And, last, when I went to him again, he’d yanked me into his bed.

Something else hit me and, with all the rest, it didn’t make sense.

“You f**ked that blonde,” I accused his neck, my breath hitching through it because I was still crying.

“What?” he asked.

“That blonde you were flirting with, you f**ked her.”

“What blonde?”

I stopped crying because I was shocked at his question and the fact that he sounded baffled. I was also, but more so, pissed.

How could he forget the blonde? He’d had her only a couple of weeks ago.

I yanked my face out of his throat and tipped my head back, watching his chin dip down, and I caught his eyes in the semi-dark.

“That blonde, Ham, that blonde you were flirting with the other night who you took down the back hall of the bar.”

To this, he strangely replied, “She was hammered.”

“What?”

“Blitzed, babe, totally out of it. I took her home. She lived in f**kin’ Chantelle, so it took a while. I came back to the bar, you were gone. I finished the shit I needed to finish, and seein’ as you were flirtin’ with that f**kwit, I was pissed so I sat in on a poker game so I could get my mind off you and your shit.” He paused, then finished with, “I won fifteen hundred dollars.”

“She was hammered?” I asked.

“Passed out in the truck. Got her to come to in order to walk her to her house. She passed out on her living room couch before I took two steps back to her front door.”

This was good news. Not only had Ham not f**ked her, she’d been so blotto, she passed out, which meant her punishment for flirting with my guy was her having a hangover the next day.

It didn’t make me a nice person, she had no idea he was my guy, I didn’t even have any idea at the time he was my guy. But still, I liked this.

Onward.

“You won fifteen hundred dollars?” I asked.

I saw the white flash of his teeth and his arms gave me a squeeze.

“Yeah. Means we can go crazy at The Rooster tomorrow night.”

We were going to The Rooster? I loved The Rooster.

I let The Rooster go and narrowed my eyes.

“Since when does the manager of The Dog take drunk women home?” I queried. “Jake calls a taxi”—I paused to drive my point home—“unless the woman is hot.”

“They do that shit when they spend a night gettin’ crap from their girl who doesn’t know she’s his girl’s friends and watchin’ her flirt with some jackass and give him her number. Had to get the f**k outta there so I didn’t rip that jackass’s head off.”

That explained that.

My eyes un-narrowed and my body melted into his.

“That guy ever call you?” Ham asked.

“I didn’t pick up.”

“How many times did he call you?” he pushed.

I pressed my lips together and when his eyes narrowed, I answered, “Twelve… ish. I quit counting.”

“Fuck,” he muttered to the ceiling.

I decided to stay silent.

Ham looked back at me.

“You thought I f**ked her?”

“You were flirting with her.”

“I was pouring her drinks. My job is to sell booze, babe, and you and me both know tossin’ a smile at a randy drunk is a good way to do that.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“You also left with her,” I reminded him.

“Wouldn’t ever do that shit to you.”

“You said that the ground rules were, if I hooked up, I did it at his place and you’d return the favor.”

“Baby, I lied,” Ham stated with firm emphasis that was made firmer by his arms going tight around me.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” I snapped.

“Is that why you were brooding on your balcony?” he asked.

“Yeah, Ham. I thought the love of my life, who I was living with and working with but I couldn’t have, had spent the night with another woman, so that was why I was brooding on my balcony,” I clipped.

Only when I was done speaking did I feel the air, the stillness of his body, and the fact that his arms were now very tight around me.

“Ham?”

“Fuck, now I gotta f**k you again,” he muttered, rolling us so I was on my back.

“What? Why? What’s going on?” I asked, rounding him with my arms.

His lips came to mine, where he whispered, “Love of your life.”

I stilled.

Then I drew in a soft breath.

After that, I admitted, “It’s always been you.”

“Fuck, now I gotta f**k you again,” he murmured, but his murmur was jagged.

I smiled against his mouth and slid my hands up his back.

Ham slanted his head, took my mouth with his, and proceeded to f**k me again.

Chapter Nine

Our Beginning

“Ham,” I breathed.

“What ’cha need to take you there?” Ham growled.

“Oh God,” I whimpered.

“Baby, hurry, I’m close,” Ham grunted.

We were in the living room. My panties were dangling from my ankle. My back was to the wall. The bottom of my wraparound dress was gaping open because my legs were wrapped around Ham’s hips, my arms around his shoulders, and he was powering deep.

Suffice it to say, when I wandered out of his bedroom in a clingy dress that showed cle**age, spiked, high-heeled sandals, hair out to there with soft curls and sweet flips, and sultry makeup, Ham liked what he saw.

Thus me against the wall getting it from my guy.

“Keep going,” I begged.

“Fuck, should have dropped to my knees and ate you before I f**ked you,” he groaned.

That did it. My head flew back and hit wall, my hands slid up and clenched in his hair, my legs squeezed him hard, my sex squeezed him harder, and I cried out as I came hard.

“Thank f**k,” he muttered, shoved his face in my neck, thrust his c**k inside again, again, again, jolting me, prolonging my fantastic orgasm, making me moan then he finally buried himself deep and groaned into my neck.

I pressed my face into his, held on tight, and started sliding my lips on his skin and nuzzling his jaw and ear with my nose when his c**k started gliding in and out of me.

He kept gliding as he whispered against the skin of my neck, “Just in case you hadn’t noticed, glad to have you back, cookie.”

I smiled against his skin when I replied, “Glad to be back, bruiser.”

I felt his smile as he clarified on an inward glide, “All the way back, babe.”