“Talking from experience, sweetie,” she kept ignoring Raid and addressing me, “brought him a friend. He likes it like that. I know ‘cause he came back for more.”

Pain seared through me, but I couldn’t focus on it since I heard a terrified squeak. My head shot back and I watched Raiden, in nothing but cargo pants, zipped but not buttoned, dragging her by her upper arm across the room.

He opened the door and bodily tossed her out onto the landing.

“Swear to fuckin’ Christ, I see your fuckin’ face again, I’ll devote my life to makin’ yours a misery. You feel like testing me, you’ll learn real fuckin’ quick I do not fuck around. And after that shit in there, Meg, I’ll go slow and enjoy every fuckin’ minute of flushin’ your life right down the toilet.” He threatened then finished, “Nod if you get me.”

“All bark, no bite, ‘cept sweet, vanilla Hanna in there. Now she gets your teeth when I thought they were all for me,” she jeered.

It might make me weird, and before this I didn’t care, but I could make Raid lose it often, lose control enough to sink his teeth into me and, as I mentioned, I loved that.

Actually, to be honest, I lived for it.

And it wasn’t just mine.

I closed my eyes against the pain, then opened them, dropped the afghan and bent to snatch up my blouse.

“You just tested me,” he whispered sinisterly.

“Do your worst,” she hissed. “No one steps out on me.”

“Clue in, bitch,” Raiden shot back. “I haven’t spoken to you for months. A man fucks you and your friend, no dinners, no movies, there’s nothin’ but pussy to step out on and pussy that’s just pussy is also just nothing.”

“You dick!” she yelled.

“Yeah, I’m a dick, but you’re a goddamned cunt. Prepare, Meg,” he finished on a warning and slammed the door right in her face.

He twisted the lock, turned to me and lifted a hand to drag his fingers through his hair, his blazing eyes landing on me.

“Fuck me, so goddamned hooked on my woman, come home to her in my bed, didn’t lock the motherfucking door,” he ground out.

“I need to leave,” I whispered, and Raid focused on me.

“Come again?”

“I need to go,” I told him.

“Hanna, that was jacked. Do not take her shit in,” he ordered.

“I need to go,” I repeated.

“Babe, again, that was jacked. I was never seein’ her. It was casual. You cannot step out on what’s not real. I haven’t even spoken to her in fuckin’ months. Way longer than you’ve been with me. She heard talk about us, woke up feelin’ like bein’ a bitch and came here to spread that joy.”

“You called her a cunt,” I reminded him.

He threw out a hand, his brows shooting up. “Were you not just here? She is a cunt.”

This was not debatable. I didn’t even know why I brought it up.

I moved on. “Did you… did you… bite her like you do me?”

“Honey, why do you think that shit tripped it for me? That bitch has never had my teeth. Fuck, no bitch has ever had my teeth.”

Thank God.

At least that was good.

Again, moving on. “Did you sleep with her and her friend?”

His torso swung back, his mouth snapped shut and I knew.

God.

I moved toward him because he was at the door, my head was down, my mouth repeating, “I need to leave.”

I didn’t make it. He didn’t step out of my way this time. He wrapped his hands around both my arms and moved me back five feet into the room.

I tore free and stepped three wide strides to the side, lifting a hand his way.

“Don’t touch me!” I hissed, and this time his head jerked.

“Hanna—”

“You had threesomes!” I cried.

“I told you, baby, we do not wanna go over past shit.”

I threw out both hands. “Now I understand why,” I shared. Then I asked, “Are you going to want to do that with me?”

“Fuck no,” he clipped.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” I pushed.

He leaned toward me and bit out, “Fuck yes.”

“How?” I snapped. “She’s right, you like it wild. When is vanilla going to wear off, Raid?”

Suddenly he smiled huge, white and amused, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he looked like he was fighting laughter.

“This isn’t funny!” I yelled because it dang well wasn’t!

“Honey, you’re wrong. You thinkin’ you’re even close to vanilla is goddamned hilarious.”

“Unh-hunh,” I mumbled disbelievingly.

His body started visibly shaking.

Yes.

With laughter.

“This isn’t funny!” I shrieked.

Raid crossed his arms on his chest, tried to fight back his smile without hiding he was fighting it back and began.

“Hanna, baby, I told you we do not wanna go over past shit and I was right. We really don’t. But you’ve worked yourself up so you give me no choice.”

I didn’t like this start, but had no chance to share that because Raid kept going.

“Meg spends her days at a shit job she hates and spends most of the rest of her time working out and starving herself, so she’s usually in a bitchy mood because she pretty much hates her life, but definitely needs a sandwich. Contradicting that shit, she doesn’t have a problem pouring alcohol down her throat and smoking a shitload of grass, which gives her the munchies she refuses to give into, thus the vicious cycle with her bein’ a bitch and makin’ the mellowing qualities of pot lost on her.”

“Raid—” I snapped to get him to shut up because I did not want to know any of this, but he talked over me.

“What I’m saying is she’s a party girl, up for anything, and she was up for anything with me. When she was able to tamp down the bitch, we had a good time. Maybe she’ll get a guy who’s into fake tits, lots of hair and women who care more about having a toned body than they do about having a decent state of mind so he’ll put up with the bitch to have her brand of fun, but that guy isn’t me.”

“Raid!” I yelled this time, but he kept right on going.

“You wanna hear this or not, honest to Christ, if you didn’t ignite for me our first time, and you were vanilla—you are fabulous, baby—but you would not be here right now. With you I got the whole package. If I had it with her, she’d be here, not you.”

“This isn’t making me feel better,” I informed him.

His amusement died and he shot back, “Then how’s this? You ignite for me, but more, you make me ignite for you. And no woman, not in my whole goddamned life, has made me ignite the way you do.”

Wow.

I knew he did that for me, but I had no idea I did it for him.

I shut my mouth.

“You get my teeth, Hanna, ‘cause makin’ my own personal Peggy Sue go wild for me drives me fuckin’ crazy. You do it for me like no woman before you. I lose control because you make me and you get my teeth, and what makes that shit better is you love havin’ my mark on you.”

I fought back the desire to touch my skin, knowing, since it happened before, I’d have to choose my top for that day carefully. Because his mark was always mild, but it was there and he was right.

I loved having Raid’s mark on me.

He was far from done and he also saved the best for last.

“She doesn’t do it for me, Hanna, because I didn’t fall in love with her when I saw her across a street, hair shining in the sun, laughing. You do it for me because you were that girl across the street, your hair shining in the sun, laughing, making me fall in love with you, and I didn’t even goddamned fucking know you.”

Did he just say that?

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He just said that.

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

“Yeah, honey,” he again agreed.

“I—” I started, but again he spoke over me.

“So thank fuck, my mouth on yours, you explode and let go and latch onto my dick while I’m drivin’ your car and dig your nails in my back when you come for me, ‘cause, baby, that means you give it all to me. Not one woman in my life gave it all to me and not one man can expect that. Hope for it. Yeah. Get it. No. You give it all, so that means I’ve got it all.”

I stared at him.

He let me for a while then he went on.

“Now, I can share what came before you, and I had fun, Hanna. I make no apologies. But I think it’s best we leave it where it lies. ‘Cause all you gotta know is it’s gonna be you—and only you—until the day I die, because life did not lead me down the wrong path when I fell in love with a girl who had the sun shining in her hair who would eventually not do it for me. You’re not just enough for me. You’re everything I want. So that works for me.”

When he stopped speaking, unfortunately, I started.

“Her breasts are fake?” I blurted.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

“You’re in love with me?” I kept blurting.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

We stared at each other while my heart raced and I fought panting.

Then, not finished blurting, I shared, “I beat you. I fell in love with you when I was six and I didn’t know who you were.”

I saw the tension flow out of his body. His neck twisted, head dropping forward, eyes closing, and he stood in silent contemplation for a moment before he lifted his head, looked at me and said quietly, “Okay, baby, you win.”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

It was then Raiden Ulysses Miller scorched me a second time, but I didn’t battle this blaze. There was no pain. But that didn’t mean I didn’t end up branded.

“I told you I didn’t dream as a kid of bein’ a cop or an astronaut, but I gave a lot of thought to the woman I’d want in my bed. I grew older and gave more thought to that woman, but it was also about the woman I wanted in my life. And she was you. Then I met you. And now, every day I wake up I cannot believe my luck because you’re here.”

Was he for real?

“How can you take a totally insane situation that should never happen, was intense and humiliating, and turn it into something I never want to forget in my whole life?” I asked.

“Because you love me,” Raiden answered.

“Oh, right. That’s how,” I muttered.

His fire burned white-hot.

“Get over here,” he growled.

I got over there.

The instant I did he crushed me in his arms, buried his face in my neck and I went up in flames.

It felt great.

* * *

Late that evening…

Wearing a tank and pajama shorts, I lay astride Raiden in my bed, my eyes watching my fingertips exploring his collarbone as I felt his fingertips exploring the skin of my thighs.

“Are you really going to make her life a misery?” I asked his collarbone.

“Meg?” he asked me, and I looked at him.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, and I tipped my head to the side.

“Really?”

“That situation was intense It embarrassed you and it should never have happened. She should never have walked in there in the first place, but she did. I gave her a chance to walk away, she didn’t. Now she’s gotta learn a lesson.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Somethin’ that’ll make her learn that lesson.”

“Raid—” I started, but his hands lifted up and gripped me at my hips.

“You don’t fuck with me,” he declared firmly. “She fucked with me.”

That she did.

I said nothing.

“And she fucked with you,” he went on. “She saw you were freaked and she went in for the kill. You don’t fuck with me. You absolutely do not fuck with you.”

“Okay, but that led to us—”

“No, Hanna. No.” He shook his head on my pillow. “Love knowin’ you love me, feels good you knowin’ I love you, but that was ours to share and we would have eventually done it anyway. But what I share with you in bed is mine. It’s yours. It’s ours and no one else’s. She watched me take you, and I don’t give a shit she was only there at the end, that’s not hers to have. She doesn’t get to hear the words I say to you when I’m inside you and she doesn’t get to hear what you whisper to me. And no one, but no one, gets to share in you comin’ for me.”

I had to admit, he was right. I didn’t like that she got that from us either.

“So she pays back,” Raiden declared. “She hates her job, she’s not gonna have it much longer. She likes to haunt a certain bar, she’s gonna find herself not welcome there anymore. She rents, her landlord is suddenly gonna rethink her tenancy. Next time she wakes up and feels like bein’ a bitch, she’ll think again.”