Working his way down the warm soft flesh of her face, he reminded himself, as he mentally was already beginning to claim each and every one of her beautiful freckles as his, that he could handle this. He kissed the freckles on her nose just under her eyes and around her delicate cheek bone, and then he worked his way down her jaw but couldn’t help going back to bury his tongue in her red swollen mouth again. She kissed him back urgently, lifting her legs around his so his thigh rested now on the heat between her legs. Imagining burying himself in another red swollen part of her body had him squeezing his eyes shut now. He had to hold it together, or this might get embarrassing.

He began to ease her sweater up, and she sat up, helping him with it. She pulled it over her head and disposed of it quickly over the side of the bed. Awestruck, he stared at the milky white skin on her shoulders, chest, and flat stomach. There were so many more freckles for him to claim sprinkled all across her torso.

Starting just under her chin, he began kissing his way down. He kissed and sucked softly, down to the very edge of each shoulder. Pulling the straps of her bra down her shoulders, he brought it down until both of her beautifully pale br**sts were completely exposed. Hector stared at them. They didn’t get any more perfect than this—perfectly full, pure, untouched, and his mind once again went there—all his.

With his breathing accelerating, he focused on the coat of freckles sprinkled all over them. The coat was heavier around her cle**age and the only hint of color on her otherwise powdery white skin, aside from the very pale pink ni**les that almost blended with the skin around them. He quickly latched onto one with his mouth, sucking softly then biting down gently. Hearing her soft panting and breathing grow even more frantic only made him suck harder.

Trying desperately to keep moving slowly was a challenge, especially now that her body trembled uncontrollably with every suck of her sweet ni**les. He stopped for a second to pull off his shirt, needing to feel her flesh against his. She took that moment to undo her bra completely and took it off. Now she was completely naked from the waist up. He stared down, gulping hard. It took everything in him not to reach down and rip her pants off her. He wanted nothing more than to drive into her now—claim her. But why did the very thought still scare him so much?

Easing himself back down, his heart galloped away furiously.

“The heart is forever inexperienced,” Charlee whispered, and Hector froze, staring at her.

“What did you say?”

She reached her hand up and touched his chest with her fingers. “Henry David Thoreau. There’s something I didn’t know about you, that you’re into poetry, but I’ve also wondered for a long time what this was,” she smiled timidly, biting her lower lip but continued touch his chest. “I even Googled your name and the word tattoo to see if I got a hit and nothing.” Tracing the words with her fingers, she glanced at him then back at his chest. “What does that mean to you? And the broken heart.” She lifted her eyes to him again, a bit confused, her own naked chest rising and falling from her still accelerated breathing. “Your heart’s been broken?”

“Yes,” he whispered, lowering himself onto her, “but not like you’re thinking.”

Jack’s words couldn’t have come at a better time. “The letters on the bottom are the initials of Jack, the late founder of 5th Street, and the only father figure Abel and I had since our dad died. I’m not big on poetry. It’s just something he used to say to us a lot.”

She nodded, her eyes full of understanding now. “I’ve read about Jack.”

Hector rested his elbows and lower arms on either side of Charlee’s face and kissed her softly, licking her lower lip, still so swollen and so red. Hearing Jack’s words at this very moment was exactly what he needed. He’d said these very words to him and the guys often. Hector knew what it meant but didn’t quite get it. It wasn’t until he had to endure the loss of his good friend and mentor that he understood.

The loss of his own father had come at an early age, but Hector had still agonized over it. Losing Jack hadn’t been any easier for him or Abel, nor had it been for Gio or Noah, who, like them, had also been through a loss of that magnitude. The heart didn’t hurt any less because of their past experiences. Jack’s words had come barreling down on him the days after his passing. That’s why he chose to have those words forever be a part of him. So that he’d never forget that. Now here they were, reminding him of what he needed to focus on right now. Handling what he felt for Charlee would never get any easier. Nor would the exhilaration he felt being with her, kissing her, and making her his ever lessen. He may as will give into what his heart wanted now and start making her his so he could continue to do so over and over again.

Reaching down, he slipped his hand into her leggings as he continued to suck her soft lips. As he slipped his hand lower and she spread her legs for him, gasping against his lips, his heart took a flying leap when he felt the soft hair just above where his fingers were headed. She wasn’t clean shaven like most of the girls he’d been with.

Smiling, he thought about how the less-experienced girls were the ones that obsessed less about these things, and this was just further proof of how inexperienced Charlee really was. He moved his fingers further down, skin to skin with the very hot place he’d only felt through her leggings earlier. And though he’d felt her pulsating through the fabric, it didn’t compare at all to feeling the moisture on his fingers now.