over the ripples of muscles, her eyes sometimes stuck on the defined V shape of muscle on his hips that led to his cock. He grinned wickedly. All’s fair . . .
He picked up his clothes from the floor and threw them in the laundry basket, then hastily remade his bed. Disappointed to see that it was only six forty, he sat down, impatient for her to come to him, and turned on the TV.
***
Verity tucked Ryan into his bed a little after seven, kissed his forehead, and told him that she loved him, just as she did every night.
“Ry,” she said, still sitting beside him, “I’m not sleeping up here tonight.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“I’m going to sleep in Colton’s room.”
“And tomorrow you’ll be back in Melody’s room?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“But what if I need you?”
Verity’s mind whisked to Melody, living semi-independently. Perhaps she could expect more from Ryan. Perhaps he’d rise to the challenge if she did. “Then you’ll have to come downstairs, knock on Colton’s bedroom door, and wait for me or Colton to answer.”
“Oh,” he said, looking up at her for a long moment before nodding. “Okay.”
She brushed the hair off his forehead. “I love him, Ry.”
“Yeah. Colton’s our friend.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Colton loves Ver’ty.”
“Yes,” she said, tears filling her eyes because Ryan understood so little of the world, but he understood love. “He does.”
Ryan closed his eyes and sighed. “G’night, Ver’ty.”
“Good night, handsome.”
She pulled his door almost closed and made sure the night light was on before slipping into Melody’s room. She’d already showered and re-dressed, in her cutoff shorts and a simple powder-pink tank top, purposely skipping panties and bra. But now she wondered if she should put them on. Opening up the drawer that held her underwear, she pulled out a simple pair of white cotton panties and a matching bra and stared at them as bees swarmed her belly.
Letting the lingerie fall from her fingers, she turned away from the bureau and flicked off the light in her room as she headed downstairs.
***
After channel surfing for fifteen minutes, Colt finally settled on an older movie called Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, more for the soothing score than anything else. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Colt watched a very young Christopher Lambert swing through the jungle on vines and reach for Andie MacDowell’s face reverently, touching her snow-white cheek like she couldn’t possibly be real.
“What are you watching?”
Verity stood in the doorway of his room, her sexy fucking cutoffs making her tan legs look longer than they were, in a tank top that made it clear that she was wearing nothing underneath. His mouth watered, and he smiled at her reflexively.
“Sunshine.”
“Is that the name of it?” she asked, grinning back at him as she stepped into his room and closed the door behind her.
“No,” he said, standing up. “That’s your name.”
“My name is truth,” she answered, still closing the distance between them, her gaze dropping hungrily to his bare chest and lingering for a long moment before meeting his. Her eyes were indigo. He imagined his own were black.
He grabbed the remote, intending to turn off the TV, but only muted it instead.
“So tell me something true,” he said, his voice low and husky, blood rushing to his cock as she slowly approached him.
She stopped about a foot away and tilted her head to the side.
“I love you.”
He took a step toward her, watching her chest rise and fall rapidly in his peripheral vision, though he kept his eyes fixed steadily on hers.
“I love you too.”
She leaped into his arms, and he caught her around the waist, pulling her up and against his body. She locked her ankles around his hips as his mouth greedily sought hers, his tongue slipping between her lips and meeting hers with a groan of relief.
Plunging her hands into his still-damp hair, she whimpered into his mouth, and he backed up, sitting down on the bed so that his fingers could skate down to the edge of her tank top and urge it up her chest. His fingers slid up her flat stomach, gently caressing her breasts as he bunched up the shirt at her throat.
Breaking off their kiss, she leaned away and held her arms over her head so Colt could push the pink cotton slowly over her head and up her arms, letting it fall to the floor behind her. His eyes dropped to her naked breasts for