“Don’t promise shit like that to a man as desperate as I am, if you’re not going to deliver, sweetheart.”

“Oh, no worries, Ace,” I say, snuggling back into him, “I’ll deliver truckloads of feisty as long as I know you’ll be okay.”

Colton doesn’t say anything, rather he makes a non-committal sound in response. We settle into a comfortable silence for a while, and I welcome it because this is the first time in the past few days where there isn’t that inexplicable tension vibrating between us. As the sun sinks and the ocean waves sigh into the oncoming night, my mind begins to wander back to my conversation with Becks. And being me, I have to ask, have to know Colton’s thoughts about racing again.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmurs into the crown of my head.

I hesitate at first, not wanting to bring up any thoughts if they’re not there already, but ask anyway. “Are you scared to get back on the track? To race again?” The words rush out and I wonder if he can hear the underlying trepidation in my tone.

His hand pauses momentarily on its trek up my spine before it continues, and I know I’ve touched on something he’s not completely comfortable talking about or admitting to. He sighs out into the silence I’ve given him. “It’s hard for me to explain,” he says before shifting so that we’re side by side, our eyes meeting. He shakes his head subtly and continues. “It’s like I fear it and I need it all at the same time. That’s the only way I can put it.”

I can sense his unease so I do what I do best, I try to soothe him. “You’ve figured it out with me.”

Confusion flickers in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

I had no intention of taking the conversation here, making him feel uncomfortable in talking about the “us” that was there before the crash. The “us” he raced and doesn’t remember. I reach out and rest my hand on the side of his stubbled jaw and make sure I have his attention before I speak. “You feared and yet needed me …” My voice fades.

He draws in a breath as emotions flicker through his eyes. His lips purse momentarily. The silence mixed with the intensity in his eyes unnerves me. I can hear the hitch of his breath, the sound of the ocean, the pound of my heart in my ears, and yet silence from him. He looks away and I prepare myself, for what I’m not sure. But when he looks back at me, a slow, shy smile curls up one corner of his mouth, and he nods his head in acceptance. “You’re right, I do need you.”

Parts way down deep sag in relief that he’s finally acknowledging our connection. Accepting it. And I don’t care that he isn’t telling me he races me, because this, the fact that he needs me, is more than I could ever have hoped for.

He brings a hand up gently to cup the side of my face and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. He leans in and whispers his lips over mine tenderly before kissing the top of my nose. When he pulls back I see the wicked grin on his face. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Your turn?” I ask as his fingers play over the buttons of my top.

“Yep. It’s question and answer time, Ryles, and it’s your turn in the hot seat.”

“I’d like a turn in your hot seat,” I say back to him, earning the lightning fast grin that pulls on every hormone in my body like a magnet.

“Watch it, sweetheart, because I’m a walking case of blue balls that wants nothing more then to be buried in that finish line between your thighs.” As he speaks, he leans forward, close enough to kiss but doesn’t grant me one. Talk about sweet torture. When he speaks next, his breath feathers over my lips. “It’s best not to test my restraint.”

Every part of my body angles into him—wanting, needing, daring him—but he proves he still has control when he chuckles out a pained laugh. “My turn. Why haven’t you seen the boys yet?”

Of all of the questions he could have asked me, I had not expected this one. I must look a little shell-shocked because he’s right. I do desperately want to see the boys, but I don’t know how to see them without bringing the circus with me. The circus that their already fragile lives don’t need and can’t handle.

“You need me more right now,” I tell him, not wanting to give him the exact reason, so that he doesn’t have something besides recovering to worry about.

“That’s bullshit, Ry. I’m a big boy. I can be left alone for the night. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

But what if it does? What if you need me and no one is here and something horrible happens? “Yeah … I just,” I trail off, needing to say it and at the same time not wanting to offend him. “I don’t want your world to collide with theirs. They don’t need cameras in their faces telling everyone they’re orphans—that no one wanted them—or any of the fallout I’m sure would come with it.”

“Ry, look at me,” he says as he lifts my chin up to meet his eyes. “You and me? I don’t ever want it—me, the craziness around my life, the press, whatever—to come between you and the boys. They are what’s important, and I understand that more than most.”

Between telling me he needs me and then this declaration, I swear I could have just won the lottery and it wouldn’t matter because those two things just made me the richest person in the world. He really gets me. Gets that my boys make me who I am and that in order to be with me, he needs to love them. Beckett says I’m Colton’s lifeline, but I think he just proved it goes both ways.

I swallow back the lump of tears in my throat as he continues staring at me, to make sure I hear what he’s saying. I murmur in agreement, my voice robbed of emotion. “I’ll figure something out,” he says, leaning in to brush a kiss to my lips. “I’ll make sure you get to see the boys soon without interference, okay?”

I nod my head and then curl myself into him as my mind whirls with numerous questions when one jumps out at me. “My turn,” I say, wanting and fearing the answer to the question.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“That first night,” I pause, undecided about how to ask the question. I decide to dive in head first and hope I’m in the deep end. “What were you doing with Bailey in the alcove before you found me?”

Colton barks a laugh followed by a curse, and I think he’s a little surprised by my question. “You really want to know?”

Do I? Now I’m not so sure. I nod my head and close my eyes in preparation for the explanation to come.

“I walked backstage to take a call from Becks.” He laughs. “Shit, the minute I hung up she was on me like a pit viper. She had my jacket stripped, the front of her dress unzipped, and her mouth on mine faster than …” He fades off as I try not to react to the words, but I know he feels my body tense because he presses a kiss into the top of my head in reassurance. “Believe me, Rylee, it was not what it sounds like.”

“Really? Since when does the infamous ladies’ man, Colton Donavan, turn down a willing woman?” I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice. Even though I asked the question, it still hurts to hear the answer. “Besides, I thought you like women taking control.”

He laughs again. “There’s no need to be jealous, sweetheart … even though it’s kind of hot that you are.” I poke him with my finger, content that he’s trying to soften the blow of the truth, and instead of pulling away, he just holds on to me tighter. “And I’ve only ever let one woman take control because she’s the only one that’s ever mattered.”

I scrunch up my nose as my heart sighs at the comment, but my head questions whether he is just trying to exercise self-preservation. Cynicism wins. “Hmpf.” I puff out. “I do believe I heard sweet Jesus come out of your mouth and not get off me.”

I feel Colton’s body shudder as he laughs in that full bodied way I love. “Think of it more like being eaten alive by a piranha with dull teeth.” I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from his comment, and I just shake my head. “No seriously,” he says. “The minute I was able to come up for air, that was the first thing that came out of my mouth because the woman kisses like a fucking bulldog.” I can’t stop laughing now, my jealousy easing toward relief. “And the funniest part was at that moment my mom called to see how things were going and unknowingly rescued me from her claws.”

“You mean from her voodoo pussy?”

“Fuck no,” he chuckles. “You, baby—you’re my voodoo pussy. Bailey? She’s more like a piranha pussy.”

We laugh a bit more as his analogies get funnier and funnier and then he says, “Okay, so...” he trails a finger down the bare skin of my arm leaving tiny sparks of electricity in its wake “...Ace?”

I was waiting for the question, and I just pull back from him and shake my head. “You’re going to waste your next question on that? You’re going to be so disappointed.” I twist my lips and look at him. “Don’t you want to know something else?”

“Quit stalling, Thomas!” His fingers dig into my ribs, and I squirm trying to evade them.

“Stop,” I tell him as I keep wriggling. “Okay, okay!” I put my hands up and he stops right before I shove his shoulders. “Tyrant!” He tickles me one more time for good measure and then grunts as I try to explain. “Haddie tends to have a ridiculous penchant for rebellious bad boys.” I stop mid-sentence as he raises his eyebrows at me.

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, huh?” I can see him trying to keep the smile off of his face.

“I told you that night at the carnival that I don’t do bad boys.”

“Oh, baby, you most definitely did me.”

I don’t even fight the laugh that comes out because the cocky, mischievous grin is back on his face, lighting up his eyes, and solidifying the theft of my heart. “I sure did, but you were most definitely the exception to the rule,” I tell him with a smirk.