Fueled (32 page)

Colton breathes in deeply—a ragged, soul cleansing drag of air— before breaking eye contact with me. He looks down at the deck momentarily before shouting a drawn out, “
Goddamnit!”
at the top of his lungs.

I startle at his voice as it echoes into the abyss of night around us. That one word is filled with so much frustration and angst all I want to do is gather him in my arms and comfort him, but instead of turning to me, he faces the railing, bracing himself against it once again. The shoulders I admired moments before are now filled with a burden I can’t even begin to fathom.

“Colton?” He doesn’t respond but rather keeps his face straight ahead. “Colton? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“Just don’t do it again, okay?” he snaps. I try not to be upset by the vehemence in his tone, but I see him hurting and all I want to do is help.

“Colton what happen—”

“Look...” he whirls to face me “...we all didn’t have perfect-fucking-suburban-white-picket-fence childhoods like you, Rylee. Is it really that important for you to know I’d go days without food or attention?
That my mom would force—
” He stops himself, his fists clenching and his eyes getting a far off look in them before refocusing on me. “That she’d make me do whatever was needed to ensure her next fucking fix?” His voice is void of all emotion except anger.

I suck in my breath, my heart breaking for him and the memories that plague him. I want to reach out to him. Hold him. Make love to him. Let him lose himself in me.
Anything to make his mind forget for just a moment.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” He sighs with remorse, scrubbing his hands over his face and looking up to the sky. “I find myself apologizing a lot around you.” He looks back down and meets my eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, Ry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay to feel that way.” I take a step toward him and raise my hand and place it on his cheek. He leans his face into my hand, turning it briefly to press a kiss to the center of my palm before closing his eyes to absorb whatever emotions he’s processing. His acceptance of comfort from me warms my soul. Gives me hope that in time he might talk to me. His unfettered vulnerability tugs at my heart and opens my soul. Draws me in. When he opens his eyes, I look into them, searching their depths. “What happened, Colton?”

“I told you before. Don’t try and fix me...”

“I’m just trying to understand.” I rub my hand over his cheek one more time before I run it down and rest it over his heart.

“I know.” He exhales. “But it’s something I don’t like to talk about. Shit…it’s something no one should have to talk about.” He shakes his head. “I told you, my first eight years were a fucking nightmare. I don’t want to fill your head with the details. It was—
fuck
!” He pounds his hand on the railing beside us, startling both Baxter and myself. “I’m not used to having to explain myself to anyone.” He clenches his jaw, making that muscle pulse. We stand in silence for a while before he looks down at me with a sad smile. “
I swear to God it’s you!”

“Me?” I stutter flabbergasted. What did I have to do with what just happened?

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmurs, staring at me intently. “I’ve never let my guard down. Never opened myself up to…” He shakes his head, his confusion and clarity written on his face. “I’ve been able to block things out for so long. Ignore emotions. Ignore everything, but you? You tear down walls I didn’t even know I was building.
You make me feel, Rylee
.”

I feel as if all of the air has been sucked from my lungs. His words render me thoughtless and yet inundated with thoughts at the same time. Possibilities flicker and flame. Hope sets in. My own walls crumble. My heart swells at his acknowledgement.

He purses his beautifully sculpted lips as he brings a hand up and sets it on my shoulder, his thumb aimlessly rubbing back and forth over my bare collar bone. “Feeling like this when I’m so used to living life in a blur…it’s drudging up old shit…old ghosts that I thought I’d buried long ago.”

He reaches his other hand out and places it on my waist, pulling me into him. I nuzzle my face into the underside of his neck, inhaling the uniquely Colton scent that I can’t seem to get enough of. He wraps his strong arms around me, clinging to me as if he needs the feel of me to help wash away some of his memories.

“I’ve lived for so long trying to close myself off from people. From this kind of emotion…Rylee? Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”

His words nurture the love blooming in my heart, but I know he’s uncomfortable with his unexpected admission, and I don’t want him to suddenly freak out when he realizes it.
Call for a pit stop
. I feel the need to do something—add some levity—to chase away his demons if just for the night. I lean into him and brush a slow, intoxicating kiss on his lips until I can feel his erection thickening against my midsection and wiggle against it. “
I think I can feel that easy enough
,” I murmur against his neck.

His laughter vibrates through his chest against mine. “So beautiful.” He brings a hand up to my chin and tilts it back as he leans down and teases my lips with his. My name is a reverent sigh on his lips. His tongue caresses mine over and over, teasing me with a dance intent on complete seduction and utter surrender. I never thought it was possible to make love to someone by kissing alone, but Colton is proving me wrong.

He flutters his tongue gently against mine, the softness of his firm lips coaxing me to need more from him—to need things I never thought possible or could even exist again. His tenderness is so unexpected, so overwhelming, tears sting the back of my eyes as I lose myself in him. Lose myself to him.

“You are so breathtakingly beautiful, Ry. Not what I deserve, but just what I need.” He breathes into my mouth, his hands cupping my neck. “Please let me show you…”

As if he even has to ask
.

I step up on my toes and thread my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. I look up at him, his eyes framed with thick lashes and chock-full of all of the unspoken words his actions are trying to express. I tip my head up and bring my lips to his as a response.

I laugh as he leans down and places his arm behind my knees, picking me up and carrying me over the broken glass of his beer that’s scattered all over the decking. He continues inside and carries me up the stairs into his bedroom. He flicks a switch with his elbow as we enter the room and a fire roars to life in the fireplace in the corner of the room.

He stops at the edge of the bed and places me on my feet.

“Is this the part where you take your
deliciously, slow, sweet time with me
?” I whisper, using his words from earlier.

I see his eyes spark at my words. He leans down and delves his tongue between my parted lips. “Baby, I want to enjoy every single inch of this ridiculously sexy body of yours.” I feel his hands on the zipper at my back and then my skin becomes chilled from the room’s air as he slowly parts my dress. He hints at the things he wants to do to me. His rasp of a voice caresses over me, matching the feel of the fingertip he trails down the path he’s unzipping. I feel the tug on the fabric, and it slides down and pools around my high heels.

“Christ, woman, you test a man’s restraint,” he swears at me, his pupils dilating as he absorbs the entire visual of my lingerie that he’s seen only in bits and pieces tonight.

I smooth my hands over the black lace piped with a fire engine red bra portion of my basque and continue down the fabric until I reach the garters attached to it. “You like?” I ask coyly, a smirk on my lips.

“
Oh, baby.
” He sucks in a breath of air closing the distance between us, his eyes devouring the sight in front of him. He wraps his arm around me and yanks me against him so we are face to face, our lips a whisper from each other’s. “I more than like.
I want.
” He growls as he moves us backwards and pushes me down onto the bed.

I lean my weight on my elbows and look up at him standing before me as he unbuttons the rest of his shirt. My mouth waters and desire coils as I get an inch by inch glimpse of the magnificence beneath. The hunger in his eyes is a promise of what he wants to do to me, and it leaves me revving with need. He shrugs off his shirt, the hard-edged muscles of his chest and abdomen leave my fingers itching to touch them. He crawls onto the bed, his knees nudging my legs apart as he sits between them. His fingertips trace heated lines up and down my inner thighs. My muscles tense at the feeling and tremble in anticipation.

“Colton,” I plead as his touch ignites the ache deep inside me. The need is so intense my hands snake down my abdomen and my fingers dig into the flesh at my hips in restraint. I’m bound up so tight that I need release.

“Oh yes.” He groans. “Touch yourself, sweetheart, and let me watch. Show me how much you need me.”

His words are all I need to throw my modesty out the window. My fingers dance down my mound, and I part myself, sighing in relief as my fingers begin to add the friction I need over my most sensitive part. Colton groans in lust as he watches, and the sound urges me on. I draw my bottom lip between my teeth as the sensation starts to pull me under.

“Rylee.” He rasps out a tortured breath. “My turn.”

My eyes flicker up to meet his, lids weighted with desire as I drag my fingertips over my clit one last time before pulling them away. His lips part in reaction to the moan that escapes between my lips and then curve in a wicked smile that has me arching my back, begging for more of his touch. His eyes hold mine as he leans down. I feel the gentle draw of his warm mouth on my aching hot spot and once again he drowns me. His passion swallows me whole.

We lay on our sides facing each other, our heads propped on pillows, our bodies naked, and our current desire temporarily sated. Craig David plays softly through the speakers in the ceiling. I drink in Colton, our eyes speaking volumes despite our lips remaining silent. So many things I want to say to him after what we’ve just exchanged. It wasn’t just sex between us. Not that it ever has been for me, but tonight especially, the connection was different. Colton has always been a more than generous lover, but how he was tonight—his slow, worshipping touch—has left me in a state of blissful daze. I find myself becoming so lost in him, so blanketed by everything that he is, that in a sense,
I have found myself again.

I am whole again.

“Thank you.” His words break our silence.

“Thank me? I think I’m the one who’s just come multiple times.”

The crooked, cocky grin fills me with such happiness. “True,” he concedes with a nod of his head. “But thank you for not pushing earlier.”

“You’re welcome,” I tell him, feeling like the smile on my face is a permanent fixture.

We fall silent again for a bit before he murmurs, “I could look at you for hours.” I blush under the intensity of his stare, which is funny considering I should be blushing rather in regards to all of the various things he just did to please me. But in this moment I realize that I am blushing because I am completely naked to him—stripped, bared, open—and not in just in the literal sense. He is looking at me, seeing into my eyes and through the guard I have lowered to reveal the transparency of my feelings for him.

I shake myself from my thoughts. “I think I should be the one saying that,” I tell him, the dancing flames from the fire bathing a soft light across his dark features.

He snorts at me and rolls his eyes. Such a childish reaction from such an intense man that it softens him, makes my heart stumble that much more. “Do you have any idea how much crap I got as a kid for being so
pretty
,” he says with disdain. “How many fights I got in to prove that I wasn’t?”

I reach out and run my fingertips over the lines of his face and then down the crooked line of his nose. “Is that how you got this?” I ask.

“Mmm-hmm.” He chuckles softly. “I was a senior in high school and had the hots for the football captain’s girl. Stephanie Turner was her name. He wasn’t too thrilled when the school rebel snuck out of a party with his girl.” He smiles sheepishly. “I was...I had quite a rep back then.”

“Only back then?” I tease.

“Smartass,” he says, giving me that bashful smile. “Yes, only then.” When I roll my eyes at him, he continues. “Anyway, I was quite the hot head. Got in fights constantly for no reason except to prove no one had a say in what I could do or how they could control me. I had a lot of anger in my teenage years. Because of that, the next day he got his buddies to hold me down while he beat the shit out of me. Broke my nose and fucked me up pretty bad.” He shrugs. “Looking back, I deserved it. You don’t touch another man’s woman.”

I stare at him, finding his last comment oddly sexy. “What did your parents say?”

“Oh they were pissed,” he exclaims before continuing on to explain how they reacted. We talked like this for the next hour. He explained what it was like growing up with his parents, filling in little stories here and there that had me laughing at both his rebellions and his shortcomings.