Did he just say that?

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He just said that.

“Oh my God,” I repeated.

“Yeah, honey,” he again agreed.

“I—” I started, but again he spoke over me.

“So thank f**k, my mouth on yours, you explode and let go and latch onto my dick while I’m drivin’ your car and dig your nails in my back when you come for me, ‘cause, baby, that means you give it all to me. Not one woman in my life gave it all to me and not one man can expect that. Hope for it. Yeah. Get it. No. You give it all, so that means I’ve got it all.”

I stared at him.

He let me for a while then he went on.

“Now, I can share what came before you, and I had fun, Hanna. I make no apologies. But I think it’s best we leave it where it lies. ‘Cause all you gotta know is it’s gonna be you—and only you—until the day I die, because life did not lead me down the wrong path when I fell in love with a girl who had the sun shining in her hair who would eventually not do it for me. You’re not just enough for me. You’re everything I want. So that works for me.”

When he stopped speaking, unfortunately, I started.

“Her br**sts are fake?” I blurted.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

“You’re in love with me?” I kept blurting.

“Absolutely,” Raiden replied.

We stared at each other while my heart raced and I fought panting.

Then, not finished blurting, I shared, “I beat you. I fell in love with you when I was six and I didn’t know who you were.”

I saw the tension flow out of his body. His neck twisted, head dropping forward, eyes closing, and he stood in silent contemplation for a moment before he lifted his head, looked at me and said quietly, “Okay, baby, you win.”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

It was then Raiden Ulysses Miller scorched me a second time, but I didn’t battle this blaze. There was no pain. But that didn’t mean I didn’t end up branded.

“I told you I didn’t dream as a kid of bein’ a cop or an astronaut, but I gave a lot of thought to the woman I’d want in my bed. I grew older and gave more thought to that woman, but it was also about the woman I wanted in my life. And she was you. Then I met you. And now, every day I wake up I cannot believe my luck because you’re here.”

Was he for real?

“How can you take a totally insane situation that should never happen, was intense and humiliating, and turn it into something I never want to forget in my whole life?” I asked.

“Because you love me,” Raiden answered.

“Oh, right. That’s how,” I muttered.

His fire burned white-hot.

“Get over here,” he growled.

I got over there.

The instant I did he crushed me in his arms, buried his face in my neck and I went up in flames.

It felt great.

* * * * *

Late that evening…

Wearing a tank and pajama shorts, I lay astride Raiden in my bed, my eyes watching my fingertips exploring his collarbone as I felt his fingertips exploring the skin of my thighs.

“Are you really going to make her life a misery?” I asked his collarbone.

“Meg?” he asked me, and I looked at him.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, and I tipped my head to the side.

“Really?”

“That situation was intense It embarrassed you and it should never have happened. She should never have walked in there in the first place, but she did. I gave her a chance to walk away, she didn’t. Now she’s gotta learn a lesson.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Somethin’ that’ll make her learn that lesson.”

“Raid—” I started, but his hands lifted up and gripped me at my hips.

“You don’t f**k with me,” he declared firmly. “She f**ked with me.”

That she did.

I said nothing.

“And she f**ked with you,” he went on. “She saw you were freaked and she went in for the kill. You don’t f**k with me. You absolutely do not f**k with you.”

“Okay, but that led to us—”

“No, Hanna. No.” He shook his head on my pillow. “Love knowin’ you love me, feels good you knowin’ I love you, but that was ours to share and we would have eventually done it anyway. But what I share with you in bed is mine. It’s yours. It’s ours and no one else’s. She watched me take you, and I don’t give a shit she was only there at the end, that’s not hers to have. She doesn’t get to hear the words I say to you when I’m inside you and she doesn’t get to hear what you whisper to me. And no one, but no one, gets to share in you comin’ for me.”

I had to admit, he was right. I didn’t like that she got that from us either.

“So she pays back,” Raiden declared. “She hates her job, she’s not gonna have it much longer. She likes to haunt a certain bar, she’s gonna find herself not welcome there anymore. She rents, her landlord is suddenly gonna rethink her tenancy. Next time she wakes up and feels like bein’ a bitch, she’ll think again.”

I felt my eyes get big.

“Are you seriously going to do all that?”

“I am seriously gonna do all that.”

“Holy Moses. Now I feel sorry for her.”

“You should, baby. She’s a sad, lonely bitch who needs to eat a sandwich and get a life.”

It was mean, but he was funny so I started giggling.

Raiden smiled as he watched, his arms moving to circle me.

When I quit giggling, he remarked, “Speakin’ about people f**kin’ you. You’re gonna be getting a check from Bob.”

I was confused. “Bob?”

“Reimbursement for the sports package he sold you on the Z, but didn’t tell you he sold you.”

I blinked.

Then I shared, “The car came that way.”

“Other Z’s on that lot that come other ways, honey. You drive that Z like it’s your grandmother’s Buick. You need sports shocks like you need a hole in the head.”

I pushed slightly up, or as up as his arms around me would let me go, and protested, “I do not drive my girl like the Buick!”