Give and Take

by Lee Kilraine

  “He’s in the hospital. He’ll heal physically. But—aw fuck.” Gray ran a hand down his face, sucked in a breath, then abruptly turned and walked away a few paces. He stood with his hands on his hips, his head tilted up to the sky before it dropped forward as if his neck had given out.

  The doors opened behind us and Beck, Ash, and Eli ushered out our group of kids. Their faces serious, their eyes somber. These kids knew more than a person should ever have to know about how ugly and painful life could be. Fuck, these kids should be wrapped up in cotton batting and protected by grown-ups who love them.

  “You guys ready to play some ball?” Beck asked, his own face stiff.

  “No.”

  “Don’t wanna.”

  “Want Ash to tell you how he scored his goal last night?” Eli asked, trying anything to get their minds off D’Andre.

  “Nah. I mean, good job”—Mike lifted his fist to bump Ash’s—“but not really in the mood, you know?”

  I leaned over to Rhia and whispered, “How about you do your clown act for the kids?”

  She shook her head, a frown on her face as she looked at the group of kids who, by this point, were plopping down onto the grass like puppets when their strings get cut off. She grabbed my arm, pulling me off to the side.

  “Uh… Wyatt, you do know I’m not a clown, right? I had absolutely no idea what I was doing that day at the party. I mean, that was how I entertain my nieces and nephews. That’s all.”

  “You had them mesmerized, Rhia. And laughing.” I took her hands in mine and gave them a squeeze.

  “That was totally different. First, they were much younger kids and probably already in a sugar coma.”

  “No. Those kids loved you.”

  “Why don’t I call a real clown? I can have him here in thirty minutes. A sober one.”

  “No. Gray hates clowns. They really freak him out. These kids, Rhia, they deal with serious shit like this too often. Between the bad home life they left and being shuffled through the foster system—they don’t have much to smile about. Now with this…”

  “Yeah, but, Wyatt, I don’t think a clown is what they need anyway.”

  “Please, Rhia, just try something.” I knew how they felt. I was nauseated looking at the fear and worry on their faces. For their friend…and for themselves. That feeling of wondering what you did wrong to deserve it, and worse—the absolute fear that you’d never escape it. That you’d be stuck in this broken way of life forever.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll try my best. You have to promise to jump in and bail me out if I go down in flames.”

  “I promise.” What was I doing? Crap. That was too much to ask of her. But one look back at the sad, serious faces, and my only thought was to try to help them forget, even if for five minutes.

  “I’m not a professional. I don’t actually know what I’m doing with kids. I just sort of be my crazy self and tell them one of my made-up stories.” She looked over at the children, nodded once, and walked over, joining them on the grass.

  “Who are you?” Luke, the most outgoing of the group, asked.

  “I’m Rhia, a friend of Wyatt’s. We share an office, so we sort of work together.” Rhia’s gaze took them all in. She pulled up two dandelions from the grass next to her hip and fiddled with them until she had them joined together. Picked another from the grass, then added a third to her chain. “I’m so very sorry to hear about your friend, D’Andre.”

  “Dude,” Gray hissed in my ear. “I thought she was going to take their mind off D’Andre?”

  Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Shit. Maybe I needed to rescue her already like I’d promised.

  “Have you guys ever heard the story of Alice in Wonderland?” Rhia asked.

  “Yeah. It’s okay.” Davie shrugged.

  “How about the story, D’Andre on Magic Island?” Rhia’s dandelion chain was at least five flowers long by now.

  “That’s not a real story.”

  “You’re making it up.”

  Rhia shrugged. “Maybe… Does that mean you don’t want to hear it?”

  “No,” Beth said, handing Rhia another dandelion to add. “I’d like to hear it. Please?”

  “Once upon a time there was a boy named D’Andre. One day, a mean old man hurt D’Andre, and he ended up in the hospital all by himself, his broken arm in a cast and bruises on his cheek. It wasn’t his first time in the hospital, and he was afraid it wouldn’t be his last.”

  All their eyes landed on her, but they stayed silent.

  “Outside his room, he heard the voice of his doctor. “Nurse, did you give this shot to the boy?”

  “Of course. You told me to.”

  “Not the boy. That shot was meant for another patient. Good gracious, do you know what you’ve done? What you put into the boy’s blood?”

  “Ooh,” Beth said, grabbing on to Rhia’s hand.

  “The voices drifted off, and D’Andre could only imagine what was in the shot they’d given him. What do you think was in the shot they gave him?”

  “Something to make him super-strong with bulging muscles so big he could lift a car. There is no way the mean old man could hurt him then.”

  “Something to make him invisible, so he can walk right out of the hospital and far away.”

  Rhia nodded and pointed at Luke. “Let’s go with invisible. And wouldn’t you know, D’Andre did walk right out of the hospital. But once outside, he didn’t know where to go… Where should we have him go?”

  “Not home!”

  “Far away!”

  “How about to the beach?” Rhia asked. “Oh, no! There’s a bad guy after him. He needs to call for help. Who should he call?”

  “His friends! And his friends can fly, so they swoop in and grab him up and away.”

  “Yes. Can you imagine flying up where the birds are and there’s just quiet and air and warm sunshine on your back?” Rhia closed her eyes, tilting her face up to the sky. “Do you feel it?”

  All the kids squeezed their eyes shut too, lifting their faces up.

  “It’s magical, isn’t it? D’Andre and his friends have a bird’s-eye view, soaring across the sky. And they see a kid being picked on at the playground by a couple of bullies.”

  “Dumb bullies.”

  “Make them dumb, ugly bullies.”

  “Okay. They see these dumb, ugly bullies picking on this kid, so they swoop down and grab up the kid and fly away with him.”

  “And a bird poops on the bullies’ heads!”

  “Absolutely!” Rhia agreed. “The whole flock of birds dive-bombed them with poop.”

  The kids laughed and snorted.

  Rhia took the kids on a thirty-minute journey where weak kids found strength and were able to stand up for themselves and others. Bad guys were punished with bird poop and worse. The children in the story may have used magic, but through it, they had a voice and power to change their destinies. Mostly, it was a story about hope.

  Eli elbowed me in the ribs. “Damn, that was amazing.”

  She’d helped the kids escape from their ugly realities and given them a place they could return to again and again.

  Rhia’s family may act like she didn’t measure up to their Mensa standards, but what the woman had just done was fucking brilliant.

  She’d given hope to children who needed it desperately.

  It felt like a light turned on in the closed off dark place in my heart.

  Chapter 17

  Rhia

  “Rhia Hollis, you are damn amazing.” Wyatt’s blue gaze warmed me down to my toes. And more than made some parts of me downright hot and tingly.

  “Thank you, but what exactly am I amazing at?” We’d just entered my apartment after hanging out with the foster kids for a few hours, and to my mind, it was Wyatt and his brothers who were amazing.
The fact that they volunteered on a regular basis—for years—with those kids just melted my heart.

  It only took a minute of watching the kids with the Thorne brothers to know how much they each cared for each other. Wyatt had mentioned he’d had a crappy childhood, and it didn’t take a Mensa to put it together that they’d probably been in the foster system at some point.

  “What you did for those kids back there…Rhia… It means everything to them. Trust me, I’ve been there. The fear on their faces, the worry about what can happen with your own fucked-up family—or a bad foster situation—that was us, me and my brothers, for too many years.”

  “All I did was tell them a story. It’s you and your brothers who are doing amazing things for those kids.”

  “No. That wasn’t just a story you told them. You gave them something to grab on to. A way to escape even when they can’t go anywhere.”

  To say Wyatt’s compliment meant a lot was sort of an understatement. A huge understatement. Even though I’d set my stories off to the side to focus on my future, my writing was a vital part of my life. A part that my family had never understood and certainly never accepted. And praise? No.

  From the first note home from my second grade teacher about how “Rhia’s daydreaming is interfering with her learning” to the high school parent-teacher conferences. My parents left those in shock because for the first time ever a Hollis child wasn’t being heaped with praise for their remarkable work and superior test scores. Maybe if Rhia studied more. Have you had Rhia tested for ADHD? She just can’t seem to focus like her older siblings.

  “Those poor kids…” I couldn’t imagine how powerless they must feel when their lives were turned upside down with violence and constant change. How does a child ever learn to trust growing up like that?

  “Those poor kids are stronger and better equipped on account of you.” He stepped close to me, right in my space, so I could feel his heat and had to tilt my head back to look into his eyes. “I owe you for what you did. You need something? You don’t even have to ask; it’s yours.”

  “Anything?” I ran my hands up his chest and over his shoulders. “Because I do want something. I want something real bad. You, Wyatt Thorne. I want you. Right here. Naked.”

  “Done.” His beautiful lips crooked up into one of his rare smiles. It started slow, with just a tilting at one corner, then slid bigger. He did have a sexy smile. He lifted his hands and released the first button from its hole. I placed my hand on his chest and guided Wyatt backward, down the hall, and into my bedroom.

  My breath caught as I watched his strong hands work their way down his shirt, anticipating when those hands would get to me. That was when I decided Wyatt was moving too slowly and I took over. Brushing his hands aside, his grin going wider, I undid the last few buttons and pulled his shirt from the waistband of his jeans before sliding it over and off his shoulders.

  I tugged his shirt down to his wrists, leaving him momentarily stuck with his hands caught at his sides. He tried to shake the sleeves off, since I’d moved on to the zipper on his jeans. Something about the heat in his eyes inspired wicked thoughts.

  “Stop. Don’t move.” I slid his zipper down, slowly and carefully. Pausing, I lifted up on my tiptoes and caught his lower lip in my teeth. Just a light nip, enough to have him dragging in a breath. I let go, stroking his lip with my tongue before kissing my way down his neck and chest. And then ever so slowly, I sank down to my knees.

  “No. No, Rhia, you don’t have to do that.” He groaned out a harsh breath when I stroked my hands over his hard abs before pushing his jeans and briefs down until his hard shaft was in my hands.

  “I know, Wyatt. I’ve sort of been thinking about this since I tore your belt off you at that party,” I said, taking him in my hands with a firm grip. My gaze lifted up to his as I licked my tongue down his firm length and then slid the tip of him into my mouth.

  “Fuck, Rhia, I can’t—” I sucked hard. Wyatt hissed a sharp breath and instantly began struggling to release his hands from his shirtsleeves. “That feels… You’re killing me here, Rhi—aw, damn, I need my hands free.”

  I closed my eyes and used my mouth, tongue, and hands to stroke and touch him and basically drive him insane with pleasure.

  “I need you to stop…hell, Rhia…I can’t…If you get me off like this, I’m going to return the favor—only I’ll take twice as long and make you beg, you hear me, Rhia?” I hoped to God no one clued Wyatt in about how reverse psychology worked. I flashed my eyes up to him and sucked even harder. He released a guttural noise from deep in his chest and then returned to his now frantic attempt to free his hands, pulling so hard on his sleeves I heard fabric tear.

  And then his hand was on my head, but he didn’t pull me away. No, his hand wound through my long curls, winding them up in his fist and helped guide me where he needed. Darn if that didn’t turn the temperature up a hundred degrees. I felt myself go damp and needy all while feeling powerful and sexy.

  “God, Rhia, that’s it.” He tugged on my head, trying to move me, but I loved the frantic edge I’d taken him to, and I wanted to see this ride through. Reaching up, I added my other hand, and one light touch was all it took before he came with a sexy moan and a shiver.

  I released him and had only just looked up at him when he pulled me to my feet. He pulled his jeans back up, leaving them unzipped, and sat on my bed, his back against my headboard, looking very relaxed.

  “I loved every damn second of that, Rhia Hollis, but that wasn’t the way I planned this to go.”

  “Tell me you’re not complaining….”

  “Hell no, I’m not. But I am about to even the scales.” His hot gaze up-and-downed me all slow and sexy. My panties were already damp from the thrill of being in control and bringing Wyatt pleasure. But his gaze had me wetter and hotter, and heat shot through my limbs like liquid silver. “Now, take off your clothes for me, Rhia, and don’t rush.”

  “Wh-what?” He wanted me to strip for him?

  “You heard me. You turned me inside out, Rhia. I’m afraid I’m going to need some time to recover.” He lifted my iPod from its holder on the bedside table and searched my playlist.

  “Wyatt, I don’t think…”

  “You had your turn, now it’s mine. Whoa, we’re going to have to seriously discuss your music tastes.” He scrolled through until he finally selected Ed Sheeran’s song “Perfect” before setting the device back into the base. “Here we go.”

  “You have no idea what this song is, do you?” It was a guess, but probably a good one.

  “Nope, but it was the first artist I actually recognized on your playlist, so I went with it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, crossed his legs at the ankles, and sat looking like some ancient sultan expecting to be entertained. It was so friggin’ hot. “Stop with the delay tactics. Strip.”

  God, he just didn’t know—I mean, I wasn’t looking for a relationship right now, but God, this song was killing me. How did he pick exactly what I didn’t even know I’d needed to hear? I just—stop Rhia. This isn’t love. This is mutual lust. You know that. Let it be enough.

  Although it wouldn’t hurt to pretend for the next hour, would it? That every word in this song meant something. For me. For Wyatt. I’d never in my whole life had someone who loved me think I was perfect. No. I’d grown up feeling flawed and so far from perfect. So, I was giving myself this next hour. Wyatt didn’t even have to know.

  “I need to see your gorgeous body, Rhia, right now. And go slowly.” He ran his thumb across his lower lip, making me bite mine. “Start with your shirt.”

  I ran my tongue along my lip, soothing where I’d bit it while I kept my gaze locked on Wyatt’s, making sure I had his full attention (I did). I was never good at following orders, so I started with my bra, in that secret way women have, unhooking it, slipping my arms from the straps, and pulling it out from
my sleeve and tossing it over to Wyatt.

  “Damn, that’s hot,” he said, sliding my silky bra between his hands. “Keep going.”

  Oh, I kept going. I ran my hand along the hem of my T-shirt, slowly lifting it, letting my belly peek through, tugging it higher up over my ribs, and up to the underside of my breasts.

  Wyatt made a noise in the back of his throat, which I interpreted to mean he liked it. My plan was to drag this out, but it was a silly plan. Not only were the lyrics of the song getting to me, but I was not a patient person. I whipped my T-shirt over my head and off before letting it drop to the ground at my feet.

  “Christ.” Wyatt sat straight up. One glance at his jeans let me know his recovery time was a lot quicker than he’d estimated.

  “Wyatt?”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s it.” That was as far as my striptease was going. I was as sad about that as Wyatt looked. I loved how sexy his reaction made me feel.

  “What? We’re done? Okay. Whatever you say. If you say that’s it—that’s it.” Wyatt looked wild-eyed, running a hand down over his face before moving toward the door. “I’m going to need a cold shower, though. And then we can—”

  “No.” I slapped my hand on his bare chest before he could slide past me. “I don’t mean we’re done. I mean, that’s the end of the sexy striptease. These are my skinny jeans, and there’s no way I can make struggling out of these look sexy.”

  “You about gave me a heart attack,” he said, picking me up and laying me out on the bed.

  “I need you to touch me, Wyatt.” I would have begged if necessary.

  It wasn’t. His big hands caressed me with reverence while his eyes followed their path. The desire in them left me feeling beautiful and breathless. His fingers touched my face, stroking along my jaw while he kissed his way from my cheek and down my neck, pausing to scrape his teeth and stroke his tongue on the spots that had me melting.