"Will?"

"Yeah, darlin'," he said in my ear, as he tucked in behind me in his vintage bed, after both of us had showered, and after he had fucked the confession out of me. We were now dry but clean, and naked, and back in his bed.

I wiggled into his warm body and let out a deep breath. This idea had come to me while we were showering and the more I thought about it, the more I had to do it, even if I didn't really want to. "I need something."

"Anything," he replied, immediately, nibbling on my ear and making his way down to my neck, biting it gently, his hands tracing the curves of my side. I could feel him start to stiffen again behind me, even though he had held me up in the shower not 30 minutes ago, and fucked me against the wall until I had screamed.

"You're not going to like it."

He stiffened. "Tell me."

"Here's the thing. You're gorgeous. You distract me with sex. But I need to know that we can get along without it. As a couple, I mean. Because if it's only sex, then it needs to stay that way. If it's not, though, well, I need to know."

"So what do you want?"

"I want you to date me."

"'Course, baby. I want to do that."

"No. I want you to date me and just date me." I rolled over on my other side, body to body, facing him, and looked at him.

"What does that mean?"

I got embarrassed for a moment and looked down to his chest. "No sex."

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me. "What do you mean, no sex?"

"I'm serious, Will. I want to go out on dates. I want to get to know you. Go to restaurants. Do couple things. Not just fuck."

He put a finger under my chin and lifted my head up to look at him; he looked confused. "Let me get this straight. We have the best fuckin' sex I've ever had in my life and you want to quit? What kind of fuckin' game is that?"

"It's not a game," I said, quietly and sincerely. "If it were a game, I wouldn't tell you what I wanted. I would just be playing you with no end game."

He shrugged. "Fair enough."

"This is more like an experiment. To see if there is more to us than just physical compatibility. If we can get past the Will-is-a-Republican and Marie-is-a-Democrat shit. And if it works, then cool, we'll know. If not, well, then we'll know too."

He looked at me and winced. "I don't know if I can do that. After having a taste of you, fuck, I don't want to let you go."

That was sweet. "You're not letting me go. Not permanently. Just for a little bit. I want to see, you know, what it's like just to date you. I want to spend time with you. I want to find out how far apart we are on our issues. I want to sleep with you in this bed, just sleeping, not fucking."

"You want to torture me," he muttered.

"It will be torture for me too," I whispered. "But I have to know. I have to know if there is something more here than just physical attraction."

He blew out a breath. "Okay. For how long?"

I thought about it. "How about two weeks? That's as long as I have known you, practically. Next week we have the kids from the ASD program and after that we have the kids from East Los Angeles. Then we have a week break. So after the kids from East L.A. go home?"

"I'm going to have the biggest fuckin' blue balls on the planet if we do that. I can't keep my hands off of you. You know that George Strait song, no of course you don't. Well, he has a song, 'I Get Carried Away.' That's how I feel about you."

I thought about it. "What if I make you a deal?"

"Yeah?"

"You make it just over two weeks with me spending the night here, and no sex, and you take me out and I take you out and we spend time together, and come Friday after the L.A. kids leave, if we still like each other and want to continue this, I'll let you do anything sexually to me that you want."

He stared at me. "Fuck."

"Just don't hurt me."

"I'd never do that."

I wiggled into him, my breasts pushing up against his chest, his dick in my belly. "Then, anything," I repeated.

He looked away. "Fuck. You probably want to start abstinence now, don't you."

"Not really, but I think we should."

"Then there's no fuckin' way you are sleeping naked with me because that is just wrong."

I thought about torturing him a little bit more, but decided against it. "Okay," I said.

"What am I getting myself into?" he muttered.

"Me," I said, and he squeezed me tight.

"Okay, baby, you got yourself a deal. Two weeks from Friday, anything I want, and be prepared. Until then, we do it your way."

He released me and I got up and put on a t-shirt of his and my underwear, and he put on some boxers and we crawled into bed together. Because it was late, we both fell asleep quickly, but it was an uneasy sleep for me.

When I checked my phone the following morning, there was nothing from Amelia, so I texted her.

What is it about bossy guys? Why are they so hot?

Because they care. They are IN. TO. IT.

Yeah. I thought Will does care. But I needed to know for sure.

After breakfast, Will and I walked with a group of about half of the kids over to the corrals for their morning riding sessions. The other half had free time in the bunkhouse until it was their turn to ride. The kids were talking about movies that were out that summer and the latest blockbusters.

As we walked over, I heard Emma talking to Truc, in a sneering voice, "Listen, Fob, have you ever seen a movie that wasn't a bootleg?" and Truc immediately burst into tears.

I had no idea what happened, but Tricia, Jeff, and a few other kids drew in their breath in shock. A few of the other kids looked worried, a few amused, but the rest looked like me.

Tricia opened her mouth to start talking, but Will beat her to it, stopping Emma and asking, "What did you say?"

"Nothing," she said sullenly.

"What's that mean?" he asked Tricia.

"'Fob' means 'fresh off the boat.' It's a nasty thing to say to another person."

Will's brows knit together and he looked at Emma. "That's not cool," he said in a low and dangerous voice. "You and me, we're gonna have a talk about prejudice. With everyone. Now."

He stopped the group and made them gather around.

"My mom is from Spain. She speaks Spanish. Marie's dad is Mexican. He was a migrant farmworker. We have people here from different countries, or their parents were from different countries, and we treat them all with respect.

"Prejudice is when you judge someone based on what they look like, not on who they are. We all do it. I do it myself. I did it to my girl here, Marie, because I thought she was a lazy liberal." He smiled. "Turns out she's a caring, hard-working person who doesn't deserve to be judged like that. But words can hurt. Would you want to be called what you called Truc?" he asked Emma.

"No," she said in a low voice, but petulant.

"Where you did you learn that word?"

"At school."

"Do you think Truc likes to be called that?"

"No."

"Yeah," he said, looking at me. "People can prejudge each other. Words can hurt. I've done it myself. Let's make a pact, you and me, that we aren't going to call anyone names on my property. I'm not going to do it and you're not going to do it and everyone else here is not going to do it."

"Okay," whispered Emma.

"Okay," whispered Will back to her. Then in a louder voice, he asked everyone, "Are any of you going to call anyone names on my property?"

"No," the chorus came back.

"Good," said Will. And he came over to me, held my hand, and led everyone over the corrals.