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“Jules.”

“I don’t need it made prettier than it was.” Her voice wavers, but she doesn’t look away. Her thumb brushes my temple. “He was my dad. I loved him. And I can still be thankful he can’t hurt anybody else.”

Christ. Something hot pricks behind my eyes. I turn my face and press my lips to her palm, holding them there longer for a few moments. “I’m thankful my woman is a remarkable, intelligent, and sensational hacker,” I murmur against her skin.

“Sensational?”

“And terrifyingly nosy.”

“Ruined it.” She wrinkles her nose.

“Criminally persistent.”

“Better.”

“Domestically feral.”

She grabs my face and kisses me. I laugh against her lips, enjoying the ball piercing. When she pulls back, she whispers, “I’m thankful for psychopaths and cat cafés.”

“Cats and cupcakes.”

Her eyes narrow. “Like the big cupcake with the pretty red bow you were hiding in the back of the fridge?”

I pause, fairly certain smoke is seething through my nostrils. “Woman!”

“Relax, handsome. I didn’t touch that one.”

She loops her legs around my waist and locks her ankles. I carry her away from the island, already calculating the fastest way out of those ridiculous turkey stockings. And lingerie.

Jubilee has other plans.

At the end of the sectional, closest to the fireplace, she hooks a heel behind my calf. I go down more willingly than I will ever admit. My back hits the cushions. Embers tick.

“Stay,” she says, already on her knees between mine.

“Princess—”

“You started it with the spatula.” Her fingers work my belt, then my jeans, shoving them down with zero ceremony. God, her tits look gorgeous in her low-cut bra. In her stockings and lingerie, she’s a feast for the eyes. My eyes. She takes me out and flutters her lashes, sultry and wicked.

Her tongue flicks out. The little metal ball clicks once against my crown before she licks a slow spiral around the head, the same ruinous path from the car, except nothing about this is contained. No console. No countdown. Just her, hot and unhurried, tracing the vein, teasing until my hips jerk.

“Jules.”

She hums and takes me. Deeper than the truck. The piercing drags under the ridge on the way down, and my vision whites at the edges. Oh. Fuck. That’s why, the little minx. Her throat closes around me. Slow, then deeper, one hand braced on my thigh, the other stroking what she can’t swallow, my base, my balls. She stares at me the whole time. Proud. Filthy. Mine.

I last longer than three seconds. Barely. I find her hair, not forcing, just holding on, while she works me until the pressure snaps. I come with her name torn out of me, pulsing down her throat. Just like before, she doesn’t spill a drop. Except for the sheen on that piercing. She kisses my crown.

“Better than the car?” she murmurs.

Christ. “Still a Geneva violation.”

She grins. “Good.”

The hot tub is already steaming under the canopy of fairy lights she insisted the outdoors needed. Cold November air bites the second we step out. We’re both nude now.

I get her in the water first. My hand slides between her thighs beneath the heat, two fingers finding her already swollen. She rocks once, breath breaking.

Before she can take control again, I lift her onto the stone edge.