The Pool Boy (Nashville Neighborhood 2)

“We can tell your parents,” she said.

I wanted that.

Fuck, I wanted all of it out in the open, where I could show her off and not worry about who’d see us together. But I was smart enough to understand there wasn’t much risk for me. My mom was going to love me no matter what, but Erika had a boss who might fire her, and a friendship that could be destroyed.

“I want that,” I said, “but not like this. I don’t want to do it without you.”

Her gorgeous face twisted with anxiety. “Troy.”

My hand firmed beneath hers, and I shot her the most determined look I possessed. “Remember when I wasn’t going to audition if you wouldn’t give me a chance? We do this together.”

“I’m doing this so we can be together.” She lifted my hand away from her face, threaded her fingers through mine, and matched my determination. “Look, I don’t want to hand you off to someone else either, but this is the best I can come up with. I’ll still be a part of the things Warbler offers you.”

“No,” I said. “This is ours.”

Resignation swept through her. She knew I was going to fight her on this, and now she was willing to play the card she didn’t want to have to. “The rights to ‘Power’ are contingent on this deal.”

I shot to my feet, breaking the connection of our hands. “You said it was mine.”

“It is.” Her eyebrows pulled together. “I want you to have it, and I want us together. Don’t you want that too?”

“Yeah, I do, but I also—”

“Part of being an adult is compromise, not getting everything you want.”

I should have been happy. She was giving me so much of what I wanted. The chance at a career with a top-tier manager. The rights to her song. The acknowledgement that what we had wasn’t just casual sex, but more.

But her statement pissed me off.

I hauled her up to her feet, tightening my grasp on her arms. “I’m not some kid you can boss around.”

It was the wrong thing to say because . . . wasn’t that exactly who I’d asked to be to her?

Her eyes thickened with irritation, but lust was buried beneath. “You’re not?”

I liked when she told me what to do, but I wasn’t a pushover, and I had no problem being the one in charge. Half the time, I let Erika think she was the one taking the lead when it was really me.

Who was actually in control anyway when one person ordered the other to take the reins?

“Is that what I am to you?” I gripped her hair at the base of her scalp and tugged hard enough to get her attention. “Just some kid? Because you let me do some very adult things to you.”

It excited me when she went weak at my words, her lips parting to drag in a shallow breath.

“You want that, don’t you?” I demanded. “For me to fuck you all the ways your husband wouldn’t?” I dropped the volume of my voice until it was a growl. “In all the places he wouldn’t?”

“Oh, Christ,” she gasped.

She’d confessed to me she’d never had anal sex. I hadn’t either, really. The one girl from my past who’d been open to the idea changed her mind five seconds in.

I was excited to try it with Erika at some point, and she’d dropped plenty of hints she was eager too. But right now, I was more talk than promise. She’d gone over my head to make this decision about my career, and I needed to remind her I was capable of making decisions too.

I slammed my mouth over hers, silencing her moan of approval. I wasn’t going to ask how she wanted it this time, and I didn’t need to either. We’d been together long enough I could tell. Plus, we were both angry at the situation and looking for a way to blow off steam.

When I stroked a hand between her legs, right over the fabric of her bikini bottom, she jolted and broke the kiss. Her gaze flew down the slope of her lawn toward the party still going on around Preston’s pool. The sound was quieter up here, but we could still hear the music and the people laughing over it. We were partially obscured in the shade, but not exactly hidden from their view.

I’d expected her to drag me into the air conditioning of her house, but instead she clamped a hand on my wrist and tugged me toward the pool house. Not to the workshop door, but to the side of it.

There was a slatted partition wrapping around the outside of the brick building and covered by the overhang of the roof. I’d never had a reason to go into her outdoor shower before. If I’d needed to rinse off my hands, I’d used the garden hose or the sink inside the pool house.