowjob. I think he was blond though.”

His anger instantly started slithering through the room.

“Don’t play with me,” he whispered. “You think my ass didn’t wait for yours to get home?” he asked and before I could answer, he went on. “She was a redhead, way too much makeup and you both giggled your way all the way up to the door. Though she was giggling like a lunatic, she walked straight back to her car so she wasn’t loaded, like you.”

“She wasn’t a she, she was a he.”

“She had way more tits and ass than you.”

“Foam rubber, Creed. The X is a gay bar. She’s a drag queen. Her name is Uqueesha.”

The Creed anger snake retreated and his brows shot up.

“That bitch was a dude?”

I nodded. “That bitch was a dude.”

“Fuck, didn’t call that,” he muttered.

“Maybe Grandpa needs his eyes checked,” I muttered back and those eyes that I insinuated needed checked narrowed on me.

I took another bite of donut and grinned big through dough.

He took a bite of his and chased it with coffee.

Then before I could stop it, right after I swallowed, I asked, “You waited for me to get home?”

He said nothing, just looked at me.

Suddenly, standing at the bar to my kitchen, it felt weirdly like the sun was shining warm down on me.

Creed twisted his neck and looked at the microwave before his eyes came back to me and he said quietly, “Got ten minutes to go time for next door, baby.”

Those rays of invisible sun heated my skin, taking the warm straight through me.

I shoved the last bite of donut in my mouth, put my coffee down on the counter, rounded it chewing then swallowing as I headed straight to him. He turned to me, his chin dipped, his eyes never leaving me even when my hands went to his neck, one sliding up and back, I went up on my toes, pressed deep and pulled him down to me.

I kissed him hard, my tongue sliding in his mouth and glazed mixed with Boston cream.

It was divine.

I pushed him back, back, kissing him, holding on and he slammed into the side counter.

His arms closed around me, pulling me up off my toes, off my fucking feet and he pivoted, crossing the kitchen until my back slammed against the refrigerator.

I used his shoulders as leverage, clutching hard, pulling up, my hand in his hair holding his head to me as the kiss went wild and deep. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his hips, used my back to push away from the fridge, leaned in hard and he moved back until he crashed into the counter facing the dining room.

I tore my mouth from his, lifting my head to find both my arms wrapped around his. My breath was coming fast and shallow, my chest heaving with the effort, just like Creed.

Hair had fallen over his forehead and was mixing with the brow and lashes of one of his bright, blue eyes. It was strangely cute on a man who was not even a modicum of cute but hard, rugged and all male.

It was also hot.

And it was all kinds of sexy.

Shit.

“I gotta get dressed and get over to Charlene’s,” I whispered, not moving an inch, not letting go.

“I’m coming with,” he whispered back.

“Suit yourself.”

“That’s what’ll suit me.”

I shrugged but held his eyes and said quietly, “You get that family hooked on you, you disappear, I’ll hunt you down, Creed. I’ll hunt you down and find an uncomfortable way to make you pay. Do you get me?”

“I get you,” he replied just as quietly. “I also get that she may be rougher around the edges but wrapped around me right now is all the Sylvie who used to be.”

I reared back but he was prepared, his arm angled across my back and held me close.

“Put me down,” I demanded.

He didn’t move a muscle even as he stated, “Anything for you, baby. Any fucking thing. Now do you get me?”

“You don’t have anything I want except my desire for you to put me down.”

“I’m not what you want, Sylvie, I get that because it’s the same for you as it is for me. I’m not what you want ‘cause I’m what you need.”

My gut squeezed.

“Put me down,” I whispered.

He dropped me to my feet.

I reached around him, whirled the donut box and grabbed another glazed. Then I moved around the counter, snatched up my cup and started through the living room. Unfortunately, Gun was waddling her fat, furry ass in front of me and taking her time, there wasn’t room to get around her so I was forced to go slow.

This meant Creed could get another shot in.

He didn’t waste the opportunity.

“You kiss me like that just for waiting up for you, partner, lookin’ forward to payback when I do something that actually means something.”

I turned at the opening to the entry. “You win back my two hundred bucks playing pool, I’ll give you a blowjob that will make you think you entered a new dimension.”

He grinned. “Seems we’re goin’ out tonight.”

“Can’t wait.”

His face changed, his eyes changed, the way he held his body changed and all of this reached across the room and burned straight through me.

“I can’t either.”

I decided it was the time to get the hell out of there before his intensity obliterated me.

So that was what I did.

Though I did it after giving him the finger.

This meant, as I walked away, I heard him laughing.

Shit.

Great.

Whatever.

* * *

“Jeez-oh-pete, he’s hot,” Charlene whispered.

She was wrapped around the doorway to the back hall of her house, watching Creed who was at the end of that hall in her bathroom inspecting her leaky faucet.

I pulled her back and wrapped myself around the doorway.

Today, more faded jeans. The suede boots. But it was summer and today was going to be hot so he’d lost the t-shirt and was just wearing a lightweight plaid shirt, this one with light blues and hints of yellow against a background of cream.

Adam was in there with him and Creed was standing huge and tall in the room, smiling down at Adam who was babbling up at him excitedly.

Donuts were a hit.

Creed was a hit too because he brought them, at least he was for the kids. He was also a hit because he was huge and badass. It was my experience the only people who didn’t tread cautiously with badasses were kids. They adored badasses and had no qualms approaching or engaging them in conversation. Badasses were kid magnets and if the badass was a true badass, he had no qualms about this either.

Creed had proved that morning he was a true badass.

He was good with kids.

Not a surprise, he had them, he had experience, he would be. It didn’t mean I liked watching it.

I didn’t let on and behaved as usual.

The kids ate donuts, drank milk and they did this while Creed and I looked after them and Charlene got ready for work. Then Creed helped Adam while I dealt with Leslie and Theo. Creed and Adam were done first, Charlene was out of the bathroom so they went down there to look at the faucet. Charlene got done getting ready and found me.

This brought us to now.

“Can I help you fix it?” Adam cried loudly and excitedly, jumping up and down twice.

“Need a part, pal,” Creed’s deep, smooth voice with the rough edge sounded down the hall. “But I’ll get it, come back tonight and you can help me then.”

Great.

“I can help!” Adam shouted, jumped again and Creed’s smile got bigger, brighter, sexier and, fuck me, sweeter.

I pulled away from the door and turned to Charlene who was examining me.

“You give him that bite mark?” she asked quietly.

“Um… yes,” I answered.

“The bruise on his cheekbone?” she went on.

“Things got outta hand,” I whispered.

“How out of hand?” she whispered back.

“He pissed me off. I attacked him. Got a bite and punch in. He defended himself. Things got heated in a different way. He gave me an orgasm after introducing me to bewilderingly good head and rough, hard sex, during which he carried me partway across a room still inside me and shortly after, I returned the favor. With the orgasm, I mean, I didn’t carry him across a room.”

Her eyes went huge and she muttered, “Holy crap.”

I would use different words but I still agreed with an, “Unh-hunh.”

Her face changed, her eyes going warm and worried before she said quietly, “I know it’s him, Sylvie.”

Unlike Knight, I’d told Charlene his name.

She kept talking. “Knew it was him yesterday when he came over and introduced himself. I played it cool though I have no clue how since I was,” she leaned in and hissed, “freaking out. Are you okay?”

I nodded and moved further into the kitchen, murmuring, “I’m cool.”

“Sylvie –”

I turned to her. “He has to matter for it to matter and, babe, he quit mattering a long time ago.”

This was the conclusion I’d come to the night before. I was off my game because I was letting him get to me, like he meant something when he didn’t, not anymore.

So I had to let that go and when I did that, I would get a partner who knew what he was doing. I would work with him to make Knight’s troubles go away. In the meantime, I could jump a hot guy whenever I felt like it.

This was not a bad deal.

The rest was done and had been a long time.

I just had to get over the shock of it and I’d done that over bourbon and pool with a bunch of gay guys and drag queens which was the best way to go about that. Or one of them.

“Sylvie, when you told me –” Charlene started.

I stepped close to her. “When I told you it was my birthday. That was our day. That was the day. And I was drunk. Being over it doesn’t mean being over it. Shit like that,” I shrugged, “you never get over. But you can deal. I’m gonna deal. He lives in Arizona, has kids and a life down there and he’s a fucking great lay. You know me. I don’t get involved but I do have fun. So I won’t get involved but I will have fun.”

“The guys you pick up, honey, they aren’t Tucker Creed.”

I shrugged again. “They aren’t anyone. Neither is he. A memory come back to life, who’ll eventually become another memory. Might as well make it a good one this time.”

She bit her lip looking doubtful before she let it go to whisper, “Be careful.”

I grinned. “Careful’s my middle name.”

She rolled her eyes at my blatant lie then shook her head and, doing so, caught sight of the microwave.

“Crap!” she snapped. “Right!” she called loudly to the house at large. “Car! School! We gotta go!”

She moved into the dining room where Theo was chewing on something, diapered ass to the floor. I moved there, straight to Leslie who was sitting on a booster seat at the dining room table, coloring. Creed and Adam appeared in the kitchen as we were heading out.