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he'd stop, even if he didn't believe her. There was no safe evasion, no closing her eyes and protesting too much and secretly hoping he'd keep going.
    Honesty--especially about sex--tasted odd on her lips. "I like it," she said carefully. "I don't know if I like liking it. It's dangerous, isn't it?"
    He nodded. "I wouldn't do anything you didn't want, but it doesn't stop there. I wouldn't do anything you weren't really fucking sure about, either."
    Her heart pounded as the full import of his words slipped through her. The precarious balance of their relationship had tilted. He'd given her the power to ask for more, had painted a magical picture with deceptively innocent words.
    Do anything. So mundane, but easy to imagine them lower, rougher. Whispered against her ear, they'd paint a different picture.
    I want to do things to you.
    She shivered. "If you wait for me to be sure about anything, you really will be an old man before you get the good stuff."
    He turned toward her, leaned closer, his bulk and the look in his eyes blocking out the rest of the room. When he spoke, it wasn't against her ear but her cheek, hot and gruff. "What qualifies as the good stuff? Tell me."
    This time it wasn't a question. It was an order, an out-and-out command. As hot as his lips were against her cheek, she would not tremble like some city girl who'd just gotten her first glimpse under a man's clothes.
    She pressed her hand to his chest and slid it down, past the thick leather of his belt, until her fingers found the firm bulge of his half-aroused cock.
    At least she wasn't the only one getting hot and bothered.
    With a shred more confidence, she traced the outline of his growing erection before pressing her palm against it. "Every man I've ever met thought it was getting this inside me somehow."
    He swallowed, his throat working, and the barest hint of a groan escaped him. "That's not what I asked you."
    "Then I don't know." She needed to release him, but feeling him harden under her touch carried a dizzy sort of power. How long had it been since she'd wanted a man to feel good when she touched him? Long enough that she let her fingers fall away. "The only good stuff I know about is getting off, and I never needed a man for that."
    The back of his hand grazed the button on her jeans. "No, I guess you don't."
    She hissed in a breath and tried not to picture his fingers sliding down the same path her own had taken so many times. "Do you get what I'm saying, though?"
    His touch vanished. "No, but I get what it means. It means not yet."
    From the shouts and whooping cheers behind him, Cruz and Trix had made another pass. Six felt bolted in place, held captive by nothing more than his gaze and her own confused longing. "What do you think the good stuff is?" she asked, desperate to prolong this quiet oasis of brutal honesty.
    "Fucking? That damn sure counts." A tiny smile tilted one corner of his mouth. "But so does everything else."
    Without taking her eyes from his, she touched his shoulder. Strong muscles flexed enticingly under her fingertips as she slid her hand down his arm and finally twined her fingers with his. "Even this?"
    Bren's smile faded as he raised their clasped hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Especially this."
    The sudden burn in her chest scared her. It wasn't arousal, but something far more insidious, more dangerous. Affection, digging hooks into the painful scars on her heart, and she had to laugh it off to keep from flinging his hand away and bolting. "Then you're easy, Donnelly."
    "I know." He looked away, and the moment was broken.
    But she still had his hand, his grip firm and reassuring. So she clung to him as the O'Kanes celebrated their newest members, and almost felt as if she belonged.
    Almost.

    She liked to watch.
    It wasn't the first time he'd caught Six staring at a scene of carnal decadence. Tonight, however, Bren was ready to chalk it up to his imagination, horny wishful thinking at its worst. But the