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“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “I have my own money. You don’t have to do that.”
Wreck leaned forward and drank in her lips. That was the only way she could think to describe the debilitating way he kissed her. He drained every argument from her as he kissed her into dumbness.
He eased back and gave her one of those dangerous-boy smiles. “Do it for me. Make me happy.”
She barely fought the urge to whisper “yes, sir,” as he turned for his truck.
“I’ll text on my breaks,” he promised, then climbed into his truck, turned it on, and rolled down the window. “Keep her safe, please,” he told Silver.
Silver stood there with her hands cupped around her steaming mug of coffee, a knowing smile painted on her face. “She can have my lioness for the day.”
“Bite her and I’ll kill you.”
“That’s not what I meant, geez. I just meant she can have my protection. Hey!” Silver called as he began to reverse.
“What?” Wreck asked.
“She’s okay. I’ll ask the Crew if they want to party-crash tonight.”
Wreck froze for a three-count, then something went softer in his eyes and he nodded. “Come here,” he rumbled to Timber. She scrambled to his truck and stepped up on the drop-down running boards. He reached out the open window and hugged her close, cupped her head in the back, and murmured in her ear, “Get something tight and red.”
“Like fire?” she teased.
His hand went gently to her throat and he eased her back, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “You are the fire. You’ll figure that out sooner or later.”
As he pulled her in by the throat to kiss her, she felt the rightness of his words.
Her confidence was different since she’d met him. It wasn’t her against the world. She had a monster at her back now, and she had a feeling he wouldn’t let anyone mess with her anymore.
He was going to encourage her to find her own power, and there was great value in a man who elevated his woman like that.
“I’ll go on one condition,” she said over the rumble of his engine.
“Name it.”
“You can’t use any fire in the bar tonight.”
He quirked up his lip like she’d stolen his fun. “Fine.”
With a giggle, she eased off the step and waved him off. When he hit the tree line, he gave a two-fingered wave out the window and then disappeared.
Timber took a sip of her coffee and slowly turned to Silver. “Thank you for not judging my walk of shame.”
“Ain’t no walks of shame around here. You’re on a walk of victory. You bagged a phoenix, girl. That man is a horror when you’re on his bad side. Death, destruction, agony, suffering. But if you’re on his good side? He could burn the whole world for you.”
“He could also accidentally burn me along with it.”
“Oh, absolutely. You might die a horrible death, but it’ll be fun until you get there.” Silver abruptly turned and strode for her trailer while Timber stared after her, mouth flopped open in horror. “Come on, humey. You can shower at my place.”
Timber had always imagined meeting friends at a bar, or at work, or something normal. Since last night, she’d seen fire—the red and the green kind—and she’d slept in a half-burned, half-healed-by-Wreck’s-phoenix-magic house with no power and no light except for a fire in the fireplace that Wreck kept relighting with his freaking fingertip. Now she was standing here in the frosty morning air, surrounded by the biggest and baddest shifters of Damon’s Mountains, about to borrow a shower and probably some clothes so she could go shopping for second-hand furniture and something sexy to wear to her ex-boyfriend’s birthday party with her new guy, apparently with new friends tagging along.
Last week, if someone would’ve told her this was her life, she would’ve given them the intake forms so she could start treating them for delusions. As it stood, this felt way too natural.
She took another big sip of her coffee and followed Silver toward her mobile home.
Perhaps she was in shock. People who were in shock accepted things as-is and didn’t have emotional reactions that made sense.
Her lips were still tingling from Wreck’s kisses, her body was still on fire from his touch, and she could still feel the warmth on her throat where he seemed to enjoy touching so much. So did she.
