Run To You

she think he was funny?
    “Don’t get between me and my brother.” They stopped by the passenger side of the Escalade and he opened the door.
    Okay. Now he wasn’t funny. She’d never been the kind of woman to take orders from a man. “Is that your way of telling me to mind my own business?”
    “That’s my way of telling you that you could have gotten hurt.” Anger pinched the corners of his eyes and ran through the steel in his voice. “I didn’t see you until we were on the ground. I could have hurt you. Copy that?”
    She slid her gaze across his handsome face and stopped on blood at the corner of his lips. “I’m never going to be okay with someone hitting you, Beau.” She raised a hand and brushed the slight stubble of his cheek. “Copy that ?”
    One side of his mouth lifted and he visibly relaxed. “Roger, Boots. I copy that.”

Chapter Fourteen
    H e was in too deep. Downrange in unfamiliar territory. His life was starting to feel like a soup sandwich, thanks to the woman walking up the stairs in front of him. The scuff of her boots on concrete was the only sound between them. The ride to Vince’s apartment had mostly been silent, with him in deep contemplation about the past half hour. About losing control and hitting his brother. Sure, they’d fought before, but never when one of them was sober. He’d been the sober one. The one whose judgment wasn’t fogged by booze, yet he’d thrown the first punch. Blake had opened his mouth about Stella, and Beau had popped him as if there’d been no other option.
    “Right here,” he said, and reached around in front of her. The smell of her hair filled his nose and head as he unlocked the door. A picture of his fingers tangled in her hair as she took him into her mouth flashed in his brain. When it came to Stella, it seemed his judgment was fogged and his options MIA.
    He shut the door behind him and stared at the back of her blue plaid shirt. She’d been quiet. Unusually quiet today. He’d never grabbed a woman and dragged her off like a caveman before. He didn’t blame her if she was angry about that. He wasn’t real happy with his behavior, either.
    She hadn’t objected, but that didn’t mean she was pleased about getting hauled off in front of her sister. A sister she’d been so worried about impressing. “Stella.” He took a step and stopped. What could he say when he didn’t know what was going on in his head and hadn’t a clue what was going on in that beautiful head of hers? “Should I be sorry I dragged you off?”
    She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, her blue eyes matching some of the blue in her shirt. “Are you?”
    He should be. He should be sorry about a lot of things. “No.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t all that excited to eat something called a Texas campfire casserole anyway.” A slow seductive smile tipped her red lips and he felt it in his groin like a white-hot caress. “I’m kind of picky about what I put in my mouth.”
    The caress in his groin turned to a punch. It knocked the wind from his lungs, and he didn’t know who moved first. Him. Her. It didn’t matter. He caught her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
    “I missed you last night.” She dropped kisses on his face and lips. “Am I hurting you?”
    “No.” His laughter turned into a deep groan. “Stella. I’m dirty.”
    “I like you dirty.” She ran her fingers through his hair as her warm breath touched his jaw and the side of his neck. “I like it when you forget you’re perfect. When you forget about doing the right thing and get dirty with me.”
    “Stella.” His lips found hers and his hands worked the buttons of her shirt until it was open. He pushed it down her arms, and his tongue slid into her warm, wet mouth. The feeding kiss turned up passion, and against the front of his pants, she pressed her crotch into his erection. It felt so good it hurt. A fire flash of pain and pleasure that turned him as hard as Burma teak and sent a rush of desire through his veins. Throbbing want and need and greed pounded his groin and made him single-minded. Focused on the woman wrapped around his waist. He unhooked her bra and tossed it behind him. Her plump breasts filled his hands. Her pink nipples poked his palms and made him think of all the things he was going to do her. All the places he was going to kiss her. All the places she was going to kiss him. All the inventive things he would do so that he