Unlike the last time she had her hands down my pants, it wasn’t cold and we weren’t alone outside. No, this time we were surrounded by people, even though it was dark and the velvet covering the table obscured what she was doing. If anyone bothered to stop and take a closer look, there’d be no mistaking the delicate up-and-down glide of her hand under the fabric of my pants or the way my breath was rushing in and out, making my chest rise and fall rapidly.

“Royal?” It was part question, part plea. Her palm glanced over the tip of my dick as it went from interested to rock hard with the sweep of her fingers. I felt my balls tighten up and I shifted in my seat as she continued the little butterfly-light caresses and brushed her lips lightly across the side of my neck.

“Some games can be fun, Asa, but when one person has to lose before we even start playing, there’s no point.”

Her fingers curled around my thickening shaft as I went still as stone when the cocktail waitress suddenly appeared next to the table. I gulped and fully expected Royal to stop what she was doing but she didn’t, and she didn’t bother to look up as I strangled out that we were fine and just needed the bill. The girl gave me a look full of knowing and, if I wasn’t mistaken, approval before she walked off. I curled my fingers at the back of Royal’s head until they were hopelessly tangled in her hair, and lifted her head off of my shoulder enough that I could kiss her. Her hand dipped even lower in my pants and I groaned against her tongue.

“You need to stop.” I rasped the words out because I really didn’t want to say them. We were in a public place, and while she might have a wild side, I doubted she would let me throw her on the cocktail table and fuck her like everything inside me was screaming to do.

She sank her teeth into my bottom lip hard enough, and when she coupled that with her soft hand squeezing the base of my dick, I was ready to come on the spot. “You need to stop, too.”

Her message was clear. She was all for games as long as they were fun and sexy, but she wasn’t going to be a pawn, and if I wanted to enjoy her while I had her, I better get my shit together real quick. She withdrew her hand, skating up under the hem of my shirt and letting her fingers run over the ridges of my abs. The scrape of her nails across my skin had me ready to go off like a rocket, so I threw enough money on the table to cover our bill and probably the table next to ours and dragged her out of the warehouse like it was on fire.

She laughed and it did something to the inside of my chest. I had put tears in her eyes first, but somehow she was amazing enough to understand the stuff I did better than I did myself, and now she was laughing about the disaster of it all. It was like the sun coming through the clouds on a stormy day. She was everything bright the darkness tried to swallow and I wanted inside of her so bad that I couldn’t see straight.

I pushed her up against the side of the battered car and closed my mouth over hers. I tunneled my fingers through the hair at her temples and kissed her with every bit of urgency I had. The funny thing was, I had to let go of some of the other stuff I was always holding on to in order to get the message across to her, and with the press of her mouth against mine, the brush of her tongue across my own, I couldn’t explain it but I suddenly felt lighter.

“I want to take you home and take you to bed.” I sounded rough. There was no smoothness in my typically practiced twang. I sounded impatient and needy, two things I don’t think I had ever been before this girl.

“I want that, too.” Her hands were back under my shirt and running up and down my rib cage. She was breathing hard as well and she kept stroking her tongue over the dip in the center of her top lip like she was tasting me forever and ever. Her dark gaze was softer than the night sky above us, but her eyes glittered with just as many points of light. She angled her head back so that we were looking at each other and some of the heady passion thrumming between us went the way of something more serious.

“Before I go home with you, Asa, you have to do something for me.”

I hated ultimatums, but for her, at this moment, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t agree to do. “I’ll do my best. That’s all I can do, Red.”

She sighed and leaned forward so that her cheek was resting against where my heart was thundering in my chest. It was so sweet, so touching, and so unlike anything that had ever happened to me in my life that I almost pushed her away because I simply didn’t know what to do with it.

“I like you, Asa. I like you more than I think is wise for either one of us, but I can’t keep this up. I can’t keep dodging everything you keep throwing in the way of doing this thing together if you can’t tell me one thing, one simple thing, that you like about yourself as well. I get that you did bad things and were a bad man, but part of moving past that is realizing you aren’t there anymore. If you can’t do that, I can’t do this.”

She pulled back and I could see the resolve and the seriousness stamped all over her arrestingly perfect face. The gauntlet had been thrown down and she was making me decide what to do with it. I dug my fingers into her hips and tried to smile at her around the bands tightening in my chest.

“I like that you like me more than is wise. Does that count?” She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t do anything but stare at me until I sighed and let my head fall back on my neck so that I was staring up at the night sky. “One thing?”

“Just one.” Her voice was quiet and she sounded sad, but not for herself, and I didn’t blame her. What she’d asked me to do shouldn’t be that difficult of a task to complete, but for me it felt nearly impossible.

I was quiet for a minute. I had to think. Liking or not liking myself wasn’t something I invested a lot of time thinking about. I knew what I had done, where I had been, and I knew I was never going back there. That was what I tended to focus on, not what I was doing now that I had my sister back in my life and a whole bunch of other people invested in me. I pulled her back against my chest and rubbed my chin on the crown of her head. Something inside of me fractured off and settled into a warm hot place when she didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms back around my waist to hold me in return.

“I like that even though Ayden and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, and even when she has really pissed me off, I’ve never not loved her. Even when I didn’t know how to love, when all I was doing was looking out for number one, I still loved her, and I like that I know how to do it right now. I like that I haven’t wasted the second chance I was given to be her big brother and ruined it … at least not yet.”