“Well gee thanks,” I say, forcing a chuckle, hoping to calm both of us with some humor. “Us and everyone else in Hollywood.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, snuggling deeper into me. The feeling is so fucking soothing to me I wish I could pull her inside of me to ease the pain there as well.

“I told you, a seven forty seven baby.” I leave it at that. I can’t force any more words out without her catching on that something’s amiss with me.

She moves her hand from my tattoo to tickle through the slight smattering of hair on my chest. “I could lie here forever,” she sighs out in that throaty morning voice of hers. I pray for my dick to stir at the sound. Need it to. Need to prove to myself that the unexpected reminder of my mother and my past can’t affect me anymore. That they aren’t who I am.

My thoughts flicker to what I’d normally do. Go call up my current flavor and use her. Fuck her into oblivion without a second thought of her needs. Use the fleeting pleasure to bury the endless goddamn motherfucking pain.

But I can’t do that. I can’t just walk away from the one person that I want and fear and desire and have fucking grown to need. Balls in a fucking vice.

And before I even think, the words are out of my mouth. “Then stay here with me this weekend.” I think I’m as shocked as Ry is at my comment. She stills at the same time I do. The first time my lips have ever uttered those fucking words. Words I never wanted to say before, but know without a doubt I mean right now.

“On one condition,” she says.

One condition? I just handed her my balls on a platter in exchange for the whip to her pussy and she’s going to add a condition? Fucking women.

“Tell me what a voodoo pussy is.”

For the first time this morning I feel like laughing. And I do. I can’t contain it. She just looks up at me, with those eyes that do wild things to me, like I’m crazy. “Fuck, I needed that,” I tell her, leaning down and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Well?” she asks in that no-nonsense tone she has that usually turns me on. And I breathe a slight sigh as I start to harden at the thought of her wet heat I plan on taking advantage of in mere moments.

“Voodoo pussy?” I choke on the words.

“Yeah. You said it last night in the garden.”

“I did?” I ask, unable to hide the amusement in my tone, and she just nods her head subtly with her eyebrows arched waiting for an answer. Oh yeah. Definitely hard and raring to go now. Thank Christ. “Well…it’s that pussy that just takes hold of your dick and doesn’t let go. It’s so fucking good—feels, tastes, everything good—that it’s magical.” I feel so fucking stupid explaining it. I don’t think I ever have. I just say it and Becks knows exactly what I mean.

Rylee laughs out loud and the sound is so beautiful. Beautiful? Fuck. I am pussy whipped. “So you’re telling me that I have a magical pussy?” she asks as her finger trails a circle around my nipple before looking up at me and licking her lips. I can’t manage a word at the moment because all of the blood needed to supply a coherent thought in my brain has just traveled south, so I just nod my head. “Well maybe I should show you—”

The cell phone on the dresser rings—it’s a different ring than her normal one—and something about it has her scrambling off of the bed in a flash. She’s breathless when she answers. And fucking breathtaking. She stands at the wall of windows looking out to the beach down below, her phone to her ear, and the sun bathing her naked body in its light.

The concern in her voice pulls me from my perverse thoughts of all of the ways I can take her. Position her. Corrupt her.

“Calm down, Scooter,” she soothes. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m okay. I’m right here. Shhh-shhh-shhh. Nothing’s happened to me. I’m actually sitting on the beach right now, looking out at the water. I promise, buddy. I’m not going anywhere.” The concern in her voice has me shifting in the bed. She notices my movement and looks over and smiles apologetically at me. As if I’d be mad that she left me to talk to one of the boys. Never. “You okay now? Yes. I know. Don’t be sorry. You know that if I’m not there, you can always call me. Always. Mmm-hmm. I’ll see you on Monday, okay? Call me if you need me before then.” Rylee walks back toward the dresser as she wraps up her call. “Hey, Scoot? I Spiderman you. Bye.”

I Spiderman you? Rylee hangs up her phone and tosses it on the dresser before walking back to the bed. My eyes roam over the line of her curves, thinking how lucky I am to have her naked and walking toward me with an extremely durable bed beneath me.

“Sorry,” she says. “Scooter had a really bad dream and was afraid that I’d been hurt. That I was going to be taken away like his mom was. He just needed to make sure that I was okay. Sorry,” she says again, and I swear that my fucking heart twists in my chest at her apologies for being selfless. Is she for fucking real?

“Don’t be,” I tell her as she climbs into the bed beside me and sits on her knees. I tell myself to ask now before I become distracted at the sight of her sitting there looking so damn obedient. “I Spiderman you?”

She laughs with this adorable look on her face. “Yeah.” She shrugs. “Some of the boys have trouble with affection when they come to us. Either they feel like they’re betraying their parents, regardless of how fucked up their situation, by having feelings for their counselors, or feelings in general had a negative connotation from whatever situation they came from… It all started with Shane really, but it kind of caught on and now most of the boys do it. We take the one thing that they love more than anything and use that as the emotion instead. Scooter loves Spiderman so that’s what he uses.”

I look at her with bemusement, a little unnerved that she has these kids pegged so well—me so well—if I allowed her to look close enough. She’s just unknowingly fucked with my mind so much that my eyes haven’t roamed south of her face to take in her gloriously naked body below as they normally would.

She mistakes the look I give her to be that I don’t understand so she tries to clarify. She shifts off of her knees and situates herself closer to me. “Okay, for instance pretend you are one of my boys—tell me one thing that you love more than anything.”

“That’s easy.” I smirk at her. “Sex with you.”

The smile spreads on her lips and her cheeks flush. So sexy. “Well that’s an answer I’ve never gotten from one of my boys before,” she jokes, laughing at me. “No seriously, Colton, give me the one thing.”

I shrug, saying my first and only love. “I love to race.”

“Perfect,” she says. “If you were one of my boys and you wanted to tell me you loved me, or vice versa, you’d say ‘I race you, Rylee.’”

My heart stutters again at hearing her say those words, and I think she realizes what she’s said the minute the words are out of her mouth. She stills and her eyes dart to me and then down to her hands twisting in her lap. “I mean...” she backpedals and I’m glad this conversation is making her as nervous as I am right now “...if you were one of the boys that is.”

“Of course.” I swallow, desperately needing a distraction. I reach out to trace a finger down the midline of her chest—from her neck, down between the center of her breasts, and stopping at her bellybutton.

I race you, Rylee fleets through my mind. Just to hear what it sounds like for no other reason than to see how one of the boys would feel saying it. The tightening of my chest forces me to focus on the one thing that always allows me to forget. There will be no racing between Rylee and I. None. I look up from where my finger rests on her stomach to meet her eyes. “Now, I think you were just about to show me just how magical that pussy of yours was before we were interrupted.”



The ringing of my cell phone startles me awake, and in the muted light of the dawn, I fumble for it on my nightstand. “Hello?” I mumble groggily, afraid that even though it’s not the designated ring, something is possibly wrong with one of the boys at The House.