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“Who?” she asked tightly.

“Somehow I don’t think you’d know her.” He dropped the strand of hair and put his arm back over his eyes. “God, I wish I could undo that. Undo a lot of things.”

Oh…Jesus. “It happened recently, didn’t it.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you…love her?”

He frowned and looked over at her. “God, no. I didn’t even know her—oh, shit, that sounds worse, doesn’t it.”

“Did you take her into your bed? Did you sleep beside her afterward?” Why in the hell was she asking these questions? It was like poking at a cut with a steak knife.

“No, it was in a club.” Shock must have shown on her face, because he cursed again. “Marissa, my life isn’t pretty. The way you’ve known me, being with the Brotherhood, dressed in fancy clothes…that’s not the way I lived before. And that’s really not who I am now.”

“Who are you, then?”

“No one you’d ever know. Even if I were a vampire, our paths would never cross. I’m a blue-collar kind of guy.” At her look of confusion, he said, “Lower-class.”

His tone was factual, as if he were reciting his height or weight.

“I don’t think of you as lower-class, Butch.”

“Like I said, you don’t really know me.”

“When I lie this close to you, when I smell your scent, when I hear your voice, I know everything that matters.” She looked down the length of him. “You are the male I want to mate with. That’s who you are.”

A dark, spicy scent came out of his skin in a rush, the kind of thing that were he a vampire she would have said was his bonding mark. As she drew it in through her nose, she took strength in the response.

With fingers that shook, she went to the first of the little buttons on her bodice.

He captured both her hands in one of his. “Don’t force yourself, Marissa. There are things I want from you, but I’m in no hurry.”

“But I want to. I want to be with you.” She pushed him away and started working at the buttons, except she didn’t get far because she was trembling so badly. “I think you’re going to have to do it.”

His breath went in on an erotic hiss. “You sure?”

“Yes.” When he hesitated, she nodded at the bodice. “Please. Get this off me.”

In slow succession, he freed each of the pearl buttons, his battered fingers sure, the dress opening little by little as he went. Without her corset on, her naked skin was revealed in the shallow V that formed.

As he got to the last one, her whole body started to quake.

“Marissa, you’re not okay with this.”

“It’s just…No male has ever seen me before.”

Butch went motionless. “You are still…”

“Untouched,” she said, hating the word.

Now his body trembled and that dark scent flowed from him even more strongly. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you weren’t. I need you to know that.”

She smiled a little. “I do. Now will you…” As his hands came up, she whispered, “Just be kind, all right?”

Butch frowned. “I’m going to love what I see because it’s you.” When she didn’t meet his eyes, he leaned forward. “Marissa, you’re beautiful to me.”

Impatient with herself, she gripped the bodice and bared her breasts. Closing her eyes, she found she couldn’t breathe.

“Marissa. You’re beautiful.”

She lifted her lids, bracing herself. Except he wasn’t staring at what she’d revealed.

“But you haven’t looked at me yet, have you?”

“I don’t need to.”

Tears speared into the corners of her eyes. “Please…just look.”

His eyes drifted downward and he inhaled sharply through his teeth, the hiss cutting through the room. Ah, hell, she knew there was something wrong—

“Jesus, you’re perfect.” With a quick pass, his tongue licked over his lower lip. “May I touch you?”

Overwhelmed, she nodded with a jerk of the chin and his hand slipped under the bodice, smoothed up her rib cage and caressed the side of her breast, soft as a breath. She surged at the contact and then settled down. At least until he brushed her nipple with his thumb.

Then she arched involuntarily.

“You’re…very perfect,” he said in his hoarse voice. “You blind me.”

Butch’s head went down, his lips finding the skin at her sternum, then kissing the way up