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  “I need your help, kid.” Frank’s gruff voice carried over the walls, and Bane cocked his head to figure out what game everyone was playing.

  “Q’s going to help you with her wipe?” Bane’s fingers rubbed at each other in his pockets. He rocked back on his heels. The need to get Josie under him beat like a living thing in his chest, and he wasn’t sure how he’d resist once she was back to her newborn state.

  “No.” Her voice was so chipper Bane wondered what Frank must have said to turn her opinion around. “He’s going to be my new husband.”

  Behind him, Q-ter yelped.

  Bane stared into Josie’s guileless eyes, though he noticed the corner of her mouth twitch. “You’re bluffing.” He stood stock still.

  Josie squared her shoulders and let her cool smile widen. “No, I’m not. I don’t want a reset. If you don’t want to play the role, I understand.”

  He turned to his boss, whose poker face betrayed nothing. Bane crossed to Josie, grabbing her hand. “I’m taking her home.” He caught the flash of triumph on Josie’s face, but she quickly schooled her features back to impassive. Gripping her upper arm in his fist, Bane leaned into her ear and spoke in a low and threatening growl. “We are discussing this again.”

  She shivered and Bane hoped he’d gotten through to her, but when he met her gaze he found lust burning in her eyes. “Let’s go,” she breathed.

  And dammit if he didn’t get hard on the spot. “Come on.” Bane dragged Josie through the office, down the hall and out onto the street. The sun break from earlier had passed, returning the sky to cold and gray. He marched her up the hill.

  Josie wrapped her free arm around herself against the chill. “Where are we going?” Her voice trembled, but Josie kept pace behind him, never breaking the connection of their hands.

  “To my place.” He didn’t elaborate and she didn’t ask. He hauled her to the bus stop on Second. A couple of homeless guys huddled nearby, shifting something between their hands. A heavyset woman in nurses’ scrubs and a thick jacket rolled her gaze over them. Josie stepped closer.

  Embarrassment crept up his neck. “I don’t have the car. We have to bus it.” He pointed down the street to where the next bus rolled toward them.

  “We’re taking that?” She sounded so hopeful, he felt like crap for having to tell her no.

  “Ours is the 2.” He didn’t say anything more, just watched out of the corner of his eye as Josie took in the wet streets. Bits of paper and abandoned coffee cups cluttered the odd doorway. Lines of cars sputtered exhaust.

  “There it is!” Josie pointed down the road to where the bus stopped at another location. “Come on!” She grabbed a handful of his shirt and tried to set off running in the bus’s direction.

  Against every impulse he had, Bane started laughing. “It’ll come here next.”

  With wide eyes, Josie watched as the bus lumbered down Second Avenue and stopped in front of them. When the door folded open, she turned to Bane with a huge grin on her face. “That is so cool!”

  All around them, the folks getting on the bus shook their heads and muttered to themselves, some in amusement and others in concern depending on whether they thought her ignorant or high. Bane found himself stepping between Josie and the other passengers, shielding her body from brushing into anyone else’s.

  “Let’s sit here.” He backed her into a bench.

  The bus pulled away from the curve and a few curious riders craned their heads. Bane shifted in his seat to block their view.

  Josie didn’t speak as the bus rolled up First Hill. She kept hold on his hand and watched the city go by out the window. Bane wondered what it might be like to take this ride with her every day.

  Honestly, Bane had decided not to go through with his reset a day or two ago—maybe when Josie rode herself to orgasm on his lap, or maybe even the first time he saw her watching him from out the window. In the last five years, he’d collected over thirty steins for the ZU, but she was the first one who made him feel like a hero.

  They rolled into his neighborhood and Bane wondered what she thought of the hoodlums standing at every street corner and the homeless camped in an empty lot. They got off the bus and walked up to his apartment building. Bane worried she’d go running back to Q-ter and Frank, beg them to go through with the previous plan.

  He led her through the lobby and into the urine-scented elevator. When he finally dared lift his face, Josie’s fierce gaze bore into him. She placed her hands on his shoulders, and with an agile hop, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her tongue was in his mouth before their lips even touched. He strode off the elevator and to his front door, where he leaned her against the wood while he twisted the key in all three locks.

  She broke contact only long enough to whisper, “Bedroom. Now!”

  Chapter Twelve

  He carried her past shelves built from wood beams and concrete blocks and a tiny kitchenette with dishes piled in the sink. A bathroom door opened to the right, but Bane swung in the opposite direction and kicked forward through a door and released his grip on her side to turn on a light.

  Desperate for more of him, Josie tugged his shirt up from his waistband, running her hands over the scars on his abdomen. Her teeth scraped his and he bit her lip. In response, she scored her fingernail over the tiny knot of his nipple. He made a sexy hissing sound and lifted her off his body.

  She straightened her legs and slid down. When her feet reached the floor, Josie assessed the space. A bed covered in tangled sheets dominated the room. A stereo system filled one corner.

  “Um, I'm sorry,” Bane muttered, obviously embarrassed. He yanked the sheets off the bed and tossed them to the side on top of a pile of clothes. Then he disappeared through the door and came back with his arms full of a different set of crumpled sheets. When she raised her eyebrows in question, he shrugged. “I don’t like folding things.”

  He stretched the linens over the bed and then turned to her and frowned. “Man, I’m sorry this place is such a shithole.” When their eyes met, her pulse sped up. She’d never lain with Bane in a real bed.

  “Take your clothes off.” He spoke it as an order that made Josie jump, but she did as he said. He stared at her with glass-blue eyes, his palm absently rubbing at the erection straining his trousers. “You know what I want, babe.” His tone chilled her, but she wouldn’t take the bait and cower.

  She knew he was trying to frighten her, make her change her mind. Josie’s mouth curled up in a smile. As if he could scare her when she saw inside his mind! She clasped his belt in her hand and unfastened it. With a quick swipe, she tugged it free and unzipped the front of his pants. His cock sprang into her waiting hands—at least that part of him was happy she hadn’t gotten a reset.

  Bane lifted his shirt over his head so that the gorgeous expanse of his torso stretched bare before her. She bent onto her knees, and then Josie laid her hands, flat palmed, on his abdomen and surrounded his purpled head with her lips.

  Salty fluid drenched his cap, the flavor filling her mouth. Bane’s hand fisted in her hair. She knew how he was playing, and felt no surprise when he fed himself more deeply over her tongue, until the blunt tip rested snug at the back of her throat.

  She pulled back then plunged forward on him again. From the angle of Bane’s hips, Josie knew he leaned back to watch her, and she spread her hands over his hip bones and then around to the swells of muscle on his rear end, thrilled to put on a good show. She squeezed the hard globes of flesh and pulled to seat his cock deeper. He whispered guttural curses and groaned, his fingers playing along the tendrils of her hair.

  With a slow smile, she pulled her lips from his length and grinned up at his shocked expression. She turned on her knees, and then lowered her face slowly to the floor, stretching her arms over her head.

  Josie swerved her hips to one side then another, swaying before him. Behind her, she heard Bane fall to his knees. The scratchy hairs of his thighs touched the insides of her legs, an
d Josie tilted her pelvis higher, in a move so profane it felt sacred.

  “We don’t have to do it like this.” Bane’s voice was thick with lust.

  Josie looked over her shoulder. “I want to. It sounded like fun when you thought it.” She teased her hips back, stroking at his erection with her dampening center. Her head dropped between her arms and she groaned as his fingers found her core, and instead of petting her or inserting them, Bane stretched her wide and fit the cap of his sex to her opening.

  Yes, yes, yes. A chorus took up in her mind and he plowed slowly into her. Not fully prepared, her delicate membranes caught and scraped at his entry, adding a delicious friction that had her twisting her hips to accommodate him. Bane held her steady and drew out along her moist passage, before driving home in a brutal stroke.

  He fell over her back, and he curled his body, working her passage hard. She felt his need, his lust, his emotions dancing as if they were her own.

  Josie arched and bucked to meet him, and his kisses peppered her shoulder and back. He plundered farther, so that Josie fell forward, Bane atop her. He pushed one of her knees up to her armpit, never slowing his rhythm, and then reached under her body to cup her mound as if he owned it.

  “Fuck, I love you.”

  She knew it to be true, had seen it in his mind already. But still, Bane’s growled admission sparked a desperate frenzy of want. Josie shouted his name with abandon, rocking on his searching fingers. The rough carpeting abraded her nipples and her elbows. Bane powered harder, shoving her forward with each stroke, so that she couldn’t meet him, and her hands searched for purchase on the floor to stop their journey across the room.

  His middle finger dug into her bundle of nerves, and Josie screamed her release into the rough fibers of the flooring. She bent her head to withstand the sensations, her body clenching at his every surge. Her legs pulled together of their own accord, muscle winding tight as she continued to come. Bane shifted to allow her movement, then pinned her legs between his and reared up behind her.

  His hand grasped her buttock and spread it to the side. In her mind, she saw how he watched as he fucked her, and the thought spiraled her into another blinding orgasm as she lifted her behind to give him a better view.

  Curses flew fast and hard from his lips. His arm wrapped around her waist to hold Josie still and she felt his cock inside her grow impossibly bigger, harder, hitting again and again on the spot inside that made her spasm and scream.

  He shouted, holding her still against his hips even as Josie twisted on his cock to get more. She melted, loose-limbed, onto the floor. Bane’s calls continued, filling her ears. She felt his release within her, and his weight falling onto her back.

  Her mind drifted in a haze of joy, such that Josie barely noticed strong arms lifting her from the floor and laying her on the bed.

  Bane stroked her cheek. His touch felt like fire. “Oh babe. That is some serious rug-burn.”

  She looked up at him and found Bane’s lips tugged into a wide smile. The crinkles at the edges of his eyes made the irises look like a sunny sky. Josie wasn’t sure what rug-burn was, but the expression brought a giggle to her chest.

  He gathered her up in his arms. “I’m going to have to take better care of you.”

  She didn’t want to ruin their buoyant mood by asking, but Josie needed to know. “And you will?”

  He stilled. “My job takes me out of town a lot. I’ll have to get you a cat or something.”

  His petulant, grumpy tone made her smile all the more. “I’m sorry to be such trouble.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean…” He got her joke a second too late, and Josie laughed when he retaliated by tickling her, and then rolling her over and kissing her senseless.

  * * * * *

  Three months later…

  Bane scowled. Then he cursed under his breath. Finally, he shifted the load in his arms to the side and reached into his pocket to draw out several bills. “This is the smallest bag of rodent bedding you sell?”

  The pimply lifer behind the counter at the pet store shrugged. “We don’t get in the smaller bags ’til next week.”

  Bane didn’t bother responding. Instead he hauled the enormous bushel over his shoulder. “Fucking guinea pigs.”

  He pushed the door open with his thigh, ignoring the shopkeeper’s offer to help, and set off down the street. So help him, if Josie needed one more thing…

  The walk to their new place wasn’t far, and Bane twisted at the leafy entryway to the apartment complex, using his elbow to ring the buzzer.

  Josie let him in, saying, “Hi, sweetie!” through the intercom.

  He dragged the two bags of pet food, bag of bedding and cat litter up the two flights of stairs, and then dropped the whole load in front of their home and turned the knob. The door swung open to reveal a riot of houseplants and Josie’s swarm of animals. Three cats pressed up on his pant legs, one of them the limping catenstein he’d rescued from Adam’s house. The ancient toy poodle Josie had found on the street yapped without pause. The ferret she swore she’d keep in a cage tried to slip out of the apartment between Bane’s feet.

  “I’m home!” he called, hoping she’d at least help him store all the crap he’d bought. He scooped the little rodent up and tossed it inside.

  Josie traipsed into the living room wearing a pink teddy, a headset attached to her ear and her tablet computer perched in her hand. She nodded and waved in his direction, but then barked into the phone. “That’s not what you said on your website!”

  When she paused to listen to the speaker’s response, Bane ignored her swatting hand and wrapped an arm around her waist.

  Unhappy with the answer she got on the phone, Josie tore out of Bane’s arms and dropped to the couch. Then she passed her fingers over the touchscreen. Her feet rested on the coffee table, and Bane craned his head to peek under the hem riding up her thighs.

  “Well, maybe it’s not on there now…” Her gaze darted to each corner as Josie searched her memory stores. “But the special was on your home page on the fifth and your website said it would run until the end of the month.”

  Bane dragged the bags to their storage place under the kitchen sink and grinned at Josie haggling with the guys at the boat rental. They must have caved under her pressure, because Bane heard her breathily say, “Thanks so much, sir. It’s been lovely talking with you.”

  “I got everything you asked for.” He lifted the last sack and stored it overhead in a cabinet. Her arms came around his back, stroking along his ribs.

  “You’re my hero, Bane Connor!” Her breathy voice teased as she twisted around to his front. Bane couldn’t help but notice how she looked up at him like he had brought her to life.

  About the Author

  Birkenstock-wearing glamour girl and mother of two by Immaculate Conception, Daisy Harris still isn’t sure if she writes erotica. Her paranormal romances start out innocently enough. However, her characters behave like complete sluts. Much to Miss Harris’ dismay, the sex tends to get completely out of hand.

  If you like science-y subplots, fantastical creatures and red-hot chemistry, you’ll love Daisy Harris. You can find her on Twitter (@thedaisyharris), Facebook and at www.thedaisyharris.com.

  Daisy welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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  Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer ebooks or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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