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“How’s your brother? Jesse?”

He licked his lips and rubbed a finger down the remote where it rested on his stomach. “He’s good. We visit him as often as we can. We got him some comics last week—he loves those—to make him feel a little better since it was our mom’s birthday. He always has trouble with that day. He wasn’t able to go visit her grave with us this year, so that was hard for him. We always go out and lay flowers—irises and roses, her favorite—and talk to her. Tell her how we’re doing.”

“Oh.” I’d had no idea. Court was too good at keeping his emotions hidden that he might as well have gone to the fair that day. Yes, he got angry with me—who could blame him—but he was generally so easy-going that you wouldn’t know he was hurting just beneath that lazy smile.

The desire to comfort him rose again, and it was so foreign to me that although the desire might be there, I had no idea how to properly comfort anyone, so I just let it quietly float away.

“Tell me about your brother,” I said, wanting to shift the conversation back. I was curious about him. I was curious about everything when it came to Court, and the people he loved…they were lucky.

“Jesse? Hm. He’s very different from me and Cade. Quiet. Very gentle, very kind. Loves comic books, especially old ones.” Court absently rubbed a circle on his chest as he spoke, smiling at the ceiling. “He’s just like her. Our mom. Looks exactly like her. A little carbon copy.” He shook his head, then turned and looked at me. “What about your mom?”

I fidgeted with a loose thread hanging from the blanket I was sitting on. “What about her?”

“What was she like? Do you look like her?”

I laughed, the sound devoid of humor, and lowered my gaze to the carpet. “No, I don’t look anything like her. She wasn’t much of a mom. The only thing she ever cared about in her life was getting high.” I thought about my brother, how she never wanted to hold him even when he was crying for hours on end. I wasn’t sure she had any motherly instincts in her. “She’s dead now, so…” I shrugged.

He twisted to the nightstand on the other side of the bed, opening a drawer. There was a long moment of quiet, and then Court said softly, “Come here.” He held his hand out to me. I looked at his hand, then back at his face. His expression was inscrutable, but his eyes were soft.

“Why?” I asked, suspicion heavy in my tone.

“So I can hold you,” he replied, his lips curving in an amused smile.

“Why would you want to hold me?”

“Because I just want to. Get the fuck up here, Whit.”

With a long sigh and a flurry of butterflies in my stomach, I uncrossed my legs and stood. As soon as I placed my palm over his, he curled his fingers around mine and yanked me on top of him. Wrapped both of those big arms of his around my back and made me rest my head on his shoulder. As he rubbed one hand down my back and cradled my head with the other, he covered my legs with one of his.

“You don’t have to hold me, Court. I’m not upset.”

“I think you are.”

That annoyed me, and I jerked my head back to look him in the eyes. But when he brought his hand up, my lips parted.

“Here,” he said softly. He was holding a yellow daffodil. “I picked this for you.”

There was a clamp on my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter as I slowly reached up and took the stem in my fingers. Unable to help myself, I brought the flower to my nose and inhaled, staring into Court’s eyes. They were soft and sweet and he’d thoroughly distracted me from telling him I wasn’t upset.

“You like it?” he asked, those green eyes searching mine, filled with a desperation for me to say yes.

I smelled the flower again. “Maybe,” I whispered, and when he smiled, something cracked open inside of me.

His eyes were filled with knowing, seeing right through my bullshit, and as he glanced down at my lips, the hand on my head tightened. He forced me down until his lips brushed mine, soft and warm, sending a wave of butterflies through my stomach and lighting my nerves on fire. He nipped at my upper lip, his tongue following to soothe the bite, then pulled at my bottom lip with his teeth.

“I think you’ve never had anyone be there for you,” he murmured, slanting his mouth across mine and slowly draining the fight from me. “I think you’ve been alone for far too long,” he said against my lips.

I moaned into his mouth when he slid his tongue against mine, threading my fingers through his hair and gripping the feather-soft strands. Needing something to hold onto as I tried to ignore his words.

This kiss was slow and thorough. The hand on my back trailed leisurely down my spine, his fingers dipping beneath the waistband of the boxers I was wearing. Finding the flesh of my ass and squeezing. Kneading lazily.

No one had ever kissed me like this. Like he wanted to explore every part of me. Like I was the only thing that existed and nothing else mattered. My heart was hammering in my chest, every inch of my body coming alive as he touched me.

He was taking all the parts of me I never knew existed and bringing them to life, and in this moment, I didn’t care.

He pulled away. “You’ve done so well by yourself, Whitney. But I’m here now.”

I stared into his eyes, letting his words sink in until they were so deep they couldn’t ever escape. I gently set the flower on the nightstand, then brought one hand down to the hem of his shirt and slid my fingers under the material, grazing them along his side. Feeling the heat of his skin and savoring it.