“It’s not my fault it was raining! I looked like a freaking mudslide!”

“Yeah, and it’s not my fault all the blood in my body got instantly rerouted to my dick! You expect me to be rational when a gorgeous woman tricked out like that waves a tire iron at me?”

Her eyebrows went up. “Did the tire iron turn you on, Jack?”

“I’ll tell you what turns me on. A proud, beautiful, self-reliant woman who takes no shit off of anybody. That turns me on.”

Her eyes fell, but she was smiling. “I never insulted you,” he went on. “I made a rational assessment of the situation based on the information I gathered. You read it as an insult, but I was not judging you.”

“Wrong,” Vivi said. “Your assessment is faulty.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

“Whoever you’ve been practicing on isn’t me. But let’s not talk about it, or we’ll just crash and burn all over again.”

She tried to tug her hand back, but he hung on to it. “That wasn’t what I was apologizing for,” he confessed. “I meant when we were out in the field. You asked about my uncle. I got all uptight. Closed you off.” He blew out a careful, measured sigh, trying to relax his tense belly.

Her eyes softened. She set down her coffee and reached across the table. “There’s a reason I was asking those questions about the bust.”

“Yeah?” he asked warily. “What?”

“I wondered if it was something we had in common,” she said. “I was in the middle in a big drug bust once, too. When I was a kid.”

He stared at her, mouth stupidly open. “Huh? You?”

“Me,” she said. “It sucked. As you are highly qualified to agree.”

“But aren’t you…didn’t you…” He racked his brains for the details Duncan had given him about her background. Italian nobility? Priceless art? Drug busts? What the fuck? This did not compute.

“My two sisters and I were all adopted,” she said, answering his silent confusion. “Lucia took us in as foster kids. I went to her when I was eleven. I got lucky. Nancy and Nell had to plow through years of bad ones before they found Lucia. I hit pay dirt right off, on my first placement. Lucia was amazing. And I got two kick-ass, readymade sisters in the bargain. They were the best.”

“And before?” he prompted.

Her face clouded. “Ah. Before. Well, my mom was a junkie. And the men she took up with were all dealers.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“I got used as a sentry,” she said. “Deliveries, sometimes, too.”

“No fucking shit!” He was aghast. “How old were you?”

She shrugged. “Eight, nine. Red pigtails, freckles, ruffles. Who would suspect what was in my Winnie the Pooh knapsack? I liked it, at the time. It made me feel important, grown up. Useful.”

“Used,” he corrected, harshly. “Anything could have happened to you! A little kid, for drug deliveries? That’s fucking insane!”

She made a dismissive gesture. “Duh. But anyway, the shit came down. There was a shoot-out. My mom’s boyfriend, Randy, got killed in the bust. And my mom went to prison.”

He winced. “Tell me you weren’t there when it happened.”

“I wasn’t,” she assured him. “I was at school. And I didn’t cry for Randy. He was a real zero. I have him to thank for this.” She held up her wrist, with its barbed-wire tattoo. “This was his idea of a joke.”

He stared at the fuzzy, faded tattoo, anger simmering inside him. “All I can say is, the list of people whom I want to dismember and grind into the dirt on your behalf is growing,” he said.

“Thank you, but it’s ancient history. So, how did the bust shake out for you? Did you end up with Child Protective Services, too?”

He shook his head. “No. I just took off.”

Her eyes widened. “Alone? At fourteen? How did you live?”

He hesitated for a moment before replying. “Barely,” he said. “So what about your mom? Is she out of prison?”

Vivi shook her head. “No,” she said. “She OD’d in prison. About eight months after she went inside.”

He flinched, sucker punched. That was what he got for trying to distract her from his own story. “I’m sorry,” he said, helplessly.

She gazed intently into her coffee mug. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “And I was as lucky with my second family as I was unlucky with my first. So I’m okay. You can relax, Jack.”

They listened to the wind in the trees outside. He reached out until he touched the flower tattooed on her chest. “That perfect combination of toughness and a good attitude,” he said quietly.

She blushed. “You’re doing it again, Jack. Saying all the right things.”

“Is it working? You want to grab me again?”

Her devastating secret smile turned dazzling. She got up, came around the table, sat down on his lap, and hugged him.

His arms encircled her. He was speechless. His dick was stone hard against the pressure of her ass, but it wasn’t just that. He just couldn’t believe she was there, draping herself over him, holding him. She was so beautiful, so special, so shining. Like a unicorn, laying its head in his lap, and him breathless with the wonder of it. And so turned on, he could barely suck in a lungful of air.

She gasped as he stood up and swept her into his arms, heading up the stairs. “Jack! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Being masterful,” he said. “Stop giggling. Get into the vibe.”

“Hail, O conquering hero,” she gasped out, between giggles. “Do with me as you will, my wild warrior lover. How’s that?”

“Works for me.” He shoved open the door to his bedroom with his foot and set her on her feet. They faced off, breathing hard. Her color was high, her eyes were shining. He tossed off his shirt. Vivi whipped off her tank. Call and response. He jerked open his belt, popped his jeans buttons. She yanked loose the drawstring of her skirt, let the garment puddle around her ankles. So beautiful. It unraveled him.

“Turn around,” he said hoarsely. “Let me see your ass.”

She obliged him. He came up behind her and knelt, his hands sliding down over her ribs, her waist, and clasping her hips.

He pressed his lips against the swirling mandala tattoo at the small of her back. “So what’s the story with this one?”

“Oh.” She shivered as he licked her there, his hand sliding up between her legs. “That was a celebratory tattoo. To mark the occasion of getting away from Bri—from the crappy ex that I mentioned before. I called my buddy Rafael on the day that the shit definitely hit the fan, and he whisked me away in his van, which is now my van. Drove me to my first crafts fair, in upstate New York. I had a good day, sold a bunch of stuff. After, we celebrated with buffalo wings and beer and a tattoo. Rafael got a dragon tattooed on his butt that night, if I remember correctly. I was a little more conservative.”

He turned her to face him, his eyes level with the contours and involutions of her groin. Breathing in the hot, heady smell of sex. His cock ached with eagerness. He placed her hand on his shoulder to steady her and lifted her delicate foot. She teetered, giggling, as he touched the tattooed images of the crescent moon and star on top of her foot. “And this one?”

“No story with that,” she admitted. “I just thought it was pretty.”

“It is,” he said. All of them were. Fit embellishments for her vivid beauty. Even the barbed wire around her wrist had its own poignant grace.

He gazed up at her pink face, her dilated eyes, the whole perfect length of her sweet body. Her pussy, still shiny and flushed, poking proudly out of her labia. “What an incredible view,” he muttered.

He rose to his feet, moving behind her, his cock prodding the back of her thighs, and slid his hands around her. Clasping her waist, sliding his hand down between her legs. The damp seam of her pussy beneath his fingers.

“I want to take you from behind,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

A fine tremor went through her, but he couldn’t tell if it was fear or desire. He nuzzled and petted. Waiting until she gave him a plainer answer. Several breathless minutes went by. She began to writhe and make keening sounds in her throat. His hands grew bolder.