He blinked at me and then lowered his eyes to my now swollen lips. He palmed my head between his hands and lowered his forehead until it was touching mine. The fabric of his hat dug into my skin but I would die before I asked him to move away.

“I have no doubt you will blow my dreams out of the water.” He kissed me again and rested one of his forearms over my head so that he was caging me in. I could feel his body heat and his hardness along every nerve ending. My body drifted toward his without me being aware that I was seeking out all the things about him that made me feel so good. “But I promise you that if you let me I will give you only good things to dream about from here on out, Poppy. Once you let me in, I will chase all your monsters away.”

I brushed my nose along the column on his neck and licked at the thick vein that was throbbing there. “You’ve been doing that since we met, Wheeler.”

He made a low noise in his throat and pushed back from the door. His mahogany-colored brows lifted and those to-die-for dimples made their appearance. “The right time is today and the right place is apparently a hotel right around the corner. I’ll take good care of you, honey.”

I lifted my eyebrows back at him and returned his infectious grin. “Time and place doesn’t matter, but the right person sure as hell does. You’re my right person.”

His chest rose and fell as he let out a long breath. “Let’s get out of here.”

My feet couldn’t move fast enough as I followed his long-legged gait. I’d made him move all right. Now I just had to make sure I could keep up.

Wheeler

My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped the stupid little plastic key to the hotel room twice before finally touching it to the sensor and getting the door open. It was probably a touch over-the-top to drop everything in the middle of a workday and drag her off to the closest hotel, but as soon as those sexy words left her pretty, pink lips it was all I could do to keep my inner Neanderthal caged and not drag her off to my office and have my way with her.

I’d been waiting on the words since the moment she let me put my hands and mouth on her sweet skin.

It might have seemed silly considering she was practically begging me to have at her with her body and her hands, but I needed to hear that she was ready. I needed her to take that step. I needed her permission to touch her from the get-go and I knew that if we were going to be moving on to the next, inevitable step, I was going to need permission to fuck her. I needed her to be absolutely sure, and now that she was, I wanted to make sure she never had a single reason to doubt that I was indeed the right guy, regardless of the time or the place. I wanted her to have an experience that would always be a memory that made her smile, that made her happy no matter what happened between the two of us in the future. I wanted her to know she was worth dropping everything for and that she was absolutely the kind of girl that deserved something special like a fancy hotel room in the middle of the day and for our first time together. She deserved a bed that didn’t hold memories of anyone or anything else. Her nightmares couldn’t find her here and there were definitely no reminders of what I thought I wanted among the sleek decorations and the dramatically plush bedding and headboard.

This was me and her, there was no space for anyone else.

The dust had cleared and Poppy and I were left standing facing each other, the dreams we used to have lying in tatters at our feet. It was time to pick the pieces up and stitch together new dreams, ones that had pieces of her and pieces of me woven in the fabric so deeply that nothing could rip them apart.

I dropped the room key again and this time Poppy was the one to retrieve it from the floor. She gave me a lopsided grin as she tossed it on the dresser next to the TV remote. I realized I was the one acting like a nervous kid on prom night. She seemed perfectly at ease as she let her purse fall from her shoulder so she could set it down. She turned to look at me with a perfectly arched caramel-colored brow and a playful smile dancing around that enticingly bare mouth. She pushed some of her long honey-colored hair away from her face as she looked at the bed and then over to me.

“I’m all dirty.” I blurted out the words so fast that they made her jump. Her amber gaze drifted over me from the grease-stained hat still on my head to the worn toes of my work boots. She took the few steps required to close the space between us and lifted a hand so that she could run her fingers over my nose. When she pulled them back and showed them to me I cringed when I realized I’d hauled her out the garage without bothering to clean up. I looked like I’d been crawling around under a car, which I had been.

“It was covering up your freckles.” She rubbed her fingers together and looked over my shoulder at the open doorway to the bathroom. “I think we should clean you up.”

I swallowed hard and followed her gaze. “If you go in there with me, this is going to be over before we even get started.” She was the first woman I had ever waited on, and while I knew without question she was worth the time I’d spent slaying some of her furious, fiery dragons, my body was primed and well beyond ready to be rewarded for that unwavering patience. If she got naked and wet anywhere close to me and my aching cock, it was going to be game over.

She snatched the hat off my head and threw it so that it landed on top of her purse. I lowered my head so she could get her fingers into my sweaty and flattened hair. I let out a quiet moan as her fingernails scraped along the sides of my scalp and trailed along the back of my head to dig into the tense muscles at the base of my skull.

“Wheeler.” My name sounded so good when she said it all breathless and needy. “You have been really great about making this all about me, and I needed that then, but now I need you and I need this to be about us.” She lifted her eyebrows up and her cheeks turned a charming shade of pink that made me want to see if she blushed like that everywhere else on her body.

It wasn’t like I really wanted to put up much of a fight in the first place. If she wanted to help me get clean so we could get all kinds of dirty together, I would be a fool to try and talk her out of it.

I clasped my hands around the back of her head, mirroring the way she was holding on to me. I bent my head so I could touch my lips to hers, and whispered, “Let’s get wet.”

She smiled against my mouth and the tip of her tongue darted out and touched the center of my bottom lip, leaving a damp spot that I immediately chased with my own tongue. Her eyes glimmered with promises and heat that made me feel like I’d had too many drinks too fast. She went to my head quick and made my body feel like it was out of my control.