She reached forward and touched my hair, now flattened against my head and shoulders by the water. “You have the most beautiful hair, Roy.”

I smiled. “You’ve told me.”

“I’ll say it again and again. You’re magnificent.”

The Wolfes were genetically gifted. It was common knowledge. Derek and Connie Wolfe made pretty kids. None of us could deny it.

But to hear Charlie Waters say I was magnificent took it to a whole new level.

I wasn’t magnificent. Maybe my looks were. Riley’s sure were, and I was supposedly the male version of her.

But magnificent wasn’t just on the outside. To be truly magnificent, the inside had to be a part of it. And on the inside, I was broken. Tormented by a secret I still hadn’t let out.

Derek Wolfe was dead. He couldn’t harm me.

But the others?

I didn’t know who or where they were, whether they still existed.

If I spilled what I knew—those facts I kept buried in the innermost part of me, so buried that I didn’t even allow myself to think them—bad things could happen.

If something happened to me, I could handle it. At least I liked to think I could. But my brothers and sister?

I couldn’t be responsible for anything befalling them. Riley was dealing with her own pain. She had issues I still didn’t fully understand. Rock, although newly married and seemingly happy, was also hiding something. I was sure of it. And Reid? He was a loaded gun. He’d had his birthright stripped from him and was prone to being an asshole anyway. Of the four of us, Reid was most like our father.

Which was a scary prospect.

“Roy?” Charlie cupped my cheek.

I jerked out of my thoughts.

“You okay? You were staring into space.”

The warm water soothed me, and her touch soothed me even more.

“I was staring at you.”

“Nice try. You were a million miles away for a minute.”

“I’m here now.” I bent my head and captured her mouth.

She opened her soft lips and I swept my tongue around hers. Her tongue was so soft and inviting. So perfect against my own. Her lush breasts crushed against my chest as our bodies slid together under the warm droplets of water.

I kissed her, banishing the troubling thoughts from my mind.

And I knew one thing for sure.

I was going to Montana with her tomorrow.

13

Charlie

His kisses were magic. Pure magic. How else to describe something that transported me to another world—a world without anything negative.

Bliss.

Pure bliss.

Our lips slid together as he deepened the kiss. How long had we been standing under the water? The last bit of watercolor on my body swirled down the drain. I clung to Roy, gripped his broad and muscular shoulders, tangled my fingers in his wet hair.