He started to debate that with her, but she cut him off.
“If you were bruised, would it keep you from having sex? No, of course it wouldn’t. Heck, half the time you have bruises and sometimes worse than that. You still have a lingering bruise on your back from the bank robbery and your head is only just now healing up. But it didn’t slow you down, did it?”
“No.”
“See? That’s my point. And before you say it, yes, I know I’m not a big old macho fighter. But I’m not a wuss, either.”
It felt like his heart smiled. “No.” Not a wuss at all.
“And I want you.”
He’d never tire of hearing that. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you finish up, then do whatever else you have to do before bed, and we can turn in?”
Her lungs expanded. “For sex, right?”
Happiness spread from his heart to every corner of his universe. “Sex first, sure.” Reaching out, he fingered one of those long, silky hanks of hair that had fallen from her messy and somehow sexy bun. “Then I want to enjoy sleeping with you again.”
“I like that plan.” She finished up her meal, eating most of the chicken and all of the asparagus, plus some cherry tomatoes. “You’re a good cook.”
“I get by.”
“Do you really?”
“Get by? Yeah.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean...do you really enjoy sleeping with me?”
He started to tease, but the look in her eyes told him this wasn’t the time. She needed the truth. And hell, so did he. “Yeah, Stretch. I like sleeping with you.” Accepting it, he grinned and let the reality of it encompass him. “When you’re curled up with me, I sleep better than I have in a very long time.”
She put a hand to her heart and in the softest voice he’d ever heard from her, she admitted, “Me, too.”
Armie knew he was in deep, but at the moment he flat out didn’t care. “Is your ankle feeling better?”
She nodded.
“Sit tight a minute.” Aware of her watching him, he cleared the table with practiced ease. “You’re not used to letting someone else do for you, are you?”
“Are you kidding?” She licked her lips. “Cannon insists on doing things for me all the time.”
“He helps you, yeah. But I mean personally.” He rinsed out the dishrag, took the ice pack from her and put it back in the freezer, then carefully lifted her from the chair. “You’re like this natural-born caretaker. You like to cook and keep your house spotless and you play hostess to everyone.”
“My mom was like that.” She traced the neckline of his shirt, over his collarbone. “I loved cooking with her, learning from her.”
“I remember your mom being pretty terrific.”
Rissy nodded. “Dad, too.”
“Yeah.” She came from an amazing family, and that brought with it certain expectations. Her brother’s fight name was “Saint” for good reason.
Which always made Armie wonder—could he ever measure up?
When they reached the bedroom, he carefully lowered her to the bed and stripped off her shirt, leaving her beautifully naked.
Rising up to her elbows, she smiled at him.
Armie knew he needed a distraction and fast, before he forgot she was special, and hurt, and his best friend’s little sister. She didn’t deserve for him to lose it; she deserved every wonderful sexual experience he could give her.
Stepping back, he started removing his own clothes, starting with his shirt. “Did I ever tell you how I got my fight name?”
“Quick?” Her hungry interest moved over his chest and shoulders. “I assumed because you throw such fast jabs.”
Armie shook his head and toed off his shoes.
“Then is it because you end fights so quickly?” Her breathing deepened. “Most of the time it seems like the fight barely gets started before you’re finishing it with a knockout or a submission.”
“Nope.” Appreciating how she focused on his hands, he opened his jeans—and saw her lick her lips.
So suggestive.
Glancing at the mirror, he caught her pose in profile. He loved Rissy’s body, and he especially loved her body in his bed.
He bent to drag off his socks, straightened again and carefully stepped out of his jeans. He had an erection—no hiding that—but he’d spent so much time denying himself, and denying her, too, that now he wanted her to know how badly he wanted her.
Always.
Buck-ass, he tossed his clothes over the dresser and his shoes into the closet. “Do you want to know?”
“What?”
Contentment settled into his soul. “How I got the name.”
“Yes.” She held her arms out to him.
Armie enjoyed stretching out with her crossways in the bed, facing her propped on one elbow, the mirror beyond her. “Are you paying attention?”
With her snaking a hand down to his junk, she nodded.
He caught her wrist, kissed her palm, and put her hand on his shoulder. “Back in high school, even before Lea, this superhot cheerleader decided she wanted to get me off behind the bleachers.”
Rissy made a face. “I bet you put up a real fight, didn’t you?”
“Not really, no.” Grinning, he bent to her neck, taking a few soft love bites of her fragrant skin and leaving damp kisses along her throat. “At not quite seventeen, I was all about sex.”
“That young?” she asked, before adding with a frown, “And you’re still all about sex.”
“You want to hear this or not, smart-ass?”
Dropping flat, Rissy turned those smiling blue eyes on him. “Go.”
Her hair was a distinctive turn-on for him. Using one hand, he eased out the cloth-covered band and sifted his fingers through the long, heavy length, spreading it out around her. “She got me off, all right. Gave me my first blow job.”
“So...you were a quick conquest?”
He arched a brow. “Actually, about one minute in, I reached my breaking point.” It still made his ears hot to think about it. “Of course, that wasn’t what she had planned.”
Rissy didn’t laugh, but he saw the humor in her eyes. “Oops.”
“Yeah. Her grand plan had been to tease, then get laid. Instead, I unloaded early...thus the nickname Quick.”
Turning toward him, Rissy lifted a leg over his. “You’re not quick anymore,” she assured him.
“Never was again after that, not unless a quickie was on the agenda from the get-go.” He worried for her ankle, but she seemed to pay no mind to it, behaving much as he would. “I made it up to the girl later. First time I’d ever—” he looked at her curious but sweet expression and censored the crude description “—given oral sex.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
Since he didn’t plan to go into details with her, she didn’t have to worry. “But by then your brother and a few others had already heard and as soon as I started MMA, I got dubbed with that handle and it stuck.”
“Poor Armie.” She put the softest of kisses to his throat. “Most think it’s because of your fighting skill.”