“Does it still scare you?”

“No,” she breathed. “Liam, I crave the way you make me feel and the way you love me.”

“And do you trust me not to hurt you now?” I asked as I pushed her feet to the side and leaned forward so my mouth was less than an inch from hers.

“I wouldn’t be here telling you all of this if I didn’t trust you with my heart.”

I captured her lips with mine, and like before, her fingers gripped my shirt, then flattened against my chest as she pushed me away.

“Wait, wait. Last thing that you didn’t know,” she whispered against my lips. “I have to tell you about Juarez and why Kira and I are really in California.”

“Yeah.” I sat back and looked at her. “Who the fuck is Juarez? No one ever answered that question for me.”

She waited until I was back against my side of the couch and rubbing her feet again before she started talking. “Juarez is the leader of a gang that my dad and uncle Mason infiltrated. To make a long story—that I don’t actually even know—short, the gang wanted payback after my dad got most of their members thrown in jail. The remaining members kidnapped my mom right before my parents were supposed to get married. Obviously she got away from them, and the rest of the gang members were thrown in prison as well. A few months before Kira and I moved here, my dad started receiving threats from someone in the gang, or close to them, that were directed at Kira and me. Moving to California without our parents was just a precaution, but Dad thought it was necessary since a handful of the members were being released within just months of each other. Then last week we had a visitor from Juarez.”

“You what?” I yelled.

“Let me keep explaining!” After Kennedy gave me a quick rundown on some kid named Matthew, and the hours she, Kira, and Rhys had all spent at the police station giving statements, she sighed heavily and held her hands up to emphasize her uncertainty. “We don’t know if there are any more people working for Juarez yet, but I have a feeling that Matthew was it. All that said, I don’t know when Kira and I will be allowed to move back to Florida, and that used to upset me, but not so much anymore. Even though there are so many things I hate about California, moving here was the best thing that could have happened because it brought me back to you.”

“Aw,” I drawled sarcastically. “You must like me or something.”

“You like that last little cheesy part?” she asked with a wink.

“Love it. Best part of everything you just told me.” Kennedy kicked at my stomach, but I caught her foot and started rubbing it again. “Now tell me why the hell didn’t I know about all this Juarez bullshit before?”

The teasing look that had briefly crossed her face quickly left at my question. “I didn’t want you to worry when Kira and I weren’t really worried. Mom and Dad said the threats increased for a while when some of the members started being released, but they’ve had the police watching them. Besides, like I told you before, my dad made sure we knew how to escape bad situations if they happened, and Matthew definitely wasn’t a bad situation. It scared me when he first showed up and started talking, but as soon as he started sobbing it was pretty funny.”

“How can you talk about this like it’s not that big a deal?”

“Because it’s not to us,” she said on a laugh. “I wasn’t scared when my parents told us about the threats, and I’m not scared now.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand how your mind works,” I mumbled.

“Who said I wanted you to?”

Grabbing her ankles, I pulled her closer until I could wrap my arm around her waist to haul her onto my lap. “I like when you act like you don’t care,” I said against her throat before placing a kiss there.

“Oh, you like it now?” she teased as she turned so she was straddling me. “I don’t remember you liking it about six months ago.”

I made a confirming sound in my throat. “You were always so bad at lying to me anyway, it was funny to watch you try to make me believe you didn’t want me. But now I’ve gotten you to admit your feelings, so your attempts at not caring are adorable.”

“Adorable?” she said, deadpan.

“Fucking adorable, Moon.”

I slowly inched her shirt off her body, and let it fall to the floor before reaching for the back of her bra, but my hands stilled when I looked down. Her black lace bra looked like it was barely able to hold her in, and was filmy enough that I was able to catch a glimpse of something I knew hadn’t been there before.

“Kennedy . . .” I began; my voice had dropped low and was barely audible.

“If you say they’re adorable, I will castrate you.”

“Still not nice,” I mumbled, and finished taking her bra off. Two somethings. “Holy shit. Not adorable.” I gently traced around the small barbells set just beneath her nipples, and fucking loved the needy noise she made when I did. “When?”

“The day you walked out of my condo.”

My eyes went up to find her looking down at me. “Really?”

Her eyes were filled with need as she breathily explained, “Rhys wasn’t leaving, you’d left, and I didn’t know what to do. I went to talk to Brian since you’d told me about all the times you went to him. I really had no one else I could talk to even though I’d only met him the day before. He wasn’t in yet, but the woman at the parlor started talking to me about my tattoos and somehow I ended up back in her room getting new piercings after I’d told her about my other ones. We were done and I left before Brian ever showed up.” She sucked in a quick breath when I traced around the piercings again, and moaned. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

“Has it been long enough for me to—”

“Close enough,” she said, cutting me off, and a choked whimper left her throat when I leaned forward to suck one nipple into my mouth. “Oh God.”

“You okay?” I asked, and gently bit down, eliciting another whimper from her.

“Yes, just don’t stop.”

I unbuttoned her pants and started pulling them down, but with the way we were sitting, they weren’t going far. As soon as I released her breast, she was scooting off of me to lie down on the couch, and yanking at her pants while trying to pull me down with her.

I focused my attention on Kennedy’s other breast and slid my hand inside her underwear before she’d even gotten her jeans off. Her back arched off the couch and a breathy whimper filled the room when I teased her clit, and it took a few seconds for her to go back to trying to rid herself of her pants. By the time she was tightening her thighs around my hand, her jeans were still on her ankles. With another gentle bite against her nipple as I teased her clit, her body started vibrating and her mouth opened in a soundless moan.

“Oh my God,” she whispered when the vibrating in her body had slowed.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a new record, and that’s saying something for you.”

“Shut up,” she said on a laugh, and threaded her fingers through my hair.

Looking up into her bright eyes, I glanced down for a second and said, “These are gonna be fun.”