Page 36 of Ruin

I laughed. She’d moved into the clubhouse without any of her own things and had been wearing Mandy’s clothes. Once we got into this house and I ruined the one outfit she had—I nearly groaned at the memory—she’d rifled through the closet Brock kept, looking for anything that might fit her. The clothes she’d found had been both too big and too long, and we’d all had a good laugh at how the large clothes made her look even tinier.

Saraya herself hadn’t thought it was very funny.

I walked over and looked down at the drawer where she had her few things. “Once we’re back in the clubhouse, remind me to take you shopping for more,” I told her. “You deserve to have more than just one pair of jeans and a couple of shirts to go with them.”

She turned and looked up at me. “And why would I need more clothes at the clubhouse?”

I reached down and cupped her cheek, trying to memorize the velvet of her skin against my palm, the vibrant green of her eyes. This thing I was doing tomorrow was dangerous, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might not come back alive.

If I died, I wanted to be able to remember her as my last thought.

But if I lived...

“I was sort of hoping you’d start thinking of the clubhouse as your home,” I murmured.

Her eyes filled with tears at that, and she stood and jumped into my arms, counting on me to catch her instead of going to the ground with surprise. I got my hands under her thighs and held her against me, and she kissed me soundly, her arms wrapping around my neck and her legs winding around my waist to match.

“Really?” she asked, drawing back.

“Absolutely,” I told her. “Now that I’ve found you, I can’t imagine living a life that doesn’t have you in it. And I guess that means you’ll have to live at the clubhouse with me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I hope you’ll tell all your other women then so they won’t come around. It might embarrass you.”

I leaned my forehead against hers and stared into her eyes, almost going cross-eyed with the effort it took. “You know there’s no one else, Saraya. You’re the only girl for me. The only girl that fits.”

And then I was kissing her, thinking of nothing else but this tiny, wonderful girl in my arms and the way she made me feel. She tilted her head and opened her mouth for me, inviting me in with the sweet, open way she had, and the world around me blurred. I dove into her mouth, my tongue dancing with hers in a way that I hadn’t realized was possible until I met her.

Until I found her by the side of the road and decided to take her home and save her.

I stumbled toward the bed, my head thick and muzzy with emotion and need, and we fell onto the covers with matching grunts.

“Not the most graceful I’ve ever been,” she murmured against my lips, her laughter barely controlled.

I grinned at her. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m already enchanted by you.”

She tipped her head. “Enchanted? I don’t think anyone has ever said they were enchanted by me before.”

I reached out and pushed one of her curls behind her ear. “Then they haven’t been paying attention.”

She leaned down and kissed me again, softer this time, and the thought shot through me that she was everything. This tiny girl was... everything. She was soft and hard, sweetness and sass, open and closed at the same time. She was the only one who had ever touched me the way she touched me, and the only one I wanted to show my deepest self to.

I’d never experienced anything like what Saraya gave me, and I didn’t think anyone else would ever be able to give it to me.

I flipped her onto her back and raised her hands above her head, forcing her to arch up into me, her breasts pushed against her T-shirt and her chin thrown back with need. Damn, she was beautiful. Pale skin and that dark hair. Those glowing eyes.

But when she turned those eyes on me, they were laughing.

“I don’t think so, cowboy,” she whispered.

Then, in a move that I didn’t think I would ever understand, she managed to slither out of my hold and out from underneath me, and then flip me onto my back, all in one smooth motion. When I got my bearings again, she was sitting on my stomach with a triumphant look on her face and a smile caught in the corner of her mouth.

“What,” I asked, “was that?”

She just shrugged. “I can’t tell you or I’ll have to kill you. But if you’re asking why I did it, then I’ll tell you straight up: You’ve been spending so much time spoiling me that I think it’s high time I spoil you a little bit.”

She reached down to the hem of my T-shirt and worked it up over my belly, her fingers dragging along my skin, and now it was my turn to arch my back and groan. My cock, already hard at how close she was, grew harder at the tickle of her nails, and by the time she had the shirt over my head, I was gasping with need.

Then she put her mouth to work.