Hot-Wired / Coming on Strong. Tawny Weber

but Memaw always insisted that when it was my turn, I was the only one allowed over. She knew I needed that alone time. And it made me feel special.”

      He nodded, sharing an understanding from his own childhood. “Nana, my dad’s mother, and my mother got along about like oil and water, but Nana always made banana pudding when I came over. It’s my favorite. She’d make a separate dish just for me and add extra bananas and vanilla wafers to it.” He hadn’t thought about Nana’s pudding in years. He shook his head. “So is Shelby your biological sister or your foster sister?”

      She set about scraping again, her hair falling forward in a wavy curtain of brown and red. “Foster.” She pushed her hair aside and slanted a glance his way. “And the answer to the next question that inevitably comes is, I don’t have any biological siblings but I have twenty, well, twenty-one now with Miguel, siblings. And, no, they didn’t all live there at once. The house is usually at full capacity with ten. But most of us come back for holidays and special occasions.” She looked back down. “And they are all great, and I do feel guilty that I haven’t met Miguel yet. You can’t imagine Thanksgiving and Christmas. You’d have to see it to believe it.” Both tenderness and exasperation marked her tone.

      Paint flecks peppered her hair. “Are you trying to take me home to meet your mother already?”

      Teasing her was too much fun. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

      She made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “My mother would like you.” Beau preened. “She likes anyone and everyone…regardless of how annoying they are.”

      Beau guffawed, his laughter coming from deep in his belly. “Smart-ass.”

      She grinned and he felt the same knock-you-on-your-ass sensation he did when he kicked it off the starting line in a race. “I was just saying…”

      He wanted her with an intensity that was foreign to him, given he was always the one in control. The mood between them shifted, intensified, thickened. Her eyes widened.

      Beau moved toward her, slowly, deliberately. “Do you always mean what you say?”

      Had she really meant no more kissing? They both knew what he was asking.

      She steadied herself with one hand on the floor and ran the tip of her tongue along the bow of her upper lip. There was no mistaking the flicker of heat in her eyes. “Not…always.”

      Green light. He reached down and dragged her up his body and into his arms. Her scent, the feel of her soft curves against his hard angles, the almost imperceptible hitch of her breath…Yes, he’d wanted this all last night, all day today. “Speak now, baby girl, or forever hold your peace if you meant what you said earlier.”

      The scraper clattered to the floor and she placed her open palms against his chest, tilting her head back to gaze up at him. “What if Tilson shows up? He did last night.”

      He slid his hand up her arm to trace the fine line of her jaw. Her skin felt like velvet against his fingertips. “Tilson won’t show up. Trust me.”

      Her eyes darkened and her fingers curled against his chest, sending his inner temperature spiking off the charts. “How do you know?”

      The fall of her hair teased against the back of his hand. “Tilson won’t show up because I told him you were off-limits.”

      She went rigid. “You what?”

      “Off-limits. I told him you were mine.” He plied his thumb along the fullness of her lower lip and pulled her closer still with his other arm. “Natalie, baby girl, consider my claim staked.”