The Black Sheep and the Princess by Donna Kauffman

black sheep are some of the best guys around.”
    â€œThat kiss just now didn’t seem all that reformed to me.”
    He couldn’t help it, he grinned. “Yeah, well…some things don’t need reforming.”
    She rolled her eyes, but at least she was smiling now.
    He should have kept it light. Her walls were lowering, she was less guarded, and they were talking more easily now than they had since he’d first arrived. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was something completely serious. “I wasn’t always in the right place, doing the right thing. Often times far from it. I won’t apologize for that now, but I won’t make excuses for it either. My less-than-picture-perfect youth wasn’t laudable, but it is what shaped me into the man I am today.”
    She regarded him with a half-amused smile, but also with eyes that suddenly looked way older than her years. It didn’t fit with someone who had led such a privileged life, but maybe it did with the teacher who wanted to help disabled children lead an easier life. And his curiosity about her intensified.
    â€œSo what does that unreformed kiss say about the man you’ve become?” she asked.
    â€œThat I’m secure enough now to go after what I want.”
    â€œOr too impatient to wait.”
    He barked out a laugh. “I waited eighteen years!” He shook his head then, looked down at the hands curled into fists in his lap. They were callused and scarred, and had saved him more often than they’d gotten him into trouble. “One thing I have learned is that life is short. And tenuous at best. I used to think that with all I had to face just to get through the day growing up, nothing else could touch me. If I survived that part of my life, I was invincible. Then I spent a few years on the streets of New York and learned and saw a hundred different ways what no one should ever have to know or see, which is just how frail and destructible we all really are. No matter who we are.” He glanced over at her. “So, yeah, I can be a little impatient at times. I don’t wait for things to come my way if I can do something about going out and getting them. Why waste precious time?”
    â€œDo you always get what you go after?”
    He held her gaze for a few long seconds. His smile, when it came, was slow, steady, and direct. “Most of the time.”
    Her lips twitched, and the corners of her eyes crinkled a little. “Still cocky.”
    â€œOnly when I know I can back it up.”
    She didn’t stifle her smile. “Something tells me you always think you can back it up.”
    â€œSo, it was worth waiting for, then?”
    She laughed, and the sound of it, all soft and natural, filled the truck cab with warmth. She shook her head a little, as if to say he was incorrigible, then resolutely shifted in her seat, revved the engine a little.
    The bars were up, the lights no longer flashing. He hadn’t even heard the train go by. No one had honked, and a quick check showed no one was waiting behind them.
    â€œI’m going to refuse to answer that on the grounds that it might get me—”
    He looked back at her. “Seduced?”
    She had just started to pull forward, but braked suddenly and hard, forcing him to brace himself on the dashboard.
    She shot him a look, and he couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed. Probably a little of both. Something he was thinking they’d both likely have to get used to if they were going to be spending any amount of time in each other’s company.
    She braced her hands on the wheel and squared her shoulders. “Okay,” she said firmly, but not harshly. “If you’re staying, free help or not, there are going to be some ground rules.”
    â€œWe have rules?”
    She looked at him. “We have rules.”
    â€œI suck at following rules.”
    â€œTell me something I don’t