*
When she walked in the back door, Joker was at Carissa’s stove, stirring the thickening sauce, dinner around the corner because she’d texted him half an hour ago with I’m off in thirty. Then I’m on my way home. You better be there, sweetie, because I’m STARVED.
He’d been there.
He turned to see her walk in and toss her purse on the counter.
“Yo,” he greeted.
She grinned at him.
Then she blinked.
After that she asked, “What on earth is that?”
He looked down into the pot then to her. “étouffée sauce.”
Her eyes got big.
Fucking cute.
“Like, shrimp étouffée?”
“No. Got crawfish. So, like, crawfish étouffée.”
She wandered to him, her eyes on the pot. “Where’d you get crawfish?”
“Got it at the LeLane’s close to Ride. Also got the étouffée mix at the LeLane’s close to Ride.”
Her head tipped back and her eyes caught his.
Now she was pouting.
Totally fucking cute.
“You didn’t come to my store?”
“Carrie, you gave me half an hour to pull this shit together. Ride is close to your pad, but your LeLane’s overshoots this house by ten minutes. The LeLane’s by Ride is only a few minutes outta the way.”
“I see,” she muttered, her eyes drifting back down to the pot.
“You done chattin’?’ he asked, and she looked up at him.
“I’m not sure.”
Absolutely fucking cute.
“How about you be done for a minute and kiss me?”
“I can do that,” she said.
“So do it,” he ordered when she didn’t kiss him.
She smiled.
That was the cutest of all.
Then she lifted up on her toes with her hand to his abs.
After that, she kissed him.
He kissed her back.
When he was done, he let her change out of her LeLane’s outfit.
And finally, both of them sitting at her dining room table, he fed his hungry girl.
*
Jesus, but she was a hot little piece.
After dinner and camping out in front of the TV, he’d started it with her. He’d done it intending to make out on her enormous couch and then take it to her fantastic mattress.
But now he found himself sitting on his ass, his girl straddling him, rubbing her hot crotch against his hard one with her hands up his shirt roaming all over him, and if she didn’t quit that shit with her *, her hands, and her tongue in his mouth, he was going to come in his jeans.
He needed to get his cock in her cunt or things would get messy.
He didn’t have that chance when her hands suddenly shoved up, forcing his arms up with them, so she could tear off his tee.
Letting her do that, Joker was intent on getting to his fly, wondering how he could manage that, and getting her out of his jeans, and getting a condom on, all in the span of three seconds.
Carissa was intent on getting her mouth on him.
But he felt her abruptly still and he found his line to his fly diverted when she caught his wrist in her fingers and shoved his arm up.
What the fuck?
“Carrie…” he started, focusing on her, but when he did, he too went still.
And at the look on her face, the lightness in his chest that he was getting used to feeling, grew heavy and dark.
“What…?” she whispered, her fingers releasing his wrist only to trail down the inside of his biceps.
He pulled his arm away.
Her eyes sliced to his.
“Joker—”
He put his hands to her ass and muttered, “Let’s take this to the bedroom.”
She went solid and held him where he was by landing her hands on his shoulders and pressing down.
“Lift your arm, let me see,” she demanded.
“Baby,” he ground up against her, a message she couldn’t misinterpret, “in a certain mood.”
“Lift your arm,” she said gentle but firm. “Sweetie, let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
“Carissa, it’s—”
He shut up when he saw tears all of a sudden fill her eyes.
“Do you… did you smoke?” she asked.
Fuck.
“Baby—”
She cut him off, saying quickly, “Boys do that. They get drunk and they challenge themselves or each other. Is that how you got those?”
He clenched his teeth and through them said, “No.”
Her chin wobbled and she whispered, “He gave those to you.”
She knew it. She knew his old man had burned him.
Joker wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “Long time ago. Now, Carrie,—”
“He gave those to you.”
“Carissa, it’s—”
“He gave those to you!”
At her enraged shriek, his arms went slack and she tore out of them, finding her feet.
“He gave those to you,” she snapped, tears still in her eyes but not falling, her face growing pink.
He pushed out of the couch and she scuttled back.
“I got away from him, remember?” he pointed out, going for a calming tone.
And failing.
“Not soon enough,” she bit out.
Shit.
“Come here, Carrie.”
“She left you to that and he gave those to you,” she hissed.
They had to get off this.
“It was a long time ago,” he repeated. “They’ve healed. It’s over. Just let it be over.”
She stared at him, her chest rising and falling fast, breathing hard to hold back what she was feeling, all of it, and it was visibly massive.
And it was for him.
For him.
Jesus.
Then she let fly and when she did, the path Carson “Joker” Steele found himself on the second he saw a woman holding a baby on the side of I-25 and decided to pull off and help came to its conclusion. Just like that, Carson Steele was exactly where he’d always needed to be, with the woman he needed at his side, doing it as the man he never dreamed of becoming.
But somehow was.
And all this came about when she stated, “You don’t heal from that, Carson. Not from that. My God,” she threw out both hands, “how magnificent of a man do you have to be to go through what you went through, doing it alone, nobody to ease the way, the pain, no mother, no brother, no sister, all by yourself enduring that and fight your way to becoming all that you are. It isn’t amazing. It’s a darned miracle.”