“I’m sorry,” I say suddenly, feeling like shit.

  “For what? It’s not your fault Diana Nichols is at work,” Poppy says, not on the same deep, dark dive into my soul that I’m tripping on.

  “Not that. For . . .” I let my head drop with a sigh, unable to meet her eyes. I don’t want to see the judgment there when I’m baring my soul. I deserve it, but I don’t want to see it because it’ll be something I memorize to take out and replay when I’m beating myself up. “For stealing your laptop in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was just . . . doing my job.”

  I’m searching for words, trying to be real while protecting her from my truest ugliness. I don’t know if I’m looking for comfort, forgiveness, or an escape, but I can feel something inside me reaching for her. Something that wants the hint of what the ruby on her finger teases me with.

  Poppy places her hand on my shoulder, her thumb making tiny circles through my T-shirt. I haven’t earned her kindness, but I let out a shuddering, needful breath, wanting her touch anyway. It’s been so long since I’ve received any softness from anyone that I can’t refuse her kind generosity. I’m even more of a bastard for taking it from her after I’ve taken so much, but I never claimed to be anything but an asshole.

  “I don’t know why you do what you do, but you’re a good man, Connor.”

  Her declaration hits me like a punch in the sternum. After all that’s happened, how can she possibly think I’m good? I have to show her how wrong she is or this house of cards is going to destroy her when it falls. And it inevitably will.

  Desperately, I play the last card I have to hold myself back from the inevitable fall at this point . . . the ugly truth.

  “I started down the wrong path young, as a teen. You saw my parents, my house. There were all these rules and expectations. Society rules, family rules . . . I hated everything about it. What to wear, what to say, how to smile even as poison dripped off your every word. It was all so fake, totally useless. So I escaped any way I could, rebelling with stupid shit at first.”

  Poppy’s hand stills but doesn’t lift from my shoulder. “Like what?”

  “I’d sneak out, not even to do anything wild, just to be out and see if I’d get caught. I didn’t. Then I started drinking and smoking, tried drugs, and was generally up for anything that might piss off my parents. Anything and everything I could do to just make them pay attention. All I wanted was them to look at me as more than some type of fucked up asset, some toy to be paraded around at the right times in front of the right people. And they . . . didn’t even notice. So, I tried other things. Pickpocketing, stealing, you know.”

  I shake my head, remembering those days. How I’d felt invincible and untouchable. “It was a rush. The truth is that it became what I lived for. The rush of being able to beat the rules, to throw up my middle fingers to the world . . . because rules had never done much for me. And at the time, my world seemed so fucked up. At first, I would sell the shit I stole to friends or a friend of a friend, but eventually, word got out. I got hired for a job here or there, and ironically, I felt like I’d made it. That felt like success to me, because people were noticing me.”

  “I get that.”

  “The buzz I got from getting away clean was only topped by upping the ante. That’s when I got in deep. Poppy, I’m good at what I do, have skills that make it the perfect job for me. And I’m not exactly conditioned to be the sort of person who can sit behind a computer and bang out reports or spreadsheets or what the fuck ever all day. So am I good, Poppy? Fuck no. I haven’t been that in a long time, and no matter what good I do in this world, it’ll never be enough to balance what bad I’ve done.”

  Surely, she must get it now. She has to understand.

  But instead, she runs her fingers through my hair, scratching the back of my neck lightly. “I can see that you’re good.”

  I huff out a humorless laugh. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear everything I just said?” Shit, I’ve said way too much already. Nobody knows all the things I just told Poppy.

  That’s all been buried deep in a dark hole inside me for a very long time. But even with all that floating in the air between us, she’s as stubborn as a mule.

  Finally, I lay it out. “If you want to have a good life, if you want to have the happily ever after you deserve . . . you’d run the other fucking way every time you see me. Because the worst thing of all is . . . I can’t keep pushing you away. I’m a greedy bastard.”

  She pulls my chin up, forcing my eyes to hers. Hers are glittery with tears, but there’s steel in their blue depths. “You listen to me, Mister. If anyone should be mad as fuck at you, it’s me. But I know everything you just said . . . and asked you inside anyway. Because I see something that you’re either too hurt, too scared, or too ashamed to admit. There is still good in your heart. And for whatever you did, you’re also fixing it. If you were some turdnugget bastard, that’d be different. But you’re not. You care that I’m freaking the fuck out. Right?”

  I snort. “Turdnugget. Is that even a word?”

  “Right?” she demands, her fingers on my chin getting tighter.

  She has zero sense of self-preservation and no concern that I’m on edge. The edge of what? I don’t know, but I know my skin feels too tight for everything bubbling up inside me.

  “Yeah,” I answer begrudgingly.

  “And you’re helping me, right?”

  “Trying, but you keep trying to get yourself in trouble. B-n-E and assault with a deadly weapon, for starters.” The attempt at a joke is a last-ditch effort to thwart the impact of her scooping my soul out with a rusty spoon.

  “Har-har,” she answers dryly. “And you care about your family. If you were irredeemable, you wouldn’t care about Caylee and her wedding. Right?”

  “Yeah,” I agree less reluctantly this time, knowing she won’t let me duck away from her hard-nosed brand of self-help therapy.

  I’ve got walls of concrete, built on a foundation of bedrock, and designed in a labyrinth of a maze, but she’s busting through like a bulldozer, going right for my center. It’s not an ooey-gooey soft place by any means, but the fire there suits Poppy. Instead of being burned by it, she’s acting like the embers of my soul are perfect for making some yummy s’mores.

  “You didn’t ask me to stop stealing.”

  Poppy looks at me in surprise. “Why would I?”

  “I’m a thief with some obviously tortured feelings about that fact, but you didn’t tell me to just stop.”

  “When, and if, you’re ever ready,” she says with a quiet, certain confidence, “you will. Or you’ll figure out a way to put your skills to work for good.” She offers me a brilliant smile, daring me to argue. “Because you are good.”

  She doesn’t know everything, doesn’t know half of it, but she’s closer to the real me than anyone has been in a long time. I feel like myself, not a weapon or tool to be used by people in power.

  With Poppy, it’s just us, and I want to fall into that, even if only for a little bit. I give in, taking her hand in mine and kissing her fingertips. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  She’s given me more than she could ever imagine, but I want more. Her kindness makes me desperate for more. Just once. I need a physical way to shut off this emotional storm she’s conjured.

  I swallow thickly.

  “What are you thinking?” she asks softly, sensing the change in my mood.

  “That I want to fuck the shit out of you.” Maybe by stripping all the feelings out of it, by being crude to the point of insulting her, she’ll understand.

  But instead, she just grins. “Okay.”

  My eyes widen. “What?”

  “I said, it’s about fucking time,” she says and then giggles. “Get it? Fucking time. Here or my bedroom? Kitchen?”

  She points as she offers choices of where I can take her, where I can have her.

  “Poppy . . . you didn’t ask me to stop stealing, but I need you to tell me to stop now. Or I won’t be able to. I want you too much.” I growl the confession, wishing I didn’t have a shred of decency left in me. Then, I could fuck her rough six ways to Sunday and not feel a hint of remorse.

  “Connor,” she says, climbing into my lap to straddle me, her hands on my cheeks so I can’t get away from her direct gaze—the one staring into my soul, “if you don’t fuck me on this couch right now, I’m going to get myself off. Watch if you want, or don’t, but your being all . . .” —she waves her hands through the air, encompassing what I’m guessing is supposed to be me— “is really sexy, and I’m a stroke away from coming already.”

  I place my hands on her hips and pull her against my raging cock, letting her feel what she does to me. She moans, so I do it again, and again, finding a rhythm that elicits sexy sounds from Poppy’s throat. “Are you going to come already?”

  Her head falls back, her hair hanging down her back to tickle my hands. I gather a bit of it in my hand and pull gently, testing her waters. She hisses out, “Yes.”

  I can feel her heat through our jeans. Remembering last night, I bury my face into the soft T-shirt covered mounds of her breasts, sucking and biting through the cotton. She cries out, her hips bucking against me as she braces herself on my shoulders, her fingernails digging in.

  “Shirt,” I growl against her skin, and she nods, letting go to pull her shirt off. The soft, creamy mounds of her breasts almost spill into my face as she leans forward, finding the catch on her bra and shrugging it off to drop, unneeded, between us.

  Perfection. Her breasts are perfect lush teardrops on her chest that are capped with pale pink nipples that are already pebbled up and ready for my eager teeth and tongue. I latch onto one immediately, sucking and licking as she thrashes in my lap.

  “Connor . . . Connor,” she cries out when I find what she likes. I’m not surprised she enjoys a rougher touch, her hips jerking when I stop sucking and bite her nipples softly, tugging and letting my teeth rasp against her silky skin. Her thighs tremble, tightening around my hips, and suddenly, she stiffens when I nip a little harder. “Fuck!”

  Feeling this woman fall apart for me is heaven in itself, and I hold her secure in my grip as a climax jolts through her, watching her hungrily as she moans. She sags, and I hold her, only releasing her when I hear a twin pair of worried yappings around our feet.

  “Guys, hush!” Poppy growls as Nut and Juice dance around, probably worried about their mama. “I’m fine!”

  “Protective little monsters,” I point out, and she lets out a beleaguered sigh. “I like it.”

  Poppy smiles then, getting up and tugging on my hand. I nod, dumbstruck, as she pulls me by a willing hand to her bedroom. When we get there, she shoos the whining Pomeranians out, closing her door to give us privacy. They must not be too upset because an instant later, I hear their nails clicking as they walk back down the hall to the living room, probably to go lie in their shared dog bed.

  “With my luck, I’ve got twenty minutes tops until they come looking for me again, or need to go out, or want a treat, so get naked.” Poppy goes for the button of her jeans, hastily undoing it and shoving the denim down her thighs to reveal an adorable set of red-striped granny panties with an elf on the right hip.

  “It’s not Christmas,” I murmur as I watch her quick striptease.

  “What?” Poppy says, kicking off her shoes and trying to get out of her jeans without falling over. “So help me, if you only have sex once a year on Christmas or some shit like that, I will put twinkle lights on the tree over there or buy some eggnog later, but right now, get naked.”

  “No, your . . .” I am not going to say panties. Or undies. That word on a man’s tongue is just . . . not happening. As I pull my shirt over my head, I settle for, “Elf.”

  Poppy looks down, realization dawning. “Haven’t done laundry, but you can totally stuff my stocking.” Her eyes go wide. “Oh, my God, that was so bad. Pretend that didn’t happen. Pretend I’m not a writer who gets paid to write sexy dirty talk.” She shakes her head, and under her breath, I swear I hear her say, “At least I didn’t talk about breeding this time.”

  “What?” My fingers freeze on the button of my jeans.

  “Oh, nothing. Book stuff.” When I don’t move, she adds, “I’m on birth control. I swear.”

  Hell, I don’t know if I’d stop even if she did start spouting some weird breeding talk. It’s not my thing, but if it’s hers, I could make it work.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to, and once I’m naked as instructed, we simply look at each other for a long moment.

  “You’re beautiful,” I tell her, loving the way her whole body flushes in response. “Lie down.”

  She backs into the queen-size bed and sits down before spreading out. I follow her, taking the two steps to the bedside, and stand over her. Her hair is a messy red halo, her cheeks are pink, and her eyes are sparkling brightly. She wants me.

  And I want her. I want to trace her curves with my hands, find all the secret spots that drive her wild, and feel her surround my cock with velvet.

  But first, I run a rough hand up her calf, tugging her knees apart and studying the way she bites her lip as I get between them. “What’s wrong?” I ask as I see something change in her eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No. It’s just . . . nobody’s ever looked at me with so much intensity,” she says, swallowing. “You make me feel sexy.”

  “You are sexy,” I tell her, climbing onto the bed and between her legs to kiss up the insides of her thighs.

  Softly, I tease her flesh, kissing my way up Poppy’s legs until I’m almost at her pussy. I inhale her, and the sweet scent makes my head swim

  Forget the rush of crime . . . this is more addictive.

  Maybe, but for now I kiss her center, teasing and tasting her and listening to her reactions. I slip my tongue into her folds and am rewarded with a burst of wetness that has my cock pulsing precum onto the sheets underneath me.

  I memorize every bit of her as I explore her body, my fingers holding her legs apart until I find the pearl at the top. And like the thief I am, I steal it from her with my tongue, wrapping and fluttering, watching with greedy eyes as she cries out, her hands balled up in the sheets as she surges into my mouth.

  “Fuck, Connor, right there. Oh, fuck . . . oh, fuck!” she shouts, her eyes rolling up as I stroke her clit and watch her. I bring her up, higher and higher, until I can’t hold back any longer.

  With a growl of hunger and greedy desire, I let go of her thighs to rise up, nocking myself at her entrance and pressing into her. Poppy cries out, tugging on my neck and kissing me even before I can thrust forward, and our moans are swallowed between us as I fill her.

  “More,” she gasps as I slip into her, my cock embraced by the tight, slick walls of her grip. “Fuck me, Connor. I need all of you. Let me make you feel good.”

  I want to make it good for her, to give more than I take because I’m in heaven inside Poppy. But there will be hell to pay for this and I know it. Eventually, she’s going to regret this night, but if I do everything in my power to give her the physical pleasure and release she wants . . . maybe she won’t hate me when it’s all said and done.

  I’m burning, my desire for Poppy and anger at myself mixing with who knows what in my veins. But I use it as fuel to give her exactly what she asks for. I pound her, fucking her with every ounce of my strength and clapping my hips and balls against her body.

  Take it . . . take it, Poppy, I think as I fuck her hard and deep with demanding strokes. I don’t know if I’m punishing myself for being unworthy of her or punishing her for taking me anyway, but instead of my breaking her, she meets me equally, surging up to capture my mouth with a hard, sucking kiss.

  We give in.

  We tear into each other, hair is pulled, fingernails score my back, hips piston, and my cock surges, harder and thicker than I’ve ever been. Suddenly, we’re on the edge of eternity, ready to hurtle into the dark abyss, and I freeze.

  I stare into the abyss, but like a philosopher once said, the abyss stares back as Poppy bucks herself up into me, and I see . . .

  Her leap. Not a fall into pleasure, but rather, an absolute wingless flight into floating bliss. It sends me tumbling, spiraling wildly after her.

  “Poppy!” I growl, plunging into her. My balls tighten before spilling over, my orgasm carrying me away as I fill her with hot spurts of my seed. She holds me, her legs locked around my waist as she quivers, her own climax sending aftershocks through her body that seem heightened with every jet of my release.

  In the silence that follows, I collapse, holding her in my arms as I sag into the sweat-soaked sheets. For damning her, I feel . . . lighter. Like maybe, in all of that, she did shine a little bit of light on my soul.

  Poppy curls into me, kissing my chest softly and humming happily until she stiffens suddenly, her body going tense. “What is it?”

  Poppy sits up, blurting out, “I need my laptop.”

  Okay . . . uhm, not what I expected. Then again, I expected tears, anger, and getting thrown out of here, but this is not at all what I thought might happen. “I know. We’ll go get it tomorrow night.”

  “No, no . . . the one in the kitchen,” she explains with a happy giggle. “I need to write down my thoughts on this. Right now.”

  Without another word, Poppy hops from the bed, as naked as the day she was born, and runs from the room. I lie there, stunned. I don’t think I can ever say this has happened before, and I’m not sure what to do . . . or even what the fuck is going on.

  She said her thoughts on this, obviously meaning the sex we just had. Is she going to give me a report card? Like a ‘needs improvement’ and ‘exceeds expectations’ type deal? I’m down for feedback, but that’s a bit much, right?

  But before I decide whether I should get up and get dressed or follow her to the dining area, she’s back with her cheap little backup laptop in her hands, almost leaping into the bed to flop down next to me. Yanking the cover open, she starts typing.