Even for someone who seemed together. Even for someone who lived a life of recovery.

But as she tugged the sheets over her body—her body that still hummed with leftover bliss from earlier—she asked what if. What if she didn’t let Colin into her life or her home? What if she kept him neatly in an after-hours box like she’d done tonight? Hell, she’d managed an orgiastic frenzy of mind-blowing kissing and epic fucking, and it hadn’t spilled into her life with her son, who’d been busy warring with zombies and gobbling pizza with his grandma—the same woman who was willing to aid and abet another “booty call.” And her own run-in with Alex in the living room had been as normal as they came. Nothing bad had happened from her choice tonight.

Maybe, just maybe, she could manage something with Colin that never got serious. That never crossed the line. That remained below the belt. She could separate the emotions from the sex. The connection from the hotness. She could be with him out of the house and still come home to her son.

She’d maintain her boundaries. Only sex. Only contact. No strings allowed.

Crazy idea?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps it was brilliant.

She picked up her phone and texted Colin.

I still want you.

His reply arrived two minutes later, and they quickly bantered.

Colin: You can have me anytime.

Elle: Anytime, anywhere?

Colin: I believe we established the anywhere tonight. But there was also the time on the hiking path and on the stairwell at the library. If you needed a reminder of our ingenuity in finding places.

Elle smiled wickedly at the memory of the day he’d given her a ride home after his volunteer shift and stopped at the library so she could pick up a book she’d reserved. He’d gone in with her, hunting for a new paperback, and when she found him in the stacks, he’d proceeded to kiss the hell out of her, turning her so hot and molten that she’d decided she had to have him right then and there. In the stairwell at the public library. God, she was reckless with him. It had been amazing. A few weeks later, he’d invited her to go hiking when Alex was away with friends for the weekend, so they’d hiked high in the hills, under the sun, and gotten hot and sweaty. Then hotter and sweatier in a secluded patch of woods shielded by a boulder, when he’d shown her precisely how magic his fingers were as he fucked her with them, standing up against a tree, next to a stream.

Mother nature rocked.

So did automobiles. They’d screwed in his car after she’d won at poker a few weeks ago.

Elle: The stream was good, too. Everything with you has been.

Colin: Good or excellent?

Elle: Excellent. Most excellent. So excellent I want more. I think Wednesday night could work?

Colin: You let me know the time, and I will not only be at your service, I will service you until you can’t think straight and you risk turning into the most orgasmic woman in the history of the universe. Just wanted to give you fair warning.

Elle: Consider me warned.

CHAPTER SIX

The band sang of eyes of the bluest skies, jarring her awake.

Her ring tone. Guns N’ Roses.

Bleary-eyed and still groggy, she fumbled for her phone on the nightstand.

Squinting, she spied the edge of the red number on her clock radio—eight-thirty in the morning.

On a Sunday.

Crap.

It was too early for anyone to be calling with good news.

An all too-familiar burst of panic blasted through her when she saw “unknown number” on the screen. When Sam had called from his many stints in rehab, the number had always shown up as unknown. Likewise, the times he’d rung her up while out partying, plastered and begging her to take him back, he would block his number.

Logically¸ Elle knew that Sam wasn’t calling her from the grave. But a rabid fear pulsed through her nonetheless. She swiped her finger across the screen, sitting up in bed and doing her best to clear the sound of sleep from her voice in case it was a client or one of the kids she counseled at the center. They all had her number. It was on the website for the center, along with her bio about how much she enjoyed being involved in helping the kids in the community.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Marcus.”

“Hey there. What’s going on?” Marcus was one of the boys who played hoops at the center from time to time. “Are you trying to get into the center on a Sunday? We don’t open until ten. One of the volunteers should be there then.”

“No, actually. I’m not,” he said, speaking tentatively, the vocal equivalent of shuffling his feet. “I’m sorry to bug you so early. I’ve been thinking about what we’ve been talking about, and I’m finally ready to do something.”

“Okay. Tell me more.” She knew a little bit of his story. He hadn’t told her many specifics but he had started coming around the center a few months ago, when he’d graduated from high school and moved out of his family’s house. Lately he’d been opening up to her. He’d been raised by his father and a stepmother; his biological mother was out of the picture. She didn’t know much more than that, but his biological mother had other children, older siblings he wanted to connect with.

He cleared his throat and seemed to be drawing up his courage. “I just feel like I spent my whole life not knowing anything about my family and where I came from, and now I do. And my dad didn’t want me to find them, but they’re here in Vegas, and I’m not living at home anymore. So this is my choice. I need to do this.”

She tossed back the covers and headed to her closet as she chatted with him. “Then you should do it. Something is compelling you to connect with them, and you need to listen. Family is a powerful pull and a potent bond, and you’ve never had a chance to get to know them,” she said as she pulled on jeans, crooking her head against the phone as she zipped them up.

“But what if they don’t want to meet me?” he asked in a flurry, as if he had to spill out all the words in order to say them. She heard the tumultuousness in his voice. One moment he was courageous, the next he was hampered by fear. She wished she could cheer him on in person on this mission.

“Look, Marcus. I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. They might have zero interest in getting to know you. They might not care. They might be so busy with their lives that they could give a rat’s butt. But this is in you,” she said, feeling a bit like a football coach giving a half-time speech. “You are trying to take a big step, wanting to connect with siblings you’ve never known, and that is bold.”

There was something quite soap opera-esque about his quest. The long-lost half brother…appearing out of nowhere…showing up on the doorstep of older brothers. But as soapy as it seemed on the surface, Elle had seen enough of the drama and danger in the world to know these scenarios were far more frequent than anyone would think.

“My dad once mentioned that one of them was closest to my mom, so I think I’ll start with him. Plus, he has a dog, so he’s out and about a lot in his neighborhood.”

Her antenna went up. “How do you know that?”

“Um.”

“Marcus, have you been following them around?” she asked sternly.

“Maybe,” he muttered.

“That’s not a good idea. It can freak people out. You need to be direct. If you want to meet them you need to man up and go over there. Don’t follow people. It’s creepy. Makes them think you’re dangerous. You’re not, are you?” she said, like a teacher doling out tough love. Some days she had to play that role with the boys and girls at the center. But hell, that was why she went into counseling and social work—for the chance to make a difference with young people who needed it most. Some of the kids who hung out at her center had been teetering on the edge: living in poverty, raised by drug-addicted parents, born to fathers or mothers in jail, or plain damn neglectful ones.