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“Need a condom?” Rio kicked up his feet on the chair across from him. “Or five?”

Jay growled. Knowing his buddies were squatting feet from the bathroom dampened his arousal. He closed the final few steps and captured her gaze.

She half-turned, eyes firmly fastened to his, and fumbled with the door lever.

“I’ve got it.” He nudged her hand away and opened the door.

“I think the couch folds into a bed.” Laz leaned back in the seat, hands behind his head. “Wouldn’t that be more comfortable?”

Charlee looked at the couch and back to Laz. “The couch would be preferable.” She grinned. “For the boring missionary type.” With a snort, she turned and vanished behind the door of the lavatory.

Jay’s body hummed with anticipation as he followed her in and shut the door on the barrage of whistling and laughing. He turned the lock and tumbled into her amused eyes. “You weren’t hoping for discreet, were you?” He brushed a thumb over her upturned lips.

The space was twice the size of a commercial jet lavatory and included a narrow shower stall at one end. She hopped up on the tall vanity counter and lifted a shoulder. “I haven’t had discreet sex in a long time.”

Her monotone statement wrenched the air from his lungs. What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t just screw her like a groupie in a bathroom, much to his erection’s dismay. “Charlee, I’m not going to—” Bang her? Too vulgar. Have sex with her? Too casual. Make love to her? She’d laugh. “—do this with you for the first time in a bathroom.”

Some of the light dimmed in her eyes. “Bythis, you mean slam me against the wall and fuck me until I can’t walk?”

Alarms screeched in his head. So much of her sexual history was tainted with Roy’s abuse. What he didn’t know was if she’d ever willingly given herself to another man for love. He didn’t think so.

He braced his hands on the counter, caging her hips, and leaned over her, his face inches from hers. “That’s the second time you’ve tried to cheapen us with crude language.” He softened his voice, his eyes searching hers. “Why do you do that?”

A swallow nodded in her throat. “You’re right. It’s a defensive habit.” She stared up at him and her expression opened. “I came in here with one expectation. To touch you. Will you take off your shirt?”

The air thinned and his pulse sped up. He was desperate to be wrapped in her embrace, her body, but what if his reaction scared her? “Charlee—”

“You asked me to trust you. I do. Your turn.”

She had asked him to walk to her, to meld with her. His resolution forged, rushing oxygen throughout his body. His blood scorched through his veins.

He gripped the back of his shirt, pulled it over his head, and dropped it to the floor.

She made a little noise. “Wow. Even sexier than the last time I saw you without a shirt.”

The muscles in his chest twitched and his heart lifted.

“Turn around.”

He moved in a tight circle and flattened his hand on the wall beside him. “I’ve never shown it to anyone, but I…look at it.” More often than he was willing to admit.

“It’s exactly as I remember.” Her soft breaths marked the passing seconds. “Your lyrics about the flames, the steel, and the things we talked about that night…they carried me through some lonely weeks in San Francisco.”

His gut twisted. He focused on the filigree designs printed on the wallpaper, and tried not to picture her naked and shackled to Roy Oxford.

“It was as if you were singing directly to me.”

“Iwassinging to you,” he rasped through the dry husk of his mouth. “Your needle tapped my heart’s blood that night. Every song I’ve written since then has been about you. For you.” Even when he thought she was dead.

Her silence made him realize how creepy his confession sounded. He glanced desperately over his shoulder. Her eyes flicked up, wide and wet with unshed tears.

“Oh, Charlee.” He moved to face her.

“No. Stay there.” She wiped her lashes with the back of a hand. “Can I put my mouth on you?”

The request coaxed a shiver from his body and scratched his voice. “Yeah.”

She hooked her boots around his thighs and backed his ass into theVof her legs. Her body heat surrounded him. Her breath stroked his back and his muscles contracted. Her lips tickled his scars and shot jolts of electricity up his spine.