“And therein lies the problem. Guns should be illegal but drugs should be legal.”

Deck stared at her in astonishment at this proclamation before he dropped his head and looked to his boots.

“Alcohol is legal,” she informed his bent head. “I don’t understand why drugs aren’t. And think of all the money we’d have for socialized medicine if we could tax the sale on narcotics and stop spending huge amounts of tax dollars on fighting the war on drugs.”

He lifted his head and begged, “Please, can we not talk about socialized medical care? I like you now and I wanna f**k you later. I don’t mind f**kin’ a woman I don’t like, especially if she looks like you, but it’s more fun f**kin’ one I do.”

She wasn’t listening and he knew this because she didn’t fire back but also because her eyes were narrowed on the stove.

“Shouldn’t that burner be red?” she asked, and Deck looked to her rickety, ugly, avocado stove.

Then he moved to it.

He carefully touched the side of the pot that should be water getting warm to boil new potatoes.

Ice cold.

He then put his hand to the door of the oven where a still very raw beef tenderloin was sitting.

“Fuck,” he clipped, and felt Emme come close to his side.

“Have we lost her?” she asked, and he looked down at his girl.

“I think she gave up the ghost, honey.”

Emme rested a hand on the edge of the stove and murmured, “She had a fine run, what with allowing Alice to cook all those meals for Greg, Marcia, Jan, Peter, Bobby and Cindy.”

Through his chuckle, Deck replied, “Yeah, she did. Though I wish she didn’t kick it when I put a forty-dollar piece of meat in her belly.”

Her head jerked up. “That roast cost forty dollars?”

“Yep.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Deck dropped his to it and brushed his lips against it, and seeing as it was open, he took that opportunity to stroke her tongue with his own.

He lifted his head and asked, “Do you think your phone will work long enough to order a pizza?”

The wonder swept out of her face as pique entered it. “There’s nothing wrong with my phone, Jacob. Or my cell phone. Or yours for that matter.”

“Good, then get your ass to one of them and order pizza. A large one. I don’t care what’s on it, just not pineapple. And boneless wings, at least twenty. Yeah?”

She moved away, mumbling, “I’ll go get my credit card.”

He quickly caught her, wrapping his arm around her neck and hauling her against his body so they were front to front.

He dipped his head to hers. “You get your credit card, I tan your ass.”

Her head jerked and she pointed out, “Jacob, you bought the roast. We’ll eat that tomorrow at your place. I’ll get pizza.”

“Babe—”

She cut him off. “The bids for the windows were insane, all four of them, and I just lost my stove, but Dad says I’m getting a bonus this quarter so I can afford pizza and windows.”

He ignored the comment about her father giving her a bonus that would just happen to be very close to the amount of the cost of new windows that came in on a bid from a man he trusted, namely Holden “Max” Maxwell. Max was also going to be the man who was going to install Emme’s windows even if his bid wasn’t the lowest.

Instead, he repeated, “You get your credit card, I tan your ass.”

“Jacob, really.”

His arm tightened, he curled his other arm around her and dipped his face closer.

“I’m not joking, Emme. You pulled that shit over Mexican coupla weeks ago, I didn’t like it. There’s things a man like me has gotta do and you gotta let me do them. You don’t pay. No reflection on you and your ability to take care of yourself. It just means something to me. You push this now, I will turn you over my knee and spank that sweet, round ass of yours. You do it in future, you’ll get the same thing until you get it. You with me?”

“Are you serious?” she whispered, neck pulling slightly at his arm which stayed firm.

“Deadly,” he answered.

“You’d hit me?” Her eyes were big and she quit pulling at his arm.

“Spank you.”

“That’s hitting me, Jacob,” she said softly.

“That’s spanking you, baby, and when I do it, your ass will be bare and it’ll end in an orgasm but it’ll also end with a red ass that hopefully will teach you the lesson not to test a man like me.”

Her lips parted but her body melted slightly into his.

Fuck him.

He’d half been bullshitting to get his point across, half testing the waters.

Her reaction indicated the waters were warm.

He felt his dick start getting hard.

“You like that idea?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure… I’m not…” she stammered, swallowed and asked, “Is that supposed to make me do what you want me to do?”

This meant she wouldn’t do what he wanted her to do in order to get her spanking.

She liked that idea.

“Rewards can get sweeter, you’re good,” he told her.

“Have mercy,” she breathed, and he smiled.

“You’re kind of already getting those, baby, but you want an adventure, we’ll take it up a notch.”

Her body melted deeper and she repeated, “Have mercy.”

Fucking cute.

So cute, he had to bend his neck and take her mouth.

She melted completely in his arms, wrapped hers around his neck to hold on and let him.

He lifted his head and watched her eyes slowly open.

When his face was three inches away, she stated, “Krystal Briggs said I shouldn’t become your sex slave.”

“Krystal Briggs is not gonna come as hard or as often as I’m gonna make you come tonight, honey, you get your phone and my credit card.”

Her head tipped to the side and she asked curiously but hesitantly, “So this kind of thing is about making me mind you?”

“No, this kind of thing is about giving you good stuff you’re really gonna f**kin’ like. The credit card thing is about me tellin’ you it’s important to me to do that and you givin’ me that. It’s not asking much.”

“You paid for my insulation too,” she reminded him.

“Explained that then, keepin’ you warm and liquid.”

Her body tightened slightly and she started, “Jacob, this makes me a little—”

“It’s important to me, Emme,” he interrupted. “It’s also important to me you have a new kitchen but you aren’t seein’ me rip out this old one to give it to you against your wishes because I know I shot my wad with the insulation. I pushed that, you relented, but it’s your house and I gotta be smart enough to know when to stop pushing. Insulation was a priority. You’ve got no stove, but you’ve got a man who does so that isn’t as big of a deal right now as it normally would be. This is give-and-take, you and me. You gotta learn to let me give so that means you gotta learn to take.”

“And when do I give and you take?”

“Every day, sometimes more than once, when you tell me you really like me when you mean somethin’ else and I know my future includes hearin’ you comin’ home sayin’ ‘hey, puppy’ to Buford.”

That got him a soft look and her eyes fired in that way he liked a whole f**k of a lot but he wasn’t done.

“Because of that, for the first time in a long time, that future looks bright. You’re not the only one’s been lonely, Emme, hoping the right one will come along so you don’t go home to an empty house and climb into an empty bed. So you give every f**kin’ day, and what you give, I like takin’.”

Her body melted into his again and she asked, “You’ve been lonely?”

“Watched my boy fall in love with a good woman, watched her give that to him in return. It’s a beautiful thing, honey. You don’t know what you’re missing until you have it or see someone have what you want. When Chace got that, I knew what I was missing.”

She held his eyes then dropped her forehead to his chest but almost instantly tipped her head back.

“Pizza, restaurant bills, bar tabs, they’re yours,” she announced. “Big stuff, we discuss, but I’ll have a mind to you being a protective uber-alpha just as long as you have a mind to me having taken care of myself for a while and being used to it.” She paused, then quieter, “And spanking and taking it up a notch, just so you know, I’m willing to explore.”

Yes. Fuck yes.

Emmanuelle Holmes had it all.

His arms tightened around her and he murmured, “Deal.”

She rolled up and touched her lips to his.

When she rolled back, she asked, “Will you sort the stuff on the stove while I call in pizza?”

“Yeah.”

She gave him a grin and a squeeze. He returned both and let her go.

She lifted her hand between them and said, “Credit card.”