It felt like death. But that fire in her eyes looked fresh. Too fresh to only be about me. There were other things occupying Rosie’s mind. Family-related things. I knew that, and this time…this time I was going to be the punching bag. Fuck, how I wanted to feel her little fists all over my body.

Dean

Point made. Now stop it.

She didn’t answer.

And she didn’t fucking stop it.

My eyes traveled up and the fuckwit took her hand, leading her to the back door of the club. I looked around. All of our friends were still busy dancing, drinking, and generally not giving two shits. My plan to corner Rosie backfired in my face in spectacular fashion.

Because Rosie wasn’t Millie. Rosie couldn’t be cornered.

Rosie was never the prey. She was, at times, the motherfucking hunter.

I used every ounce of self-control in my body to stop myself from running after them. No, I sauntered. Cool. Unnerved, pushing bodies, and stepping on feet on my way to the door that led out to an alleyway at the back of the club. I moved past darkness, through saturated lights. Yellow, green, red, and purple twirling together. They probably looked beautiful if you were drunk, but I wasn’t. And when I finally poured myself out into the static, hot air of Las Vegas, I stilled.

Her back was pressed against an exposed brick wall and he was hovering next to her, his lips inches from tasting what belonged to me.

“Back. The. Fuck. Up,” I hissed, ambling in their direction. They twisted their heads, and I think Rosie saw the smoke coming out of my ears, because she took a visible gulp and placed her palms on his chest as a barrier.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was hoarse. “He’s a jealous ex. Not my ex, but he didn’t get the memo yet.”

Evidently, Mr. Prop here didn’t want to be the one to give it to me. The guy looked like he peed his pants, and I had to remind myself that he was just a means to an end for her. Poor bastard.

“I’ll take it from here.” I slapped the guy on the shoulder a little too hard. He looked between us, his mouth falling open. He wanted to know that it was okay to leave her with me, but at the same time, hoped that it was, because I still looked every inch of a quarterback monster who only answered to the words ‘God’ and ‘Daddy’.

Rosie nodded, clearing her throat. “Sorry, Adam. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“Planning to,” Adam said, turning around and walking away, his steps becoming faster as he approached the door.

I pinned Rosie to the wall, this time not giving a damn about her stupid-ass rules, and grinded my body slowly against hers. I had a throbbing erection, and it pressed against her navel, demanding her attention. She arched her back and got on her tiptoes, chasing our touch, her mouth asking for mine.

“Adam?” I quirked a brow, pulling my face away. Two were going to play this game, at least until she realized there was no game. This was real.

“Nice dude.” She still stared at my lips, her breaths labored, and not from her stupid illness.

I boxed her with my arms, my lips hovering over her shoulder.

“I’m glad you think so, because he just cost you an orgasm.”

She moaned, dragging her teeth over her lower lip when my hand slipped inside her panties and grazed her wet slit.

“I need a distraction tonight.” She jerked me closer. “I need your help.”

I thrust two fingers into her and started pumping in and out. She gasped, her fingers lacing my hair, but I didn’t let her wrap her legs around me. No. Fuck that. She had no clue, this girl. No. Fucking. Clue. Who she was dealing with. I might’ve been nicer than Vicious, but I was still a HotHole. I was still a sinner…and I was still the wolf her grandmamma warned her about.

“Yes,” she panted. “Right there.”

I slid another finger until I fucked her with my entire hand, grinding my body against her to create the friction she throbbed for against her clit. She started shaking, losing balance. Her knees were giving in, and if she thought I was going to catch her, she was sorely mistaken.

“Look at the stars,” I growled.

She gave no fucks about the stars, chasing my mouth again. I didn’t kiss her. She didn’t deserve to be kissed. I wanted her to come to me—not under the haze of a looming orgasm—press her lips against mine, and say it.

I’m yours. I’ve always been yours. I will never be anyone else’s.

“You better fucking do it, Baby LeBlanc. I don’t like repeating myself.”

Rolling her eyes, she complied. We both looked up. The sky was full of stars against all odds. You couldn’t really see shit from The Strip, but that night, you could. You could because she was there.

Her thighs clenched around my waist and so did her pussy against my fingers. I pulled out, my eyes dead, my lips pursed, staring at her like she was nothing more than a business transaction. A mere inconvenience I bumped into during my day.

“What the hell are you doing?” Her mouth dropped like a stone, and I almost laughed when her groin pressed against my stomach, begging for me to finish the job. I pressed my lips to her ear.

“Consequences, Rosie. Get used to them. I’m not letting you off like the rest of your family. Next time you let some random douche put his hands on this,” I clutched her hips and drove them into my throbbing cock, “you better believe there will be penalties. I’m letting you off the hook this time, because you’re a newbie, but just so you know—it is happening, it is mine, and you are welcome. Lesson learned.”

That night, Rosie snuck into my suite.

It wasn’t really a Marine Corps operation. The girls were plastered from drinking all day, and Millie—who was apparently sober for a reason beyond my grasp—dozed off in the club, fuck-tired. Rosie was straddling the line between tipsy and sober, but nowhere near the state she was in back when we hooked up in Todos Santos. And lookie here, she still wanted The Dean’s D. Big fucking surprise. I wondered for how much longer she was going to downplay us before she realized that we are diving down a rabbit hole headfirst and it was so deep there was no climbing back up. The very same one I tried to push her into when we were teenagers.

Vicious and Jaime were downstairs, hitting the blackjack tables.

I heard the soft knock on the door and opened it. She stood on the threshold, still clad in that pink dress that made all the other girls at the bachelorette party look like human-sized vaginas but somehow made her look like a princess, and my heart did a wild thing in my chest.

And it was funny how people always said that I was trouble, when trouble looked like a tiny, blue-eyed girl in a huge pink dress and brownish-orange freckles.

Rosie looked pissed.

Her pixie ears were pink, her mouth was twisted into a sneer, and her foot was tapping that red carpet like she was trying to stomp it to death. It’d been like this for days now, and it rubbed me the wrong way. Rosie wasn’t herself in Todos Santos, or in Vegas. She wasn’t self-assured, fun, and sassy. She was angry, annoyed, and desperate. I had a feeling it had a lot to do with her family, and now I knew that she didn’t want to accept my plane ticket not only because of the money, but also because of how this place made her feel.

“You need a cold shower to get some fucking chill.” I gave her my unsolicited advice.

“I need a hot fling to make me forget,” she disagreed, pushing me into the room and walking in. I let her take the lead, giving her the false-assumption she was under some sort of control—and followed her, watching her round ass in that dress.

“Hop into the shower, Sirius.”

“I don’t think so, Planet Earth.”

If a smile could split your face in two, I’d have headed straight to the hospital at that second. “Planet Earth?” I clucked my tongue. “Color me curious and horny.”

She whipped her head around, her chin resting on her shoulder.

“You are chaotic, crazy, and full of wars and angst. But you’re the liveliest place I’ve ever been to.”

Fuck. I was going to put a ring on her finger, and it was probably going to weigh as much as she did, if not more. It wasn’t just this whole, crazy week talking. She was humoring me. Every part of me. Even the dark shit no one wanted anything to do with.

“In the shower,” I repeated, my voice solemn, walking over and swatting her ass. Nothing too bad. Yet. “For every minute you keep me waiting, I’ll deny you another orgasm.”

Girl practically jogged her way there, breaking some cystic fibrosis-related records, I’m sure.

She stripped out of her dress, shoes, and panties. Baby blue, lace and satin, and I was tempted to shove them into my pocket, but I reminded myself that if I was going to have my way, Rosie would soon have her whole fucking wardrobe in my closet and I wouldn’t need it. Still, I would probably take a few of her panties with me to work. Just to get me through the day.

I turned on the faucet—the water was ice-cold—and nodded for her to get in while I was still fully dressed. She eyed me suspiciously, and even though she was completely naked, she didn’t try to hide her body. Not that she had a reason to. Rosie LeBlanc was a piece of art if I ever saw one.

“I’m sick,” she said.

“You’re going to be fine,” I assured. I wasn’t a fucking doctor, but I loved guiding her out of her comfort zone—enjoyed her reaction when she realized that for me, she wasn’t a wilting flower. She was a strong tree with a great trunk. Pun intended, obviously.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“Will you join me?”

“If you ask nicely.”

She chuckled, folding her arms over her bare chest. It was the first time I saw her tits, but it took me a few seconds to realize it, because in my mind, she was always naked. Funny how the human brain works.

“Please, will you join me in the shower?” she asked through an eye roll.

“I’m sorry, is that your version of nice?” I unzipped my dress pants and took out my cock. I was completely hard, my dick jerking in my hand, its head pointing at her angrily. Her eyes widened as she took a good look at it for the very first time.