“What’s that troubled look on your face for, little moon?” Mr.

Cooper asked later that day.

Sitting across from him at his dinner table, I took a second to finish chewing the lightly seasoned chicken breast that Lydia had made that night. The same piece of chicken breast that I had more than likely been chewing for the last two minutes while I’d been busy thinking about the first part of the day. Specifically, the part of the day that involved my interactions with Ripley.

The part where he told me he wanted me in his life in a way that had nothing to do with work.

That entire conversation that had left my heart pounding, my brain confused, and my entire existence uprooted.

That was what I’d been thinking about all day. Even right then, while I ate with the Coopers and spent time with them… until my date in two hours.

My date.

What the hell was I doing?

“Problems at work? Ripley said Jason never came back,” Mr. Cooper kept picking, his face genuinely concerned, which pulled at my heart.

Finally swallowing the chicken, I shook my head, not sure what I should say. Sir, your estranged son of twenty years that was in a motorcycle club says he needs me. I love him, but I’m scared he’ll change his mind and won’t care about me someday, or he’ll tell me to leave him alone again.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“Yeah, he never came back. He probably knew the guys would kick his butt if he did,” I told him with a smile that was mostly genuine, at least beneath the confusion screwing up the rest of me into Gordian knots.

That had Mr. Cooper grinning. “Doesn’t surprise me. I’m too old to be fighting with boys young enough to be my grandchildren, but I have to say, I would’ve put a world of hurt on that boy if I were ten years younger. Gus”—he was referring to Lenny’s grandpa—“called me after he found out what happened and tried to talk me into doing something about it.”

The smile I gave him that time was totally genuine. I could already imagine Grandpa Gus’s crazy self wanting to do something about it. He hadn’t gotten the memo he was in his seventies.

“What is it then, honey?” Lydia asked from her spot across the dining room table from me.

It comforted me. They comforted me. Living with them had been the first time ever I’d sat around a dining room table to eat. We had done it every night after work unless we all went out to eat, or they went out and I stayed at the house. It had been one of my favorite things about living with them. The sense of family.

It had made me want that for my own someday.

They deserved more than me keeping things from them, even if those things revolved around a man who they both had strained relationships with. But I guess life was just one big complication any way you looked at it.

Life wasn’t easy or black and white.

And I really did need to tell them the truth.

Because if Rip wasn’t lying….

“It’s…,” I started to say before lowering my fork and knife to the plate. “It’s Rip.”

Both of them blinked and stayed very, very still.

“Did he finally decide to get his head out of his ass?” Mr. Cooper asked with a wary smile after a moment.

“What?”

He repeated himself. “Did he finally get his head out of his ass and tell you to save those dates for him?”

My mouth gaped open, and I was really, really glad that I had set down the knife and fork. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the cautious little smile on Lydia’s face as she bent toward her food and started cutting her chicken while Mr. Cooper and I made eye contact.

“I knew you didn’t see it, little moon. I knew it from the first moment that I saw that look in Ripley’s eyes. Didn’t I tell you, Lydia, honey?” he asked his wife.

Lydia nodded as she chewed her food and then held a hand up to cover her mouth as she agreed. “You did, and I saw it with my own two eyes too.”

“What did you tell her?” I asked slowly, trying to process what he was implying.

He cocked his head to the side. “That you didn’t know.” “Didn’t know what?”

His smile was bittersweet. “That he took one look at you and knew.” “Mr. Cooper, you know I’m not that great with puzzles and contexts

clues. What did he know looking at me?”

“The same thing I knew when I looked at Lydia.” His smile changed from a bittersweet one to a soft one, and I could see in his eyes that he thought about another woman he had known once. “My daddy was the same way. His daddy was the same way. Us Coopers, we just know. The only difference is, Ripley got his stubbornness from his mom’s side of the family. I didn’t fight it.”

“You think Ripley… likes me?” I asked.

The older man cocked his head to the other side and went about cutting a piece of his chicken as he answered, “I don’t think. I know. I’ve seen it on his face a thousand times, Luna. Especially when he was being hard on you. I’ve tried telling him a few times that he should do something about it, but God knows when he sets his mind to something, there’s no convincing him to change it unless he decides to. And I know that takes an act of God. Just like his mom. He’s got that Ripley blood in him.”

He still didn’t look back up at me as he continued going. “I don’t know him that well anymore, but I still see the boy he used to be in bits and pieces of him. He’s got the thickest skin I’ve ever seen, but I know those bones are still made out of love like they were… before.”

Before his mom’s accident? Before he’d left Houston and done all those things he didn’t want to talk about?

“Luna, honey,” Lydia spoke up. “Our relationships with Ripley are what they are. I couldn’t hold it against him, but I wish he would forgive us after so long. I never had kids, but I was close to my mama and daddy, and if my daddy would have married some strange woman a year after my mama died, I can’t say I would have behaved any better than he did. I knew what I was doing coming into Allen and Ripley’s life back then. I’ve gotta live with knowing that because I loved someone, his son packed up his things and left him for twenty years,” she paused. “We both have to live with that.”

It all made sense all of a sudden. Rip’s reaction to Lydia. And as much as I would want to think that if I had a healthy relationship with my dad that I would want him to be happy… well, I wasn’t sure what I would think if or when he got remarried.

I tried to think of how Lenny would have reacted to Grandpa Gus getting married again, and really, it wasn’t a pretty scene when I imagined it.

A large hand drifted over my forearm and settled there, and even though I knew it was Mr. Cooper’s, I still glanced at his face. “He’s a difficult man. Trust me. Nobody knows that better than me. But he pushes the people that love him, pushes them like he’s trying to make sure they won’t go anywhere. Rip is the total opposite of you. God knows I love him and I will until the day I die, but I love you too. And you both deserve to be happy. He thinks the world of you, and I can’t help but think God brought you into our lives for a reason.”

I stared at this man, feeling the fear in my chest, and I asked him, “But he loved you and he left you for twenty years, Mr. C. That’s not… what I want.”

His smile was slow and honestly heartbreaking. “Luna, he threatened to quit on me a hundred times in the first year he came back.”

I blinked.

“He hasn’t stuck around because of me, honey.”

 

WHY WAS I EVEN HERE? I ASKED MYSELF AS I PUT MY CAR INTO PARK AND

then turned off the ignition.

Why was I? I should have cancelled the dumb date. I was wasting my time, gas, and money, and doing the same for whatever poor fool was meeting me here.

Because I didn’t want to meet this guy that my sister Kyra had set up for me over a month ago.

I didn’t want to meet any of the guys that I had. The more I thought about it, the more I accepted it.

This whole thing was a mess I didn’t know how to handle or what to think of.

Mr. Cooper had been adamant as I’d left, that regardless of what had happened between him and his son, that Rip did care about me. And Rip had been Lucas Ripley Cooper at one point. He was still in there.

But why he’d waited until now, I would never know. Or maybe I would.

Did I want to though?

That was a stupid question. Of course I did. I wanted to know everything.

I wanted it to be true.

I wanted it to be true, but I also knew what it was like to hope and dream for things and not have them happen.

I was being a chicken. I was being a giant chicken, wasn’t I? I gave Thea hell for not telling me the truth, because it seemed so easy for me, and here I was, doing the same thing as her.

With my phone on my lap, I sent Lenny a text.

Me: Do you think I’m being a coward with this Rip thing? Tell me the truth.

Not even a minute went by before I got a response.

Lenny: Yes

Lenny: I didn’t make a chickenshit my best friend.

I ignored the guilt and nerves floating around in my stomach as I sat there, reading Lenny’s message over and over again.

There was no reason for my stomach to hurt.

Luna, Luna, Luna, my conscience seemed to whisper in disappointment. You’re lying to yourself now.

I was. I really was. I was being a coward. A chickenshit. A freaking scaredy cat.

And I was sitting in my car, about to go on a date I wanted no part of. But…

I couldn’t find it in me to just be a no-show. Getting stood up wasn’t nice, and neither was telling some innocent person sorry, bud, I’m in love with someone else. But I could live with the latter a lot easier than the first. That was for sure. It was the least I could do. If I could have cancelled without calling Kyra, I would have, but I hadn’t had it in me to do it. The text messages we had sent each other to set up the date had been awkward and painful enough.

In and out. I’d get this over with as quickly as possible. Then I could go home and figure out exactly what I would tell Rip. I love you and

please don’t hurt me didn’t sound good enough.

It was with that decision in mind that I got out of my car and slammed it shut behind me. I flashed my license at the bouncer as a formality, because we both knew he’d seen it before. Then I headed into the bar where I had met the other guys I had gone on dates with, dates that hadn’t gone anywhere.

For a reason.

Who was I kidding? Of course it had been for a reason. Because none of them were built like wrestlers, with a dry sense of humor and a bland look better than any scowl.

Inside, I looked around the half-filled room for a guy with long black hair…

I didn’t need to glance at my phone to know I was a few minutes early. Maybe he was running late? If he was, how long was an acceptable amount of time to wait before I left? Three minutes? Five?

Spotting a table closer to the back, I beelined for it, still looking around at the crowd to make sure the man that Kyra had sent me a picture of back then wasn’t sitting in some dark corner where I couldn’t find him. He was thirty-two and worked on an oil rig. That’s why we’d had to wait a month to meet. I glanced at my phone again as I took a seat.

Sitting back in the chair, I kept looking around the room, hoping he’d magically appear so I could tell him to his face thank you but no thank you.

The door opened just as that thought had entered my brain. Coming in, already looking around, was a man too blonde to be the one I was meeting up with. He was tall, lean, and… not Rip.

He was not Rip.

He was too young. Too slim.

But mostly, he wasn’t the man who ran his hands through my hair when I was upset and listened.

The guy was everything that would have been exactly my type four years ago.

Before a six-foot-four man with a chest twice the size of this guy’s, with forearms that rippled with muscle, a thick neck, and a lower body that should have inspired sculpture makers into recreating it, strolled into my life.

Screw it. I was going to hide in the bathroom.

The thought had barely occurred to me when a man sitting at the bar turned in his stool and stood up.

I realized I knew that body. That head shape. I knew that height.

And as the familiar body turned and started heading in the direction of where I was sitting, I stayed there. The lights hid a lot of the nicest bits of him, but I knew who it was. I would always know who he was.

And he had a pissed-off look on his face.

What the hell was he doing here? How did he know…

He didn’t say a word as he pulled out the seat opposite of the one I was in and slid into it. In the dark, I couldn’t see those amazing teal- colored eyes, but I could tell where they were focused. I could see the slant of his eyebrows.

Yep. He was definitely pissed.

And honestly, I had definitely never been less pissed. Never.

He was here. Here.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, feeling the tension in my stomach unraveling slowly.

He planted his elbows on the table between us and crossed his arms as he answered, “You know what I’m here for.”

I held my breath, and then I lied… hope and love blooming inside of me so quickly I couldn’t help but want to mess with this man. “No, I don’t.”

His voice was a low, low growl of, “Yeah, you do.”

“You’re making sure I don’t get kidnapped again?” I deadpanned as seriously as possible. Why did this feel like the easiest thing in the world now? Messing with him? Giving him crap? “Or are you stalking me now?

He blinked. Then he took a deep breath… and his cheek went up a millimeter in the blink of an eye. “Not funny, Luna.”

I couldn’t help the smile that instantly came over my face as I spoke again, not letting this go, not planning on ever letting this go. “I don’t need a babysitter, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

That cheek went up another millimeter. “You’re right there, baby girl. You don’t need a babysitter. ’Specially not when the dumbass you’re meeting up with didn’t look old enough for you.”

I processed his words… but then processed them right back out and focused only on the important part. “When did you see him?”

He smiled at me. “Before you showed up.”

I didn’t need to glance around the bar to make sure the man still wasn’t hanging around. I knew he wasn’t. How he even knew who to look for was beyond me, but it didn’t matter. Not even a little bit. I also

had a feeling I knew exactly what had happened, but I needed to make sure. I tipped my head closer to him. “Where did he go?”

He shrugged a rounded shoulder. “Somewhere not here.” Uh.

“I told him to get the fuck out,” he kept going unapologetically. “Told him you weren’t going to be meeting him tonight or any other night, and he might as well go hit up someone else’s girl because he wasn’t getting mine.”

My heart shouldn’t have started racing at him referring to me as his. It shouldn’t. I knew that. I definitely shouldn’t have gotten goose bumps all over my arms and back.

But that was exactly what happened.

I let the thrill go through me before I decided that messing with him was too much fun. Messing with him would always be too much fun. “Rip, you had no right to do that—”

“I had every right to.”

He could say those words to me every day for the rest of my life and they wouldn’t get old.

He proved it when he leaned forward and slid me the most heated look I might ever see in my life. “Yeah, I did, Luna. You wanna go out to eat? I’ll take you. You wanna go out and get a Sprite? Tell me. You want to watch a fucking movie? I’ll take you to the goddamn movies. If you want to go to beat the shit out of your cousin again, I’ll fucking take you. You want to meet someone to be your best friend and your fucking partner? I’m right fucking here, baby girl.”

Oh hell.

Oh freaking hell.

“How many times I gotta tell you I just like being around you?” he asked, his voice lowering as his gaze roamed over what was my stupefied face. Because what other face could I have when the man I’d liked for years was running off my dates and sitting here telling me he’d take me on any dates I wanted to go on?

None. There was no other face.

“I can do this same thing a hundred times, Luna, this running off your dates thing, but it’s never gonna happen. I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to have a problem telling them off. I’ve got into a lot of fucking fights in my life, and I’m starting to think it was all to get me ready for you,” he threatened.

I sucked in a breath and just sat there, looking at him, feeling overjoyed and terrified equally. Wanting this more than I wanted

anything, but still…

“What if you change your mind? I’ll have to find another job because I won’t be able to look at you. I can barely look at you now,” I admitted to him, this low-level feeling that might have been terror, but was more than likely adrenaline, running through my veins steadily.

This beautiful man gave me the most earnest expression I had ever seen. “Luna, why the hell would I do something that stupid?”

I fisted my hand. “You don’t—you’ve never even had a girlfriend.” “So? Want me to lie and tell you I’ve had a couple dozen? Or you

good with knowing it’ll only be you?” Well.

Hell.

“You’re too young. You’re too sweet. You’re too good for me. But I’m done standing around trying to suck up all the goodness you make me feel without you even knowing, Luna. You are my girl. Just you. Nobody else ever has or will be.”

I sucked in a breath and lifted my face to look at his. “I am?”

He nodded, his expression something different than any other I’d ever seen before.

“Really?”

“Really,” he agreed, his smile soft and almost shy.

I bit my bottom lip and couldn’t help but wring my hands as he centered on me so intensely it made me want to hold my breath. You only miss all the shots you don’t take, Lenny had said. I had always told myself that nothing and no one scared me because I had seen the worst in people.

But I had also seen the best, hadn’t I?

“You know everything that matters, Luna. Only thing you don’t is what happened with the cops that day you lied for me. I was with Gio, and he fucked up his sister’s boyfriend because he hit her. I didn’t do shit, but I was there. His family did the same for him. That’s why they came. They needed somebody to try and blame, but I swear I didn’t do shit.”

There it was, and it was exactly the kind of thing I might have expected if I’d thought about it. “I know, Rip. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.”

Those eyes penetrated mine as he said, so carefully, “You wanna know something else, all you gotta do is ask, and I’ll tell you. I’ve already warned you about the rest and you’re still here.”

He made it seem so easy. Could it be that easy?

“Rip?” I asked him carefully, my apprehension disappearing by the second.

“Yeah?”

I swallowed and made myself look him in those blue-green eyes. “Do you like me, or is it more than that?”

He took a deep breath before responding. “Get out of here with me and I’ll tell you.”

 

The ride back to his place didn’t take long at all considering

the unending traffic even in the evening.

Rip had offered to drive us over to his home, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my car in the bar’s lot, so I followed behind, watching the road as we turned onto a sleepy street in north Houston with spaced-out single- story homes and driveways filled with cars.

When Rip turned his truck into an open graveled lot, with a new-ish rectangular home settled right smack in the middle of it, I knew this was where he lived. I parked my car behind his truck, watching as he got out and headed over, pulling mine open too before I really made much of an effort to beat him.

Rip gave me that one-cheek smile with a dimple in it as he took my hand and led me out, slamming the door shut.

“You made it seem like you lived in a dump,” I accused him.

“It’s no pretty purple house,” he tried to explain as he fiddled with his keys.

I took in the extended sides and length of his home. “Rip, I bet this thing cost almost as much as my house.”

He shrugged, giving my hand a squeeze as he slipped a key into the lock and turned it. “It’s still no pretty purple house.”

He was obviously never going to agree, even though I was right.

But in that moment, I couldn’t find it in me to argue with him over it. That was because… because… connected to the same keychain his house key was on, something dangled from it. Something that looked like an ice cream cone charm. An ice cream cone charm that I’d had on a necklace. A necklace that I had put on him after the car accident.

He’d kept it? He’d put it on his keychain?

I was a goner. I was such a goner that no one was ever going to find me again. Ever. It took everything in me to keep my mouth closed. To

save the moment for later, since there seemed like there might be a later between us. I hoped.

He shoved the door open, leading me up the metal steps as he fiddled with a light switch on the wall closest to him.

Light blazed on inside the trailer just as

he pulled me in, closing a screen door and a heavier one as I took in the inside of his home.

I hadn’t been wrong when I told him his place had to be as expensive as mine. It was nice. Patterned tan and rich brown colors were used as the upholstery of two big, comfortable recliners to the right of the entrance. To the side was a table that could sit four. His kitchen, to the left, was way nicer than mine. The appliances were new and shiny, and there was a four-burner stove with an oven and a microwave. He had a nice kitchen island with storage beneath it. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, there were a handful of old-looking cookbooks under there, too. I wondered if they had been his mom’s and couldn’t help but hope he’d tell me someday. He even had a nice fifty-something-inch television on the wall beside a door that had to lead somewhere. The bedrooms? Bathroom? I didn’t know.

And it was clean.

Really clean.

“Are you always this clean?” I croaked, still soaking it all up.

His laugh was warm and rich and so natural, I had no defense for it. It slid underneath my ribs and settled right over my heart. “Not messy, but I might’ve been taking extra care the last few weeks in case you came over.”

I sucked in a breath and looked up at him standing right beside me, watching me even then. “Not for every girl you bring over?” I made myself ask.

He shook his head and fully turned to face me, his hand coming up and sliding across my throat, palming it. Those teal-colored eyes didn’t stray from mine for even a second as he breathed, “I told you I bought this after I moved here.”

“I know.” Did my voice have to sound so small? “It’s none of my business if you have—”

“Nuh-uh,” he said, still shaking his head. I blinked. “But that was three years ago.” He raised an eyebrow.

“But you didn’t even like me.”

“Oh, I liked you just fine, baby. I’ve always liked you just fine.”

Yep, I was a goner. “But you were mean to me.”

His smile was slow. “I was tough on you, not mean, and that shit ate me up for hours and days after.”

It had? “You could have always been sweet.”

“I thought I was too old for you. Thought I’d done too many shitty things in my life to have you in it, Luna,” he explained softly. “I didn’t want to care about you, and I fought that shit as long as I could.”

“Because of the bad things you think you’ve done?”

His face softened. “Because of the bad things I know I’ve done,” he confirmed, and that too snuck under my ribs.

I knew all about the guilt that came with doing things that you weren’t proud of. Necessary evils. Unnecessary ones too.

I took a step closer to him, my breasts brushing just across his chest. I felt his hand slip around my back to land on the small of it, pulling me in even more. “But what if I would’ve started dating someone?”

Rip tipped his head closer to mine, bringing his mouth just inches from me. “I would’ve made sure there hadn’t been a second date, baby girl. I know you went on seven of them until this bullshit recently. I know you went to dinner on three, to the movies on two, a baseball game on one, and Mickey’s on another. I listened. I know. I was there the night you got your place broken into. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

That was true. That was all true. “How’d you know that?”

I’d swear I could already feel his lips on mine. “I listen, I told you.” “What else have you heard?”

“Everything.” His head moved, his mouth brushing my throat so lightly it was the best tickle of my life.

And just as soon as he brushed his pink lips over me, he pulled back. “What’s wrong?” I asked him, trying to smile so he would know I

was happy… and I hoped he was too.

One of those big hands went up to the top of his head and he scrubbed it back and forth across the top, still watching me with these eyes that said a dozen different emotions. The only one I could focus on was that uncertain one though.

“What is it?” I asked him, still holding on to my smile. At least until it hit me. Maybe… “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

He blinked those long eyelashes, and I couldn’t miss the way his eyes just kind of sort of squinted at me. “Baby girl, that’s not it at all.”

“What is it?”

But he still looked off. His hand came up and moved across his chest, from one massively rounded pec to the other and then going up to the base of his throat, where his fingers curled into the material of his compression shirt and he peeled it away from his neck maybe an inch. “I should tell you something first.”

Oh, no. “There’s something wrong with your…?” I dipped my eyes toward the lower half of his body.

That got me a blink. “Excuse me?”

All right, maybe that wasn’t it. “You have three nipples? Because that wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve got stretch marks if you—Why are you looking at me like that?”

Because he was looking at me weird. He really was. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about you having some marks, and I don’t have three nipples.”

I wasn’t surprised that my hands were steady as I set them on his hips, feeling the warmth of his body through his shirt. “What is it then?”

His hand tugged at his shirt again, drawing my gaze down to the inch of tattooed skin I could see… and then it finally settled in my brain.

Ohhh.

“You have a girl’s name tattooed on you?”

That had him rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you, yeah?”

I widened my eyes, watching as he gave his shirt another tug at the collar.

“I’ve got some tattoos…”

“I know. I’ve seen some of them.”

He shot me a look as he scrubbed at his head again. “Luna, I gotta tell you before I show you, all right?”

I nodded.

“I told you what I did with about twenty years of my life.”

I nodded because he had. How could I forget he’d been in a freaking motorcycle gang… club… whatever it was called?

“I got a lot of tattoos from those days, and I haven’t gotten around to covering them up,” he said in a quiet voice, and something just pulled at my heart. It just yanked it tight and crazy.

I loved this man. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.

“Rip, I don’t care about your tattoos from back then,” I told him gently. “Unless you have another girl’s name on you somewhere, but you don’t, right?”

His face instantly softened so much I couldn’t help but smile. “Quit with the dumbass questions, yeah? And no, I don’t fucking have

somebody’s name on me.”

“Okay then.” I tipped my chin up. “You have gang tattoos. Thank you for telling me.”

“They’re not gang tattoos.”

“Club tattoos, whatever you want to call it.” I raised my eyebrows and wiggled my fingers in the sliver of space between our bodies. “Show me the goods.”

His laugh took the edge off his word. “Luna—”

“I’m being serious,” I told him carefully. “I don’t care.” I held my hand out for him and opened and closed it to get him to come closer to me. “None of us are who we used to be, and luckily for you, I think you’re the hottest man on the entire planet, and that’s with me only seeing you fully clothed.” I smiled. “Show me.”

Rip watched me with those heavy eyes, and the breath he took in and then out was deep and rough.

I recognized the uncertain expression that made the lines at his eyes deepen, and it made my heart clench up again.

I loved this man. I had loved this man for a long time, but I had never loved him more than I did right in that moment as he stood there, with dread in his eyes. Because he was worried what I would think.

“Come here,” I said again, smiling.

The tiny little breath he took in through his nose just made me love him even more.

So I gestured him toward me again. “I don’t think I ever told you about how many times I stole things from the grocery store or from people’s wallets.”

This huge man blinked. “You?” he asked, but it sounded more like he didn’t believe me.

And that only made me smile wider as I nodded. “Yeah, me. If it was small enough for me to hide it in my hoodie pocket, I was taking it. I was hungry, and I didn’t want to spend my money when I started to run out,” I explained, not struggling at all to remember what that Luna had felt when I’d gotten to the last of my money.

“I stole all kinds of things before that too. Usually candy from the convenience store since no one ever took me to the store or anything like that. And when I could take money from my parents, I’d go back and give the owner money. I’m pretty sure that old man knew exactly what I was doing, but he never called me out on it or called the police on me.”

Ripley took a step forward as his fingers dropped away from the collar of his shirt. “They never got you candy?”

I shook my head. “I used to make my own birthday cakes.” I shrugged. “After I stole the cake mixes from the grocery store. My dad loved milk and eggs, so there was always some at the house. He’d always give me money for that.” I blinked. “He’d ask for his receipt and make sure I brought every penny back.”

This man took another step closer to me. “February thirteenth, yeah?”

He was asking me for my birthday, and the fact that he even knew what day my birthday was…. “Yeah.”

He took another step forward. “I’ve got you from now on.”

“For birthday cakes?” I asked, hoping that I didn’t sound as… hopeful as I was sure I did.

“Yeah.” He took another step. “I’ll make you that red velvet cake you like.”

“Okay.” I smiled. “Now let me see what you’ve got since you know you’re not the only one who’s done some shady things.”

He took another step closer, another step that got him to stop directly in front of me, his fingers coming up to nudge me under the chin. “You are a shady shit under there, aren’t you?”

“When I’ve needed to.”

His finger traced along the line of my jaw up to my ear, and his voice was low as he said, “Yeah, I noticed when you had me break your cousin’s hand. I’m not gonna lie, Luna, I was ready to kill his ass, but I was too busy thinking about how you kicking his ass and throwing that fucking shoe like a ninja star was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Reaching forward, I pressed my fingertips against the band along the top of his jeans where the belt loops went. “You still like me even after that?”

His smile was gentle. “You could steal the Mona Lisa, and I know you’d do it for a good reason. I don’t think there’s anything you could do that I wouldn’t be all about, baby girl.”

I laughed, and that just made him smile wider and drag his finger the opposite direction of my jaw, his thumb just lightly brushing the skin under my throat.

“You are the goodest, sweetest thing I have ever had in my life, and I don’t want you to go screaming the other way, you understand me? One day I’ll tell you about everything,” he said softly.

I just stared up at him, and if he would have taken a picture, I’m sure my mouth would have been partially open, and if there could have been big, pink hearts behind my head, they would have been there.

I couldn’t even find it in me a little bit to be embarrassed as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’ve wanted to do this a hundred times.”

“What?” he asked quietly. “Hug you.”

It took a moment, but the second his palms landed on the top of my head, I pressed my cheek against him. One of those big palms cupped the back of my head while the other landed right between my shoulder blades, and his voice was hoarse as he whispered, “Baby girl.”

“You are the sweetest thing I’ve ever had in my life,” I told him.

Something that sounded like a laugh that had gone through a meat grinder trickled out of his mouth.

“You are. Don’t argue with me.”

That meat grinder laugh came out of his mouth again, and I hugged him so tight, it was easy to ignore that my forearm was pressed right up against his butt cheeks.

“I’m not saying any of it either to get you to show me your tattoos.” “I know.”

“Can I see them now though?”

His laugh was lighter, but I felt him moving, felt his fingers leave me before sensing him pulling his shirt over his head. He just barely moved away from me.

I squeezed him one more time before I finally lifted my face and instantly spotted the almost olive skin at his waist…

Covered by thick lines and shapes in faded black ink.

I held my breath as I dragged my eyes over the ink on him, beneath his belly button letters spelled out ENFORCER, big and shaped in half a circle. Above the word, on top of his ribs were two skulls with wings on them. The lines were thin and detailed. And everything above that were these massive tribal lines that spread out across his pectorals, his shoulders, biceps, going up over his throat….

They weren’t pretty. They weren’t pretty at all.

Without saying a word, Rip turned in front of me, showing me his back.

And that’s where the oversized skeleton holding an umbrella within an imperfect circle was. The word REAPERS MC 1978 were tattooed directly before it, the lettering uneven and tilted up higher on one side than the other. Wrapped around all that were the same giant tribal curves and lines.

I reached up to trail my fingers over the smooth skin pulled tight over his muscles.

And I heard him let out a deep breath.

Dragging my fingers up higher, over the dip of his spine and higher up over where the notches of his spine were underneath him, I said, “I’m a little disappointed there isn’t a Chinese symbol for strength.”

The laugh that exploded out of him only made me laugh too. “Your skin is really soft too, do you moisturize?”

He kept on laughing. “No. They aren’t something I want to last. Not anymore.”

“So what you’re trying to say is that your skin is just naturally soft?” His “mm-hmm” was low.

I dragged the pads of my fingers up higher along the curve of where his spine went, leading up to his shoulders. Ink crisscrossed his spine, and it didn’t take a genius to know that it must have hurt like hell to have that tattooed.

“I have a tattoo.”

His head tilted up and his eyes focused on mine. “You do?” “Yup.”

“Where?”

“On my ribs. I wanted it on my hip, but the artist talked me out of it.” “It small?”

I shook my head, and that only earned me another blink. A slow one. “What is it?”

“It’s a fox.”

“A fox?”

I nodded, reaching down to grab the bottom of my shirt, pulling it up over my head in one movement. I was wearing a decent bra, nothing that sexy, but it was cute and turquoise. I lifted my right arm and pivoted just enough for him to see my side clearly.

But it only took a quick glance to notice he wasn’t looking at my ribs. He was looking at all of me. At my breasts held up high by my bra, at the soft slope of my stomach, at the band of my jeans high on my hips. “Look,” I told him, showing him the fox head that spanned from just

below the band of my bra to just lower than my bottom rib.

And I watched his eyes finally move there, his nostrils flaring. “Pretty, huh?” I asked, knowing it was. Delicate black lines outlined

the fox’s head and ears, a little girly but fierce. Beautiful and feminine and strong. “I got it when I was nineteen.”

A warm hand landed on my hip, just short of the bottom of the fox’s head. “Why a fox?”

“Because,” I barely got out as his fingers stroked my skin. “People think they have to be lions or lambs, but I’ve always just wanted to be something in between.” I bit my lip and lifted a shoulder. “Something that still has sharp teeth, just in case.”

He hummed low in his throat as he dragged his fingers up my rib cage, just over the fox’s face. “Just one?”

“For now, I almost passed out with that one. I cried, don’t tell anyone,” I answered, squeaking when his fingers moved over the front of my stomach, one finger dipping lightly into my belly button. “I should probably tell you something else right now too.”

“Hmm?” he asked, all husky and sexy as he dragged that same finger straight up my stomach.

“I’ve got a piercing too.”

Rip’s head dipped down until his mouth landed on my shoulder, his lips warm and dry as they trailed up my throat, pecking one kiss after another on the way up. The hand he had on my stomach trailed back around to my spine, and I felt him tugging at my bra as his lips latched onto this spot right where my neck met my shoulder, sucking it lightly, forcing me up to the tips of my toes while I squeaked again.

“It’s only one too,” I warned him. “I wanted to do both, but it hurt so much, I chickened out.”

His grumble floated over my skin as he moved his mouth a little more across my shoulder, dragging his tongue too, before he sucked a spot there, his hand still messing with the clasp on my bra. I loved him struggling with it, how much I would never mind helping him out by reaching behind myself to undo it, feeling it loosen and slip lower the instant it happened.

And that was when I told him. “It’s one of my nipples.”

He sucked in a breath so loud that the hairs on my arms stood straight up. The hand he’d had on my bra fell away a moment before both his hands landed on my hips and his head dove. Dove straight for the nipple with a small bar through it. The piercing that had hurt like a freaking son of a bitch for months.

But all of a sudden, the memory of the pain didn’t feel as sharp as it had.

Not when Rip’s lips sucked my nipple into his mouth, his warm tongue flicking the piercing back and forth before he opened his mouth a little wider and took more of my breast in. His “goddamn” went straight

to my bones just as his hands moved from my hips to the front of my jeans, undoing the button there and dragging the zipper down just as I managed to get my own hands on his shoulders to hold me up.

Arching my back, I sucked a breath in and let him shove my jeans as far as they could, which was only a few inches lower since they were so tight. And when I went to my tippy toes again, trying to get him to pay attention to my other breast or be greedy and have him take more of the current one into his mouth, Rip crouched and pulled my jeans down roughly the rest of the way. Impatient, jerky, and so hot. How was this man so freaking hot?

“Rip,” I groaned as his hands went back to my hips and yanked my underwear down to my feet in the same quick movement that stung my skin from the fabric scraping it. By the time I took another breath, my pants, underwear, socks, and shoes were all over the carpet.

“I know, baby,” the sexiest man in the world grumbled as he stood straight up again and yanked me so close to him we were pressed together.

Those huge hands went to my butt, and he started walking us backward. His mouth shifted from one nipple to the other, sucking, flicking, suckling even more, these hungry, rough noises bubbling out of Rip’s throat as we kept moving, and moving…

Then he dropped back into one of the recliners by the door, and with me totally naked, he pulled me onto his lap, making me straddle his hips. His mouth trailed up, pecking kisses along my chest, up and up, over my neck before he kissed me.

And kissed me. Warm, closed-mouth pecks that drove me nuts and had me finding his lips. Had me slipping my tongue against his, brushing over it. Wet, wet kisses that had me grinding my totally naked body against his half-naked one. If it wouldn’t have been for the soft ripple and the brush of his hands low against my stomach, or how he arched his hips for a moment, I wouldn’t have known he’d undone his jeans.

At least not until something blunt, and hot, and so freaking hard and thick nudged me right below the belly button.

Prodding. Brushing. Kissing.

Lowering my hands to my lap, I wrapped them around the hard, hard dick that bobbed between us. And holy crap. Rip was warm, softer than soft at the same time, but mostly he was thick and long and dripping over my fingers and himself.

“F**k,” he hissed low and broken into my skin.

With my hands stacked one on top of the other, ending right below a wide, mushroom-tipped head I couldn’t get myself to look down at when Rip had his head tipped back and that mouth of his parted. I squeezed him, loving how big he was. How good he felt. How handsome he looked breathing deeply. So I gripped him a little tighter and moved my hands up and inch and back down, toward the root.

And that was when he opened his eyes, aiming those blue-green irises right at me with a suck of an inward breath. I knew, I knew right then, what he wanted. Knew what I wanted. What my body didn’t want to wait another second for either if the wetness between my legs meant anything.

I looked at that face with its harsh bones and hollow cheeks and moved my hands, and him, u

ntil the damp, damp head of his dick found the place we both wanted and… I lifted my hips, like this with him was the most natural thing in the world, and slowly, slowly, slowly dropped my body back down, gasping as one inch after another slow inch eased inside of me. Holy crap. Lifting my hips again, I dropped down even lower, taking every long inch inside, our kisses never ending. Over and over, I took that thick, long shaft in me, sucking in a breath when I could manage until I bottomed out on what had to be nine solid, hard, so-freaking-hard, inches.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hissed right as my butt met his warm balls.

I sucked in a breath, squirming just enough on top of him that both of us panted.

I rode him slow, grinding down on that broad base, up and down, his wiry hair just the perfect brush against my clit as his hands rested on my hips, guiding me as I took him over and over again. In and out. In and out. Kissing him. Him kissing me. Dragging his mouth across my neck. Licking one nipple, then the other. Sucking the right one deep into his warm mouth both before taking the other one and doing the same exact thing to it. Rip licked and sucked and suckled little nooks and crannies I had no idea could feel so good…

“F**k,” he groaned, arching his hips, pushing as if I wasn’t already fully seated on him. But he was as rooted as he could go. He twitched hard inside of me as he curled his hips again, making our bodies press even tighter together.

I circled my hips, faster, rougher, taking every single thing he had to give me, over and over again until I came, squeezing down around him

on a cry that even I could barely hear.

And when he sucked in a breath and with his hands and body tight on mine, Rip shoved me down all the way on him a moment later, stuffing me so deep my muscles fluttered over him, his grunts were hoarse in my ears and on my mouth as he came inside me. That massive body shuddered, his dick pulsing slowly and steadily. I took it all. Every single little bit of it.

I draped myself over him afterward, my arms over his neck, our sweaty chests pressed against each other as we both struggled for breath. Those huge arms wrapping around me, holding me close, was the greatest and most welcome surprise of my life. There was nowhere else I wanted to be other than right freaking there. Nowhere. Not for a million dollars.

I pressed my nose against his throat, taking in that sweet scent of his: clean, fresh deodorant and warm skin.

His palms moved over my back, on either side of my spine.

Sweeping me up and down and up and down. “You good?”

I smiled. How could I not smile? “I don’t think I’ve ever been better, Rip.”

His chuckle was soft against my ear. “Can’t say I don’t feel the same.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, soaking up the heat of him. The love of him.

The feel of him.

“Yeah,” was his reply as his hands did that trek over my spine again, almost like he loved the feel of me too.

I hoped he did.

We sat there for a while, him in me, softening, but his arms as solid as ever. And I loved it. I loved it so much I had no words for how much.

“I’m sorry, baby. Sorry I haven’t been there for you lately, sorry I was such a fucking ass there for a while, but you gotta know I won’t do that again,” Rip told me, sounding so grave. “I couldn’t even if I tried, you know that?”

I didn’t let myself tense up, and even though I didn’t really want to ask, didn’t want to be the kind of person who needed reassurances… I was that person. I might always be that person, but I hoped I wouldn’t. But I still asked, “Why?”

And handsome, amazing Rip didn’t hesitate for a single second as he said, “’Cause I love you, Luna. Because I love the shit out of you, girl, and those two weeks when you were acting like you were done with me were some of the worst days of my life.”

That had me sitting up so I could look at him. Look at him I did. At that serious face. At those intense eyes. At the earnestness coming straight out of him like a beam. I could be honest, I could admit I whispered, “You love me?”

Not yeah. Not uh-huh. Nothing watered down or broken up. He gave me the four greatest words I would ever hear. “I love you, girl.” A confirmation. A promise. A Band-Aid that shouldn’t have been a Band- Aid but was.

Because I knew Rip wouldn’t say those words if he didn’t mean them. Maybe he’d said some things weeks ago he hadn’t meant, but I understood why they had come out the way they had. I definitely knew he wouldn’t take them back for no reason.

In that moment, I knew he meant those three words from the bottom of that rough, complicated heart.

“I love you too,” I told him, freaking going for it because why not? People smarter than me would say that the world wasn’t for chickenshits, and I didn’t want to be a chickenshit.

The corners of that mouth tipped up and his smile was gentle but bright and sweet. “I know you do, baby.” One of those hands went up my spine again as he leaned forward a little, not breaking eye contact for even a second. “I know you do. And I know you’ve had a lot of people not do right by you, and I know things with your sister aren’t that great

—”

“She sent me a letter,” I cut him off. “I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he wanted me to tell him the rest by the way his eyebrows went flat.

“She said that she was sorry. That she didn’t know how to tell me about talking to my dad—”

His snort wasn’t even close to being a surprise. I couldn’t say I blamed him.

“Supposedly an ex-boyfriend was the one who broke into her apartment, and she’s been acting weird because she didn’t want to tell me she was a stripper. That’s how she’s been paying for her apartment,” I finished with a blink. “I think I was worried there for a moment she was selling drugs, so…”

Rip’s face was carefully blank as he asked, “How you feeling about

it?”

I leaned forward and kissed his cheek, earning an expression that was

somewhere between a smile and a smirk that went straight into my soul. Was this how easy it was going to be? Was that how it was supposed to

be? Rip just letting me kiss him whenever I wanted? I was all for it. I really was. “It makes me sad she didn’t feel like she could tell me. I’m not going to lie. It hurts me a lot that she’s talking to my dad of all people and has been for years. I don’t get it, Rip, you know? I mean, I guess I kind of do but not really at the same time. He wasn’t anywhere near as mean to them, just to me, but even then, I don’t get how she could even bother wanting to try. Her and Kyra. He was horrible. He didn’t give a single crap about her or any of them when they lived with him, and I’m not exaggerating that. If it was her he’d been mean to, I would never be able to forgive him. Not ever.”

That big, warm hand went to my throat. “You don’t get it because you’re not them.” His thumb swept over my cheek. “I’m talking about your sisters. You wouldn’t do that, Luna. I don’t get why they would either.”

“She also said my dad didn’t send my cousin over to the house, that he did it on his own,” I told him. “I haven’t tried calling her again since then. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I love her, but I’m mad.”

“You’ll do the right thing.” “I hope so.”

His smile was soft. “You will, baby. You always do. I don’t know anybody with a heart half as good as yours.”

“Aww, there’s plenty of people—“

“No, there’s not.” Rip kissed the side of my mouth, then the opposite side, the short bristles on his cheeks kissing mine. “There really isn’t. You got that little fox on you, but you’re a wolf, baby. A fucking miracle. I don’t know how you came out the way you did, but you teach me something about forgiveness and love every single day. And here I thought for most of my life, until I met you, that I stopped learning things a long time ago.”

Me?

That laugh was soft. “Yeah, you. Only you.”

I swallowed, I gulped, and I raised my eyebrows at him because I didn’t know what to say. Had no idea what to think. He must have known that because he kept on going.

“I don’t know what the fuck to tell you to do about your sisters, but I know you’ll figure it out. I sure as hell don’t know what to tell you about your dad, but if you wanna know what I think, I say let’s go burn down that house you lived in with him. If you just wanna move on with your life though, I’d get behind that.

“What I know is that I’ll tell you right now I’ll never let anybody treat you like fucking shit or make you feel like they don’t want you around. Not me, not even your family. I wasn’t fucking around when I said I love you, and I know there’s a lot of shit I need to tell you, but we’ll figure it out.” His thumb rubbed over my cheek again, and those blue-green eyes that sucked me up and wouldn’t spit me back out were locked on my face as he said, “If you want.”

If I wanted. Oh, man.

I bit the inside of my cheek. “And if I don’t?” I asked him even though we both knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

“Then I got more work to do to talk you into it,” he replied softly.

The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you.

But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.

There’s a whole lot you don’t get a choice in, but there’s a whole lot more you do.

And I knew right then what I would choose. What I would always choose.

The best decisions of my life had been those I’d jumped into terrified even though some part of me knew they were necessary.

In that moment, and for the rest of my life, I knew that nothing would ever be as necessary as this man in front of me, who would sabotage my dates and make me food because he knew I couldn’t cook and mostly because he saw me for who I wanted to be. For who I tried to be even when I did things that weren’t very nice. This man, Lucas Ripley, who was just as much of a taped together puzzle as I was.

Or as we all freaking were, I guess.

So I told him the only answer I would ever let myself live with.

I looked into those blue-green eyes and told him the truth. “I want to.

I really want to.”