He said it all tough and badass, but the question in his eyes was real. Poor guy—I’d probably given him blue balls. Fortunately I knew how to fix that . . . Smiling up at him, I licked my lips and leaned back down.

After a few minutes his hands found my head again. Then his breath grew tight and his hips strained upward. Triumph filled me because in that moment one of us definitely owned the other—Puck was mine, pure and simple.

—

An hour later I still felt triumphant. I couldn’t stop smiling, and I found myself babbling about anything and everything until Puck wanted to strangle me. I knew this because he told me. Not that I cared—nothing could kill this mood.

“I still can’t believe it,” I told him. “I wasn’t thinking about Teeny at all!”

Puck scowled.

“Do you usually think about your stepdad while I’m fuckin’ you?” he asked.

“No, it’s not like that,” I explained, rolling my eyes. “It’s just that he . . . well, he got off on that. Choking me.”

Puck’s face grew dark and I saw his finger tighten on the steering wheel. “Why the fuck haven’t you told me that before?”

“Um . . . It’s not really something I start all my conversations with, Puck. ‘Hi, I’m Becca. My favorite color is red and I hate being choked with cock.’ Um, no. That’s not how it’s done.”

His death grip on the steering wheel tightened.

“You started laughing in the middle of sex because I wasn’t hurting you,” he snapped. “If you’ve got shit that’s going to fuck with your head, I should know about it. What if I’d really scared you?”

“You won’t,” I said, smiling because it was true. “I finally figured it out. That’s why I was laughing—it wasn’t a bad thing. It’s wonderful.”

Puck glanced at me with something like pain in his eyes. I reached out to catch his biceps, squeezing it.

“I trust you, Puck. This may sound fucked up, but I just realized that and it’s kind of exciting.”

He didn’t respond for a while, then he dropped his right arm down and caught my hand.

“Not sure what to say,” he admitted finally. “I can tell you this, though. You’re my woman and I’m not going to hurt you. We can play all the games you like and I won’t lie—rough sex gets me off. But I’d never knowingly hurt you, Becca.”

“I know. I never thought I’d find someone like you . . . It means Teeny didn’t win. He beat my mom, but he hasn’t beaten me. I still hate him and I still want him dead, but he didn’t win. That means everything.”

PUCK

Becca was snoring.

Not loud, annoying snores. More of a soft, snuffling irregular purr. We were a few hours outside Las Vegas in some shithole little hotel that we’d found after sixteen hours of driving. The place was a dump but neither of us cared. We were wiped. Becca had passed right out, but I found myself wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

She’d started laughing because I hadn’t choked her with my cock.

I held her hand and said all the right things, but every time I thought about it, killing rage started pouring through me again. Becca’s stepdad was garbage—this wasn’t a revelation. I’d seen him beating her, known he’d raped her. Known he’d pimped her out to other men . . . I’d even known he still haunted her. I just hadn’t realized she thought about him during sex.

I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this, but I was pretty sure my actual feelings were wrong, because I felt jealous.

Becca’s mind should be on me when I was balls-deep inside her. Only me. Always me. I’d disliked the fucker the minute I met him, a dislike that transformed to hate when I found him beating her. When I’d offered to kill him for her, it’d been sincere. Teeny Patchel was using up valuable air, something that someone should probably fix.

Now, though. Now I had a whole new motivation.

I couldn’t wait to see the life drain out of that fucker’s eyes.

The burner phone I grabbed before leaving Coeur d’Alene buzzed next to the bed. I reached for it, finding a message from Diesel, one of the nomads I’d reached out to.

DIESEL: You awake?

Typing awkwardly with one hand, I replied.

ME: Yes

DIESEL: Call?

ME: Give me five.

Sliding out from under Becca, I stood and pulled on my jeans. Then I grabbed the phone and stepped out onto the covered walkway outside. The place’s glory days had been back in the ’60s, and nothing had been updated or repaired since, so far as I could tell. Only two other cars in the parking lot and the office had shut down for the night.

“Hey,” Diesel said when he answered.

“Thanks for getting back to me—got a situation I could use some help with. I heard you’re in the San Diego area?”

“Yeah, had some business down here,” Diesel replied. He was a Reaper and we’d met two or three times at different events. Not a friendly guy, but a solid brother.

“Picnic said you might be the man to talk to,” I said. “My old lady’s mom died. Now her stepdad wants money or he won’t give my girl the ashes. I think we may need to take action.”

Diesel grunted.

“What kind of action you thinking?”

“Could be serious.”

“I hear you,” he replied. “I can be around. When do you get into town?”