Boom! Like someone blew up his brain.

“Marissa …”

Her pelvis rotated against his arousal and then she was stepping away from him. “Come here.”

She could have commanded him to do any number of things—“Stand on your head, shave your eyebrows, pull your own arm off”—and he would have done any of it in a heartbeat. Follow her? With the possibility of giving her an orgasm—or six?

Yes, please, thank you, ma’am, how may I be of service.

Marissa led him behind the bar and pushed him against the shelves of liquor bottles. With fast hands, she went for his fly, and God help him, he gripped the edge of the granite countertop and watched her undo the buttons one by one, the ridge of his erection pushing things open as she went down.

And then she gripped him.

“Fuuuuck…” His head wanted to fall back, but he needed to see her—

His whole body swayed as her hand stroked his shaft.

“Do you like to see me do this to you?” She worked him nice and slow, up and down. “Do you, Butch.”

“Yes,” he whispered, drawing out the word. “I like … to see … your hands on me…”

“What about my mouth?”

His balls tightened, and an orgasm shot into the head of his cock, ready to explode—and that was before she got on her knees in front of him, disappearing behind the cover of the bar’s front section.

He wasn’t going to last long, but fuck him, he wanted that sensation, that warm, wet pull, even if for just a second—no watching, though. He had to squeeze his eyes shut. If he saw what she looked like, her mouth stretched wide, her beautiful hair splaying over his leather-clad thighs, that blue stare of hers looking up at him as if she liked the taste of him …

Which, of course, couldn’t possibly be true. But that was one lie he wasn’t going to argue with—

As her name reverberated up his throat, that suction was exactly what he was after, so slick and smooth, so hot that his eyes flared open. With his head on the level, he got a brief hi-how’re-ya of the leather couches, the pool tables, the archway into the foyer. If anybody happened to come in—which was unlikely, given Last Meal—they were just going to see him with his porn face on. Marissa was hidden behind the screen of the bar’s long, high countertop piece. And more good news? His bonding scent was waaaaaay out there, the dark spices so thick, it would serve as a warning that shit was going down in here, and people needed to give them a little privacy.

Marissa rode his head and shaft with her mouth, working him out like he liked it, and he closed his lids again—thinking of the Patriots playing the Giants … what was being served in that dining room … whether Lassiter was going to make them watch The Bachelor or if it was going to be Rachael frickin’ Ray and her EVOO shit.

The image of that bossy little chef was the filter that worked best, blocking some of the sensation—or at least enough so he didn’t come all over his shellan.

Actually, his fear of that outcome worked even better.

Fucking hell, the horror he’d feel if he ever climaxed in her mouth or, God, on her face …

Nope, nope, not gonna happen.

Unhinging his clawed hands from the back countertop, he reached down and gently pushed at her shoulders. “Stop…” he choked out. “You need to stop now.”

The sensations below his waist were getting loud as a detonation—until even with the distractions and the worry, they were about to take him over, submerging him under great waves of high-octane ecstasy.

Gritting his teeth, he grimaced. “Time to stop—time to—”

At the last possible moment, he forced her head away, jerked his hips to the side, and ejaculated all over the cabinets where the big boxes of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish were kept. As he came, she fought against his hold, like she wanted back at his erection, but he didn’t let her go until his hips had stopped kicking and his body was going into a sag.

“You should let me finish,” she said quietly. “You never let me finish you.”

Refocusing on his mate, he drew her up his body, his still-hard cock bumping against her breasts, her stomach, her thighs—

The sound of the vestibule’s door chime brought their heads around—and Butch swallowed a curse. Jesus, how’d he let this happen in such a public damn room? It had seemed like a perfectly acceptable idea when he’d been lust-blind, but this was no place for a lady like her to blow some scrub like him, even if they were mated.

Butch quickly smoothed Marissa’s hair and then started doing up his fly. “We need to take this back home.”

“It was kind of fun.”

“No.”

As Fritz let Xhex and Trez in, Butch yanked himself back to reality.

“…owes me one,” Xhex was saying as she strode in.

“I so do!” Butch called out to her. “Call the chit whenever you want.”

Xhex shot him a wave, then pegged him with a finger point. “I’m holding you to that.”

“You better.”

Butch had to smile, but then he refocused on his shellan. “Let me feed you. And then get you naked in our bed.”

“Good.” She kissed him and then turned around to clean up what he had—

“No.” Butch stopped her hands on the paper towels. “That’s for me to do.”

As he eased her out of the way, he could feel her staring at him, but he ignored it. Where he came from, there were two kinds of women, and his mate was in the worship category.