“Baby…”
“I did wrong by you,” he said, quietly.
She flashed back to a breezy autumn afternoon, the rough brick of the back of the liquor store digging into her shoulder blades through her denim jacket, the air cool against her stomach as his hands slid up under her shirt and lifted. He moved faster, surer than the clumsy boys her age. She’d gasped and arched, and he’d put his tongue in her mouth and asked her if she liked the feel of his hand going down inside her jeans, finding her panties damp.
“I wanted better for her,” he admitted. “I wanted to make up for…what I was.”
Maggie took his face in her hands. “What you were,” she said, fiercely, “was everything I’d ever wanted in a man.” She tapped his temples with her thumbs. “Even if you’re still a stubborn ass.”
He grinned.
“Don’t take that away from our girl,” she said. “That’s not doing better.”
His arms went around her waist. “Nobody’s ever taken advantage of you for a second, have they?”
“You wanna try?” She made her brows jump.
“You’re just distracting me.”
“Is it working?”
He grinned again, a shark smile this time. “You’ll have to microwave dinner.”
“I need to clean this.” Ava ran her fingernail around the outer edges of Mercy’s GSW, touch feather-light.
“Later.” He made a dismissive, waving gesture that she swatted away.
“Do you want it to get infected? You won’t be able to do what we just did if your arm rots off.”
In answer, his hand slid down from its place at her hip, around to cup her bottom and squeeze. She lay snugged against his side, her head pillowed on his chest, her arm draped across his waist, one leg hitched over his thigh. They were both damp with sweat and glowing in the aftermath. He’d been thorough, slow; she was still pulsing all over, the warmth still shifting under her skin.
“Baby, I don’t need an arm to do what we just did.”
“I like your arm, though.” She stroked the soft inside of his wrist where it lay against her hip.
“Should other parts of my anatomy be offended by that?”
She grinned. Patted the back of his hand. “Let me up. I gotta go get the alcohol and stuff.”
He let her sit up, but his arm tightened around her waist, holding her beside him. With his other hand, he reached for the half-full bottle of Johnnie Walker on the nightstand. “You don’t gotta get up for that.” He pressed the bottle toward her and she rolled her eyes, still smiling.
“You know what I meant.”
“But choosing to ignore it.”
She made a show of looking disgruntled as she took the Scotch and raised it to her lips. “I don’t know why you drink this rancid shit.” The mouth of the bottle was slightly sticky with residue, tasted faintly of cigarettes; he always smoked when he drank.
The red Scotch burned as it flooded across her tongue and assaulted the back of her throat. She managed to swallow it down without making too much of a face, gasping a little as she pulled the bottle back.
“It gets better the further you go,” Mercy said with a grin that was downright leering.
“You’re French Canadian. Shouldn’t you drink Crown?”
“A quarter Canadian,” he corrected, taking the bottle back from her, taking a slug of it himself. “And I ain’t drinking anything out of a bottle that pretty.”
She snorted. “How broad-minded of you.”
He took another pull, and then lifted it to her again, putting the rim right up against her lips. She pursed them around the mouth and tipped her head back, let him pour three long swallows down her throat. If spontaneous human combustion was really a thing, she was in danger of immolating.
