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“You’re going to freeze,” I gasp when I rush to help her into the van. She’s wearing the same little black dress as last night, just under a much better jacket.

“We’ll keep each other warm. Do you dance, Laz?” Victoria asks, swaying to the beat of a song she hears inside her head.

“No. That’s one skill they left out.”

“Mm. Then I can teach you. I might be able to teach you a lot of things.” The seductive purr of her voice suddenly vanishes. “Oh. Sorry. I... That makes me sound like a slut, huh?”

“Do you feel like that?” I ask, hands tight on the wheel. I don’t like hearing her speak about herself like that in that tone.

“No, because I feel like that word gets misused. But there is something called an escort, or a call girl, and I was one. I learned to be good at sex, and I learned what men like. Funny thing... I never liked doing it with them. It was more like a task. Like earning a good review, satisfaction guaranteed, all the right moves.” Victoria lowers her hood completely, leans back, and keeps talking in this sweet, faraway voice. “You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to do things with.”

“Huh? No. What about before you met Bocella and his jerks?” I protest, even though inside, I’m preening.

“Okay, let me rephrase. You are the first person I’ve ever wanted to do all those things with because I wanted to, and,” her voice takes on a sneaky, guilty lilt, “because I think you’re going to give as good as you get. Something tells me you were built on the killer instinct plan, and those instincts cover everything.”

“Now I’m going to disappoint you,” I groan.

“Not if you let me make useful suggestions.” Victoria licks her lips and lets her hand rest on my thigh.

“Okay, Love Doctor,” I lace my fingers through hers, marveling that something so pretty and perfect willingly wants to touch me. “What do you suggest?”

“Eggnog with way too much rum. Or just the rum. Dancing in the dark corners where no one can see where my hands are stroking. Then back to your place. Or my place. Or a hotel. Somewhere where we don’t have to stop before we get started.” Victoria wriggles in her seat, and I almost drive off the road at the sweet, sinful smell that tickles my predatory nose.

If I don’t stop myself, I’ll have to pull over and fuck her right here in this van. I can’t help remembering how she looks, all pale outsides and perfect, luscious pink insides. How she tastes, so honey sweet and so wet, just dripping on my tongue, rubbing her pretty pearl of a clit against the teeth that have no business being near anyone’s flesh. How she sounds when I touch her, the sounds she makes when my fingers pump in and out of her juicy pussy, faster and faster, making her walls clamp down and hug my scarred fingers.

I didn’t think about my scars. Or my stitches. Not even my teeth, my fucked up teeth that they could have left alone but didn’t. I only think about her.

“I love— I love that idea. Those ideas,” I gasp, stunned that I almost just blurted out something I’m not even supposed to be able to feel.

But when you can overlook someone’s past, mistakes, lies, and betrayals—no, not overlook, but accept and understand them... When you realize they make you feel okay, more than okay, good, exactly as you are?

I think that could be how love starts.

I don’t know if Victoria realizes the slip I almost made, but for a second my heart falters. Her face is shocked above the ruff of faux fur that’s now around her shoulders. “You love it?” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

Our eyes meet as we turn into Jax Alley, and she murmurs, “Mm. I love it, too.”

Chapter Twenty-One: Wild

There’s eggnog on the bar for free. If you want the rum to mix it with, it’s extra. Lazarus pays. He takes my coat. He puts on something slow and dark on the neon-encrusted jukebox in the corner, the kind that spins CDs.

I don’t know the song, but I know that in seconds, we’re in that dark corner I dreamed of, making out, and ten minutes and an eggnog later, we’re downstairs.

“I bet you’re good at pool,” Laz says.

I realize he just wants me to bend over in front of him, ass pressed to the hard cock I can feel through my dress, rubbing pointedly on my thigh.

The downstairs level is far more deserted than the upstairs. Upstairs, there were half a dozen folks at the bar toasting the holiday and hugging one another before they traveled their separate ways, and there was a noisy bunch of kids from the Pine Ridge NYU campus who must have been staying local for the holiday, young men and women in sweatshirts and festive pajama bottoms, all dancing, lurching, and laughing.

Downstairs... We’re alone, a laughing couple running up past us as we reach the bottom steps, meaning we’re officially the only occupants.

Lazarus leads me to a pool table and hands me a cue. He removes the rack from around the balls and bows. “Lady’s first.”

“Ain’t no lady,” I laugh, chalk my cue, and try to remember what I learned from some of the best pool sharks in Bocella’s organization.

Lazarus is behind me, iron grip suddenly over my hands. He could snap the cue in a second if he wanted. Hell, he could snap me if he wanted.