“All I care about is that this doesn’t change anything, Eric. I don’t want to lose you.”He gently cupped her cheek, brushing her swollen lips with his thumb. “You’ll never lose me, Joe.”

“I want you, Rory,” he said against her lips. “Forever.” “I want you too, Connor,”…“You’ve got me”

“She gave his hand a small squeeze. "Jason, if we're going to try this then I'd like totake things slow." He frowned. "What I mean is nothing beyond the level we were atlast night." She worried her lip between her teeth. "What I mean is no actual sex."He narrowed his eyes on her. "But, you'll still sleep with me naked and let me do ahundred other naughty things to you?" he asked in a serious tone."Yes."He brushed his lips against hers again and moved back a few inches to look into hereyes. "And you'll still cook for me and call me Master?"Her lips twitched. "Yes to the cooking and not a chance in hell for the other."He sighed wearily. "Fine, how about Lord and Master?""Uh...no.""God?""Nope.""My liege?""Wait.....no."He gave her one of his lopsided smiles. "I'll wear you down eventually.”

“He pressed another kiss to her lips as he took her hand into his. "I'm sorry for being a jerk last night and almost making the biggest mistake of my life. I was afraid of hurting you. I know what I am and I also know you deserve a guy that can spoil you rotten and take you to all the nice places that you deserve. I-""Jason, I don't care about those things," she said softly.He shook his head stubbornly. "It doesn't mean that you don't deserve them, but if you give me a chance to make up for my past stupidity, and I'm not just talking about with you, I promise that I will do my best to make you happy.""Jason-""I want to try this. You and me, I mean. I know I'll most likely fuck up along the way and you'll want to ring my neck, but I want to try. I'll do my best not to hurt you.”

“You know I can never stay away from you.” She reached up with both hands and pinched his cheeks, hard. “You’re just so darn cute,” she said, pursing up her lips. “I’m studly baby, get it right.”

“That better not be what I think it is," Joe mumbled in the dark.It was. "It's not. Jeez, woman, someone's paranoid. It's my pocket light," he said, wincing. Ah, he was only human after all. It wasn't the first time she got him hard nor would it be the last time. The physical discomfort was a small price to pay to have her in his arms."Well, then your flashlight is growing. Jeez, Eric, put a leash on that thing before it stabs me!" she teased."But it likes you," he pouted.She giggled. "I seem to remember a certain tenth grade math class where it liked standing up in front of the entire class."He sucked in a breath. "Hey, that traumatized me!”

“You knew? How the hell did you know?" he demanded,wondering which bastard in his family had ratted his assout."It wasn't too hard to figure out, Trevor," she murmured, looking totally enthralled with what she was doing."What the hell does that mean?" He'd been careful, very careful. He'd neverread anything in front of her, neverwrote anything more than his name or a word or two in her presence. There wasno way she could have found out withoutone of his interfering relatives clueing her in."Who the hell told you?" Zoe rolled her eyes even as she leaned over to press a quick kiss on his lips, which made him slightly happy, but not enough to forget that he needed to kill one of his relatives."You never read anything around me. Youthink you tricked me into reading for you. Then there was the time we ran out of condoms and you flipped out because you thought there was supposed to be 42 condoms in the box of 24.""Would it have killed them to put a few extra condoms in the box so that you could have seen to my needs?" he asked, remembering that damn night and trying not to wince. Okay, so maybe he gave himself away...just a little.”