Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(43)

“Amazing,” she said.

The whole thing was amazing. She’d never let go so thoroughly. She had paint in her hair, on her clothes. She’d pleasured herself in front of someone—all things she’d never done before. Speaking of…

“You’ve never done this before?” She wanted to add “with Rae,” but it seemed wrong to bring her up.

“Never.” He saw through her anyway. She registered in his expression that he knew what she was thinking. “Nothing’s perfect, Ace.”

But when he kissed her again, an argument hatched in her head. Because this entire thing had been pretty perfect. Raw and wrong and daring.

And perfect.

So perfect.


*


He’d known it on some deeper level. Had known Charlie saw him differently—saw these moments of creativity in a different way than Rae had. Charlie was an artist by her own right, and it came as no surprise that she’d gotten swept up in the room’s energy.

And it was some incredible energy. The kind only found when the world was asleep and the phones were quiet and children were sleeping. The kind of wild energy that, when harnessed, created the best art. Germinated amazing ideas.

So it came as no surprise to him that in his sexual frustration, he’d managed to find Swine Flew after nude finger painting Charlie and watching her make herself climax.

She sat on his lap now, where he’d insisted she sit. He allowed her to get dressed again, which almost killed him, but he counted himself lucky as it was. While she nestled against him, he sketched and painted and asked for her opinion on colors. She liked Swine with hair, but he argued Swine was too Miss Piggy with cascading blond locks, and she agreed she’d been remiss to overlook the resemblance.

He had an arm wrapped around her waist and his paintbrush on the canvas when she spoke. “Would you tattoo me?”

He sifted his hand into her shirt and palmed her ribs where she’d said she wanted ink, and gave her a squeeze. Unable to stop himself, he felt his way north until he brushed the underside of one breast, his thumb flicking her nipple. Her head dropped back on his shoulder.

Against her ear, he licked, then breathed, “I’d do all sorts of things to you.”

“How did this happen?” she asked quietly, and he wasn’t sure to which of them she’d directed the question. He dropped his paintbrush and moved her hair aside. They needed a shower. They were covered in dried paint, and he only hoped she could get the blue out of her blond hair.

She turned her head so her cheek was on his shoulder and sought him out with earnest eyes. So he told her the truth.

“Want you to be free. Great place to be.”

He was. Some days.

“There are always consequences to getting what you want.” A worry line bisected her forehead.

He shifted her so he could focus on her face. “There are consequences to everything, Ace.”

Consequences to marrying young and having a child. Consequences to doing things the right way. Consequences to living honest, loving honest, to committing to one person.

Sometimes those consequences were fair. And sometimes they weren’t.

Losing Rae hadn’t been fair. Lyon did nothing to deserve his mother being taken away from him as a toddler.

“I feel ba—”

He kissed her. “Don’t say it.” He regarded her and she watched him. “Don’t you dare say it. First off, I know it’s a lie. Can tell by your loose limbs, you feel great, baby.” He cupped her breast again and she sighed. “Imagine when I touch you there.”

Her mouth dropped open long enough to pull in a breath, then she closed it.

“You… we didn’t take care of you.”

Fact.

The proof was stretching his shorts and pressing against the side of Charlie’s ass. Much as he wanted more, he knew she’d had enough for one night.

“No more time, Ace. Sun’s coming up.”

She blinked around the room as if noticing the natural light through the drawn blinds for the first time, stiffening against him. “Oh my gosh, Lyon. And I’m… And you’re…”

“Relax.”

“I have to shower.”

He tightened the arm around her waist and kissed her again, whispering against her lips, “If Lyon wasn’t here, I’d take you up to my shower, soap you from head to toe. Lick you from head to toe.” He licked her top lip and kissed it, then gave a long, slow pull, showing her how he’d take his time. No doubt she tasted this amazing everywhere; he’d find out soon. “I’d lap you like a dish of cream. Until you came for me, Ace.”

She shuddered and he kissed her bottom lip this time before tracing it with his tongue.

“I’d make you scream my name. Scream it.” He nipped her lip and let go to find her eyes wide. He grinned, unable to keep from it. “And you will.”

“Evan.” Her voice was a whisper and her hand had clutched his hair again. He loved her fingers there, tugging, pulling, stroking. He’d like her fingers doing that elsewhere, too, he thought, lifting his hips and grinding against her.

But tonight hadn’t been about him. It’d been about making her see what they could be. If she let go. If they let go together.

And it’d been more amazing than he’d allowed himself to believe.