Even though every bone in Spencer’s body felt as though it had been forcibly extracted, ground up, and then reinserted, he felt a stirring of interest. But only a very slight interest. When Eva and Maury got back from their weekend away, they’d better not be pregnant again. The world couldn’t handle any more of these children. It would collapse under the groaning weight of all that energy.

“You can go ahead. I’m going to close my eyes for a minute.”

He made good on his threat. The pair of them were entangled on the couch in Eva’s living room. Once upon a time, it had been overstuffed and blue, but like most of the furniture in this house, it was now a weary, flattened gray. Spencer could relate. Since they’d returned from his parents’ house, the boys had used this couch as a trampoline, the foundation for a fort, a wrestling mat, a place to hide the broccoli they refused to eat for dinner, and a mounting block for Wheezy in an attempt to ride him around the living room. The dog had enjoyed that about as much as he and Ruby had, so it was no surprise the golden retriever was also collapsed in one corner, unable to lift so much as an eyebrow.

With his head back against a throw pillow that had also seen better days, Spencer gave himself over to the sensation of being entwined with the softest woman he’d ever touched. It was a good thing their first sexual encounter had taken place on strictly separated sides of a room, because there was no way he’d have lasted as long as he did if she’d been within arm’s reach. He didn’t know what she did to her skin to make it so silken or how a body that had the same muscles and sinew as his could feel so endlessly supple, but the parts he could reach—ankles and calves and an enticing bit of thigh just above her knee—were like falling into a cloud.

“They’re black, for starters. Black lace, but just a tiny scrap that barely covers anything.”

The stirring of interest picked up again. Spencer wasn’t sure how. After a day of babysitting and dog training and dealing with his parents’ disappointment that he wasn’t Caleb, he couldn’t even think about sex.

Sex, however, was definitely thinking about him.

“When you see them from the front, they look like pretty much any other panties. Low on my belly, scalloped edges along my hip bones, the usual. But from behind—oh, Spencer, you have no idea what they do from behind.”