His brows pinch together like yeah? “Not too bad? Do we have a recording of your fucking voice?”

“You mean this voice?” I arch my back a little and cry, gasping with the same unraveling pleasure, though there is a slight difference in my fake orgasm and the real one. My voice cuts off shorter every time Ryke takes me hard, and here it’s more drawn out. “Ryke, ahhh…” My chest rises and falls heavily, like I struggle to breathe.

He sits on his knees, watching me, and then he hardens, turned on. The fakeness in my body starts to switch into real, dramatic feelings. Ahhh…I moan a desperate moan.

Thankfully he doesn’t make me beg for it or admit my sarcasm. He just drives his erection between my legs, filling me again. He pumps with a melodic rhythm, his forearm resting a little bit above my head, staring down at me as my noises tickle my throat.

It’s way too much. Every single nerve is lit up. “I can’t…” I moan.

He slows, and his cheek brushes mine as he whispers in my ear, “Yes, you can…you’re going to feel it.”

Not long after his words leave, my eyes roll back, and the most intense, mind-numbing sensation washes over me, heart-stopping feelings that transport me somewhere else. I can’t even scream. It’s so insane that my mouth opens and the sound is stripped from my throat.

When I come down, exhausted, he lifts me in his arms and sets me on his lap. I don’t have the energy to do that again, but I know he does. I glance down. Oh. He climaxed with me, and I hadn’t even noticed. He just holds me in his arms, wiping the sweaty hair off my face.

“I don’t understand how I can go from never having an orgasm to that,” I whisper. He must be a god. A sex god. And he’s been sent to me from the heavens.

He has a more logical answer. “Generally when you’re not attracted to the person you’re with, Dais, you’re not going to get off.”

I turn my head and look up at him. “You know what this means?”

His brows harden, and I can tell he’s expecting a joke and my normal theatrics. “What?”

I smile with sincerity. “I am very, very attracted to you.”

The corner of his lips rise. “Funny, I’m also attracted to you. What are we going to do about that?”

“Make love and make babies.”

His brows shoot up. “You already want to make babies with me, Calloway?”

“I want to do lots of things with you.” I use a very diplomatic response, walking on a thin rope with this subject. I have no idea where his head lies. His thoughts could match his brother’s. Lo doesn’t want children because alcoholism is hereditary. Lily told me his stance on the matter. Well, really she told Rose and I was in the same room, and I kind of, sort of, inserted myself into the conversation. I realize that sounds annoying, but I just want to be close to them before they move away and start families.

He kisses my lips, his tongue easily slipping into my mouth and sliding against mine, and then he breaks apart and says, “Me too.” He stands, setting me on my feet. And he grabs his underwear and jeans, beginning to dress. I gather my clothes and watch him with curiosity. I didn’t think I would care this much about his feelings on children, but I am dying to find out.

“You know I was joking about the babies,” I say, slipping my panties on. He hands me my shirt, and the tension of this conversation constricts my lungs. He doesn’t let much through his dark gaze, which makes this hard. “But I’m curious…”

“You’re always curious,” he says, messing my hair with a rough hand.

“I’m really, really curious.” I smile. “Are you hoping to get married and have kids one day?”

He pulls his T-shirt over his head and grabs his bike jacket off the ground, shaking the dirt off it. And then he runs a hand through his hair, a giveaway that my question makes him a tad bit anxious. “I’m not like my little brother, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he says, putting his jacket on. “I do think alcohol may be an issue for whatever fucking kid I have, but this disease isn’t going to take anything away from me. I won’t let it.”

The answer almost makes me smile. I wish Lo felt the same way, but I think it’s different for him. He’s been battling his addiction for much longer and he had a much bumpier road than Ryke.

He fixes his hair, trying to comb through the disheveled strands with his fingers. “Look,” he suddenly says, his thoughts collected to form a whole response. “I can’t do to my kids what my parents did to me. The separation, the divorce, the fucking fighting. I want to be in a serious, committed relationship before I have a child.”

“You mean marriage,” I say.

“When you’re married, you can still get divorced. I don’t take that much stock in the word. I just need the emotional fucking commitment.” He motions with his head towards the path we came from. “Let’s start walking.”

I follow him, keeping up with his lengthy stride.

His eyes flicker to me a couple times while I stay silent and digest this information. “What do you want?”

I smile. “Look who’s curious now.”

He brushes a cornstalk out of my way. “Yeah, well when you joke around I have to read between the lines, and I don’t always read you right. It’s easier asking you.”

I’m glad he asked. It definitely means he cares. “I want to be fully committed to someone, to be married, probably earlier rather than later. And I do want babies. Maybe like three. I also want to travel and visit the great seven wonders and scuba dive and stand beneath a waterfall in Costa Rica, kissing you.”

He reaches out and holds my hand.

My heart swells.

“Not in that order,” he tells me.

My lips pull high because he didn’t discount a single one of my wants. In fact—I can see it in his eyes.

He wants all of it too.

RYKE MEADOWS

“Just take your time,” Connor tells me over the phone. “We stopped in Roswell because Lily and Lo wanted to see the aliens. They spent four hours in the museum—excuse me, I mean the propaganda shit hole.”

I hear Lo in the background. “And you made us spend three hours at a graveyard. Between us, who’s the super freaky one, love?”

“It was a war cemetery,” Connor tells me. “And Rose and I were searching for our ancestors.”

“I won,” Rose speaks up. “I have three more dead relatives than Connor.”

I shake my head. “You all are fucked up.”

I can hear his smile in his voice. “So we’ll meet in Utah in about four days. We’ve lost most of the paparazzi, but there’s a couple who always catch up to us.”

“We haven’t seen any paparazzi since we split up.”

“Good. By the way, Greg has been trying to reach Daisy to make sure she’s safe. Has she checked her phone?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But we’ve been getting shitty signal. I’ll make sure she calls him today.”

“Perfect.” We say our goodbyes and hang up. I return to a parking lot where Daisy sits on the curb. Our motorcycle is parked by our campsite, which isn’t hidden in thick woods like the Smoky Mountains. We made a detour to Wyoming, mostly grassy terrain, but a massive rock juts up behind us, trees surrounding it. Devils Tower. It’s shaped like a thimble, the peak flat.

I debated taking her to Yellowstone since she’s never been, but when I told her that I free-soloed Devils Tower—almost breaking the record for the fastest climb—she insisted we stop so she could see it. Now we’re going to hike around the base…and apparently color her fucking hair at the same time.

Boxes of dye lie open around her on the cement, and she has aluminum foil wrapped in different sections of her hair. Why I assumed she’d do it the normal way—with a mirror and a sink—I have no idea. She does things her crazy fucking way.

She rises to her feet, wrapping a yellow scarf around her foiled head and slipping on her plastic sunglasses. She wears a shirt that says wanderlust. I’ve never seen her smile so much than this past week.