Page 40 of Sire

“Like an older woman with a younger man is a cougar or a panther, amantheris an older man who goes after much younger women.”

“Hmm.” She smirks. “Well,Theycan walk a mile in my heels and kiss my ass. Judgmental people either need to be loved or laid. Honey, don’t listen to them.”

“I’m their pastor. It’s my job to listen to them.”

“Listen, yes. Go your whole life denying yourself love?” Laughing, she points to Wren, who’s straddling a BDSMbreeding bench like she’s riding a pony carousel outside a grocery store. “Darlin’, it’s too late. Your love is sitting right there.”

Mom takesus to lunch at a place by the river and introduces Wren to Oysters Rockefeller. It’s obvious Wren wants to puke, but she won’t do it. She’s too polite, and she and my mom have too much fun, laughing over stories about me and my brothers.

“Tell her the poison ivy story,” my mother insists.

I sigh—God, kill me now—as I look at Wren, who’s smiling at me with those pink lips I want to devour.

“We lived on a farm when we first moved here, and to earn our keep, we picked peaches and did yard work. One day, guess I was seventeen or so, we cleared the weeds growing behind the farmhouse and thought nothing of it until we started itching the next day.”

“Itching where?” My mother taunts.

Now, God. Now would be a good time.

“Itching on our penises because we’d been pulling our puds with poison ivy hands all night.”

Wren snorts her sweet tea, and my mom grabs her hand, laughing, “Darlin,fourof my boys had poison penises. What a proud day for a mother.”

“Who?” Wren smiles, and Mom’s right.

My love is sitting right in front of me.

I raise my hand. “Me, Axel, Grant, and Jace. Nick and Loch were too young, and I hadn’t met Nash yet.”

“Sweet Jace?” Wren looks shocked, asking me, “How old was he?”

“Barely thirteen and a threat to anything that would hold still.”

“My Lord,” Mom shakes her head, “my sweet Jace used to hump the sofa cushions.”

I throw my chin up, laughing. “Until Axel caught him and told him to quit fucking the furniture.”

We spend hours with my mom, who takes Wren shopping for more clothes, handbags, heels, makeup, and my favorite, painfully awkward momentever—expensive lingerie.

I have to wait outside the sexy store while praying to God to give me restraint.

With my mother’s blessing, Wren’s angelic lure, and every sign being thrown in my face, I feel like a caged demon who’s been set free. My urges are too strong.

Driving back to my penthouse at night, I switch the mood to an emotion I can control. I tell Wren more funny stories of life on the peach farm. For me, my mom, and brothers, it was the first time we were safe, so damn if we didn’t laugh at almost everything.

“Tomorrow at two,” I ask Wren as I park my car, “would you like to come to my service?”

“Are you singing?”

“Yeah. A few songs. But sorry, no Dolly.”

She exaggerates a pout, and I stare at lips I’m dying to kiss.

It would be the perfect end to an almost perfect day.

“Tell you what,” I say instead. “I’ll print the lyrics to the songs I’m singing so no one will hear you fuck them up.”

“Uh!” She laughs, yanking her door open. “I don’t fuck up lyrics.”