Page 132 of Renard's Deliverance

“You’ve never planted flowers before, Gem?”

“I never lived in a house like this,” she told him as he grabbed the sunscreen. She might have applied it an hour ago, but he was having trouble believing that she’d done it as thoroughly as he would like.

So he poured some out and rubbed it onto her legs. If she was gonna be sunbathing like this, she really should be on her porch. Or she needed a gazebo, something to keep her safe from the sun.

And the pool should be bigger. Something she could swim in.

Plus, this backyard could use some bigger plants and a fence to keep kids out of the pool. In fact, the entire house could use a repaint.

“No?”

“No. Just apartments. And there was never any money to make those apartments feel like a home, you know? Any spare money that I got had to go toward food and clothes. It feels nice to be able to spend money on flowers, even though a part of me thinks it’s frivolous and dumb. It is, isn’t it?”

“Anything that makes you happy isn’t dumb, Gem.”

He watched as her body melted, a wide smile filling her face. He slid his hand up her thighs.

Fuck.

“You’re so sweet.”

Yeah, the thoughts he was having right now weren’t sweet. He was wondering how he could get away with settling his head between her thighs and eating her out until she came.

Probably not something he could do out here.

“That bikini looks good on you, Gem.”

“Thanks.”

“Not sure I like you wearing it without me, though.” He moved to putting sunscreen on her stomach.

“Why not?” she asked as he ran his hands over the tops of her breasts. They were nearly spilling out of the bikini.

“Because anyone who sees you in this isn’t gonna be able to look away. And then I’ll have to pull their eyeballs from their sockets for staring at my girl.”

“Savage,” she whispered.

“You don’t like savage, Gem?”

“Oh no,” she replied. “The weird thing is that I love savage.”

He lifted her up and then sat on the sun lounger with her on his lap, facing him, her legs spread wide.

“Good. Because you seem to bring out the possessive, protective beast in me.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she murmured as she kissed him. Hot and heavy.

Hard.

She leaned back. “I got a call today.”

“Yeah, who from?” he asked.

“Merc James. He works for Curt. He wanted to arrange a time next week to come in and look at my place for the security system I’m getting installed.”

“That so?”

“Yeah, it is. But when I talked to Alec, he knew nothing about it.”

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