Fueled(book two)(116)

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 f*cking 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 f*cking heart twists in my chest at her apologies for being selfless. Is she for f*cking 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 f*cked 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 f*cked 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.’”