We stayed like that for a long time. Replete and quiet. I could feel the weight that it always felt like so much more than sex when we were together settling pretty solidly on top of both of us. Finally I had to wiggle a little in order to breathe, because even though he wasn’t bulky, he was still big, heavy, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the wet spot on the mattress. He laughed when I told him that, and rolled us over to the other side of the bed, landing with him on the bottom this time. He helped me pull out of his now hopelessly wrinkled shirt and I don’t know how he did it, but he kept us joined together. I wasn’t going to complain about it and I liked the way he was twisting strands of my hair around his fingers as he stroked my spine up and down in long, smooth brushes of his palm.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I had my cheek resting right over his heart, so when he asked, I heard it rumble all the way through me. I yawned and rubbed my nose against the rock-hard plane of my pillow.

“Is it going to make me mad? Because I feel pretty great right now and that doesn’t happen very much for me anymore.”

He swore and his wandering hand landed on my naked rear end. He gave it a little tap and chuckled. The vibration made my insides all squishy and happy.

“Why did your parents give you a boy’s name? I mean, you are clearly a girly girl and Brysen sounds like a guy who takes your lunch money in elementary school.” I wiggled a little and sighed against him as his hand wandered even lower.

“I was supposed to be a boy. On the last ultrasound, the tech thought they saw a dangler, so my parents weren’t prepared for a little girl. They had a blue nursery, and a name already picked out. Then out I come and I guess they were too lazy or too unconcerned to change it.” I shrugged a little and kissed him on his breastbone. “I hated it when I was little but I grew into it. I kind of had to own it when Karsen came along and they gave her a boy’s name too.”

He shifted his legs a little and I felt the lower half of him start to stir. I was ready for a nap, but it seemed like Race, in all his otherworldly amazingness, was up for round two. I lifted my head and rested my chin on the back of my hand that I had crossed over his heart. I lifted both of my eyebrows and smirked at him.

“Really?”

He flashed that dimple at me and I groaned because it was a surefire way to get me to react. I felt the walls that he was nestled so snuggly in already clench in response. He moved his arms up above his head, treating me to a visual feast of sinew and skin flexing and rippling in the most mouthwatering way.

“Like I said, you might have a boy’s name, but you are all girl.” He said it with a leer that made goose bumps break out all over my exposed body. “So your parents were always kind of half-assed?”

I couldn’t keep up with how he turned our post–sexy time into a share-all about our pasts, but he was soothing me along with turning me on, and I was too mellow to argue about the timing or setting.

“I never really thought about it. We always had a nice house, and Karsen and I always had new clothes and went to an all-right school. We were never Hill rich, but we were far from being poor. I didn’t know anything about the Point or the other side of the street until my mom’s accident. When the family lost her income, I think things really went downhill for my folks. It was always kind of just me and Karsen anyway. So I just did what I thought I had to do.”

“You were trying to hold the family together.”

I nodded and wiggled my hips a little, which had his pretty eyes rolling up in his head. I liked that I had the same kind of power, same kind of control over someone who could dismantle all my reservations and objections without trying. It was also kind of intoxicating to know that I had that kind of sexual pull over someone who seemed as powerful as Race.

“I thought for a long time that I owed it to them. They took care of me, at least on the surface. So it was my turn to go home and take care of them, only I didn’t realize they were bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.”

He grunted and shifted his hips in an impatient way under me. It made my stomach flutter. This was the most intimate kind of flirting, the most heady kind of foreplay. I turned my head and brushed my lips across the flat of his nipple and watched it bead up in response.

“How did your mom escape getting charges leveled at her if she killed someone while drinking and driving?”

I rubbed the tip of my nose against his pebbled flesh and blew out a heavy sigh.

“She hurt her back. She was in the hospital for a really long time. I don’t think anyone ever actually proved she was drunk. There was never a blood alcohol test done on her. The victim’s family got a settlement and I think my dad offered them a payoff. They were from the Point, so I think they took it and looked the other way. I was living on my own when it all went down, so I only know the aftermath. All of it has been ugly.”