I am so focused on Colton, that I don’t see Baxter bound up in my periphery until he decides to shake his wet fur all over me. I screech out loud at the bite of the cold water hitting my skin. Colton whirls around to see what happened and lifts his head up to the sky laughing at me. A deep, sincere laughter that lights up his face and eases the tension in his shoulders.

“Baxter!” I shout as Colton walks back to me, removing his sunglasses and hooking them onto the back of his t-shirt’s neckline. I look up to him, a false pout on my lips, “I’m all wet now.”

Colton presses his thighs between mine so that he stands in front of me while I stay seated. The rock’s height brings us to almost eye level with each other. A slow, salacious grin spreads across his lips and he raises an eyebrow at me. “All wet, huh?” he asks as he places his hands on my hips and pulls me into him, his hips between the apex of my thighs. “I like it when you’re all wet, Ryles.”

I swallow loudly, the clouded look in his eyes hinting at passion and desire and so much more. He leans forward, bringing his hands up to my shoulders, his thumbs rubbing back and forth at the hollow dip where my collarbones meet, before brushing a kiss on my lips. I bring my hands up to skim my fingernails up his chest and then around to the back of his neck and play in his hair before tugging his head forward, deepening the kiss. The low groan in the back of his throat excites me and ignites me, sending licks of white-hot pleasure to every nerve. Despite the barrage of sensation his lips on mine evoke, he keeps the kiss slow and soft like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Soft sips, slow licks of tongue, slight changes in angle, and soft murmurs of sweet nothings that seep into my soul and wind around my heart. Colton backs away with a shaky sigh after placing a kiss on the tip of my nose.

Oh my, the man sure knows how to kiss a woman senseless. If I was standing right now, I think I’d need someone to help me because he’s made my knees weak.

He tilts my head up so that my eyes are forced to look at him. I feel shy under the intensity of his gaze. He just smiles softly at me and shakes his head as if he can’t believe something of which I don’t know. Baxter nudges at him, jealous of the lack of attention, and Colton laughs, reaching his hand down to pet his head. “Okay, Bax, I don’t mean to neglect you!” He takes the ball out of Baxter’s mouth and turns around to huck it down the beach.

I hop down off the rock and watch Baxter take off down the beach, kicking up sand as he goes. “He’s fast!” I exclaim as I feel Colton’s hands slide around my waist, pulling me back into him. He wraps his arms around me, my back to his front, and he rests his chin on my shoulder. My body relaxes and yet perks up with awareness at the feel and warmth of his body pressed against mine. I close my eyes momentarily, drinking in the uncensored affection that Colton rarely displays.

“Hmmm, you always smell so good.” He nuzzles my neck, and I can feel the vibration of his words against the sensitive skin beneath my ear where his lips press. “It’s scary how easily I can get lost in you.”

I still at his words. As much as I want and need to hear these words, my mind chooses this time for insecurity and disbelief to rear its ugly head. Images flash through my head. Page upon page of Google images with Colton and his BBB. He is so smooth. So practiced. How many women has he uttered these words to? How many others has he whispered sweet nothings to and strolled hand and hand with along the beach, making them feel like they are the only one in the world?

“What is it, Rylee?” What? How does he know? “I just felt your entire body tense up? What’s going on in that beautiful and intriguing head of yours?”

I shake my head feeling silly for my thoughts and yet afraid of the answers. When I try to pull away from him, his arms tighten around me. “It’s nothing, Colton,” I sigh.

“Tell me.”

I take a deep breath and steel myself to ask the two simple words swimming around in my head. “Why me?”

“Why you what?” he asks, confusion in his voice as he releases his hold on me.

Despite being let go, I take a step away and keep my back to Colton, lacking the courage to ask him to his face. “Why me, Colton? Why am I here?” I can hear him take a deep breath behind me. “Why not one of the score of women before me? There are so many others that are so much prettier, sexier, skinner … why am I here and not one of them?”

“For someone so sure of yourself, your question astonishes me.” His voice is closer than I had expected. We stand in silence and when I do not turn around to face him, he puts his hands on my arms and does it for me.

“Look at me,” he commands, squeezing my biceps until I comply. He shakes his head at me, disbelief and, I think, a little bit of surprise etched in his features. “First of all, Rylee, you are an extremely beautiful, tremendously sensual woman. And that ass of yours,” he pauses, the guttural sound in the back of his throat is one of pure appreciation, “is something men fantasize about.” He snorts, “I could sit and admire you all day.”

His eyes lock on mine and I can see the honesty in his eyes. A part of me wants to believe him. Wants to accept that I am enough for him. He moves his hands from my arms to the sides of my ribcage and then slowly runs them down to my hips and back up. “As for these, I have to admit sweetheart that I’ve dated mostly waifs in my years, but damn, Rylee, your curves are so incredibly sexy. They turn me on like you wouldn’t believe. I get hard just watching you walk in front of me.” He leans into me, the evidence of his arousal pushing against me, and kisses me softly on my parted lips. He rests his forehead against mine, his fingers playing idly with the tie at my neck. “As to why they are no longer here?” he murmurs, the words fanning over my face before pulling back so that his green eyes burn into mine. “It’s simple. Our arrangement was over.”

I pull back from him, trying to wrap my head around that last part. “They just up and left?” I try to hide the desperation in my voice, as I suddenly need to know what I’m in for. “I mean, why was it over?”

He looks at me momentarily before answering. “Some found others that could give them more, some caused too much drama for my liking, and some wanted the white picket fence and two point five kids,” he answers indifferently.

“And–and I assume that you ended things with them then?” He nods cautiously, the cogs in his head turning as he tries to figure out why I want to know. “Did you love any of them?”

“Jesus, Rylee!” he barks, running his hand through his hair, “What the fuck is this, fifty questions?” He walks a couple of feet away from me, exasperation emanating off of him, but I’ve asked this much, I might as well finish it off.

I sit down in the sand, aware that Baxter is a ways down the beach, and hug my knees to my chest, twisting my ring around and around on my finger. “No, I need to know what I’m getting myself into.” Colton’s eyes snap up to mine, an indiscernible look on his face. “What I’m already in to,” I sigh more to myself than him, but I know he hears because I see the muscle in his jaw tic at the words. “You told me that you sabotage anything good. I need to know if you loved any of them?”

He steps next to me and runs a hand through his hair. I have to crane my head up to meet his eyes. “I’m not capable of love, Rylee,” he deadpans, his voice a haunted whisper, before staring out to sea and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I learned a long time ago that the more you want someone, the more you covet them, and need and love them … it doesn’t matter. In the end they’re going to leave you anyway.” He picks up a shell and tosses it. “Besides, someone can tell you they love you, but words can lie and actions can be improvised to fake something that’s not.”

A shudder runs through me at his words. What a sad, horrible way to go through life. To always want but to never have because you think it will be taken away without notice. To be so hurt that you think it’s the words and actions that hurt rather than the person behind them. My heart is wrenched for the poor little boy who lived a life empty of unconditional love. It aches for the man before me. A man so full of passion and life and possibility but denying himself the one piece that can help make him whole.

Oblivious to my line of thinking and my overwhelming pity for the lonely boy within him, Colton continues. “Did I think I might have loved any of them? I’m not sure, Rylee. I know how they wanted me to feel. How they wanted me to demonstrate and reciprocate, but I told you, I’m just not capable of it.” He shrugs his shoulders as if this is just a simple fact of life. He turns and looks at me, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “What about you, Rylee?” he asks playfully. “Have you ever been in love?”

I look at him for a beat and then back out to the waves, searching for the memories that are there but slowly fading. A wistful smile plays on my lips as they come back to me. “Yes. I have.”

“Baxter, come!” Colton yells before holding his hand out to help pull me up from my seat in the sand. “Let’s head back,” he says as he keeps my hand in his, and it’s not lost on me that he has not responded to my statement. We walk in silence for a while, and I can sense he wants to ask more but is unsure how.

He sighs. “I have no right to even feel this way,” he says running his hand through his hair, “seeing as how my past is so …” he drifts off without finishing when he meets my eyes. “Why does it bug me? Why does the thought of you with someone else drive me absolutely crazy?”

A part of me likes the fact that it bugs him. I revel in the fact that I mean enough to him for it to matter. “You surely can’t think that I’ve been waiting around my whole life to be your plaything, Ace,” I laugh, shrugging away the unease at the next question I know he is going to ask. I rarely talk about what happened. I never speak of the after effects. Of the indescribable loss that can never be forgotten. Of the horrid, callous words his family said to me. Their accusations that still haunt me to this day.