8. Colter
CHAPTER 8
COLTER
I ’m sitting outside of Poppy’s apartment thinking of a thousand reasons why I should call this whole thing off.
Nothing is going to come of this date.
Right now, she thinks I’m a normal man that can do normal things. Eventually, she’s going to see the real me, and she’s not going to want anything to do with me.
I should save us both a lot of time and cancel on her now.
I’m staring out the front of my windshield, trying to decide what I should say to her when the passenger side door of my truck opens, and Poppy is standing there, smiling at me.
She laughs. “I’m so sorry. Have you been waiting long?”
My God, she’s beautiful. She has an off-the-shoulder blue top on that makes her eyes even bluer than normal. She has on jeans and boots that come up her calf. I’m practically salivating, looking at her.
”Colter… you okay?”
She’s holding the door open and still standing on the sidewalk waiting for me to say something.
I clear my throat. “Wait right there.”
I get out and want to run around to her side, but sometimes my gait is off balance, so I go slowly. I feel foolish since she already has the door open, but when I reach her, I hold on to it as I try to explain. “I’m sorry, I would have come up to get you.”
She bites her lip worriedly. “I don’t know. Would you? You’ve been sitting out here for twenty minutes. I thought for sure you’d changed your mind or something.”
I grip the car door, hating the way I am. Gritting my teeth, I know the best thing for me to do is to just come clean and be honest. “I was thinking of canceling.”
Her cheeks turn red, and her mouth drops. “Oh.”
She backs away from my truck, and I know I’ve embarrassed her. I reach for her, and touching her is like touching a live wire, but instead of releasing her like I should, I wrap my hand around her arm and hold on. “Let me explain.”
My words are choppy, and I hate that I sound this way, but I have to tell her. “I thought about canceling because… once you get to know the real me, you will probably find this is a waste of your time.”
She points to her chest. “A waste of my time?”
I nod and wonder why it already feels like my heart is breaking. “Yes.”
She nods her head, walks to my truck, and leans her back against it. “Okay, so let me ask you: Are you a good guy?”
I shrug. “I try to be.”
She nods. “Do you enjoy talking to me, spending time with me?”
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes, of course I do.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and lifts her chin. “Do you find me attractive?”
I do hesitate on this one because instantly I’m thinking about the massive hard-on that seems to take over as soon as I’m around her. “Yes.”
She looks at me doubtfully. “You don’t seem too sure about that.”
Shit, now she thinks I’m not attracted to her. “Poppy, yes, I’m attracted to you, and it’s almost embarrassing how my body reacts to being around you.”
Her eyes widen, and she lets her gaze travel down my body. My cock twitches, and her eyebrows lift in surprise. Shit, kill me now.
This time it’s her turn to stutter. “Uh, right, uh, well, then how are you wasting my time?”
I clench my eyes shut and then open them again. “Poppy, I have a TBI.”
She doesn’t even blink. “I know that already.”
I’m quickly losing patience. I am not the guy that likes to talk about my inadequacies, but it’s better to do it now instead of later. “I have migraines, sometimes I get confused easily, I get dizzy, lightheaded, blurred vision. I’m not a quick thinker and have to take my time on things now.”
She measures me with a look before uncrossing her arms and stepping toward me. She’s so close, I swear I can feel her chest graze against mine when she breathes in. “Colter, I’m sorry that you have to go through all of that, I really am. But I’m not sure what that has to do with us dating.”
Frustrated, I accuse her, “You’re not listening.”
She reaches for me, putting her hand on my arm and letting it slide up to rest on my shoulder. She does the same with her other hand and presses herself against me. There’s no way she doesn’t feel my cock pressing into her stomach. She smiles up at me. “I am listening to you.”
I shake my head. “Poppy…”
She wraps her arms around my neck and raises to her tiptoes. “Can I ask you one thing? And after, if you want to cancel our date, I will walk away and never bother you again.”
I nod once.
She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “Kiss me.”
I couldn’t stop the stutter if I tried. “Y..y…you want me to kiss you?”
She nods. “I do.”
I’m staring at her full lips that are practically begging for my mouth, and I know I can’t resist her. There’s no way I’m saying no and turning her down. Hell, I’ve wanted to kiss her since I first laid eyes on her, and there’s no way I’m not going to kiss her lips if she’s willing.
I bring my hands up to cup her face. I look into her eyes, searching for any sign that she doesn’t want this, but she surprises me by stretching her body against mine. “Kiss me, Colter.”
I slam my mouth against hers. I should give her a quick peck, just a simple kiss to give her what she wants, but as soon as our lips touch, there’s no holding back.
I lean into her, tilt her head to the side to deepen the kiss, and slide my tongue along hers. The sound of her whimper has me kissing her deeper, devouring her until there’s no breath left inside me.
I don’t want to stop, but I don’t have a choice. I pull away, but I don’t want to go far, so I let my forehead rest against hers. I’m trying to process everything that just happened, and I’m still trying to make sense of it when she disentangles herself from my arms and takes a step back.
The way she’s looking at me makes me want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her inside her apartment to finish what we just started.
But before I can reach for her, she steps to the side and gets into the passenger side of my truck. She’s looking at me expectantly, and I move closer to her. I run my hand through the scruff of my chin. “I have reservations. We’re going to be late.”
She smiles up at me. “So I guess you want to go on this date then.”
I can’t stop the smile from forming on my face. “Yes, I want to go on a date with you.” I leave out the part about everything else I want to do with her.
I lean into my truck, grab the seat belt, and pull it around her to buckle her in. She sucks in a breath. We’re almost nose to nose, and I’d give anything to kiss her again.
From the way she’s looking at me, she wants it too.
I brush my thumb across her cheek. “Just so we’re clear, I want to kiss you again, but if I do, we won’t make our reservation, and I want to take you to dinner.”
She smiles at me, and her voice is a whisper. “You can kiss me when we get there if you want to.”
I groan, thinking that I can just kiss her when I want to. I force myself to pull back, and after making sure she’s inside, I shut her door and then walk around to the driver’s side.
She’s turned her body toward me as I drive us to the restaurant. Her gaze on me makes me hot. She puts her hand on the console between us. “So where are you taking me in Whiskey Run that you had to make a reservation?”
I glance over at her. “The Peddler.”
At that exact moment, her stomach growls, and when she laughs, I laugh with her.
“I guess that makes you happy.”
She puts one hand on her belly. “Yes, I’ve never eaten there. I’m excited.” She leans toward me. “Can I ask you a question, Colter? It’s a personal one, and if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.”
I grip the steering wheel a little tighter. “Yeah, you can ask me.”
She nods. “Okay. Well, I noticed sometimes you have trouble forming words, and?—“
I cut her off. “Stutter. Sometimes, I stutter.”
She flinches at the tone of my voice, and I have to remind myself that she’s not trying to be mean by asking me this question. She’s curious, and I can’t say I blame her.
She reaches over and puts a hand on my arm. “What I’m saying is that I’ve noticed that sometimes you do it and sometimes you don’t.”
I nod. “Yeah, I do.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just wondering why? Is it because of me? Do I make you nervous?”
I suck in a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s not that, really. It’s me. I’m the problem.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t believe that.”
When we roll up on a stop sign, I sneak a peek at her. She’s looking at me expectantly but without judgment on her face. “My therapist says that my stutter is more about what’s going on in my head than anything. And I know she’s right. I’ve noticed if I’m nervous or something, I get caught up in my head and seem to focus on my speech, and that seems to make it worse. The less I think about it, the less I stutter.”
She nods. “So when you were beating up Adam and yelling at him, you weren’t worried at all about your stutter.”
I laugh. “No, I was just trying to make sure I didn’t kill him.”
She gasps. “Kill him?”
I tighten my hold on the steering wheel. “No man should talk to you like that, Poppy.”
She nods, and her cheeks turn red. “I know. Thank you, Colter. I don’t think I —“
I stop her by taking one hand off the steering wheel and wrapping it around hers. “You don’t owe me a thank you.”
“No one’s ever done anything like that for me before.”
I caress my thumb over her soft skin. We’re both lost in thought, and I think we’ve changed the subject until we pull into the parking spot at The Peddler and instead of her getting out, she turns fully toward me. I’m not sure what she is going to say, but I’m nervous about it. “Hey, you can’t fix me, Poppy. There’s no fixing me. This is who I am.”
She opens her mouth and looks at me with surprise. “You think I want to change you? There’s not one thing I’d change about you, Colter. Not one thing. The reason I even brought this all up is because I want you to know that I like you. I like everything about you, and I just wanted you to know that.”
I lean toward her. “I like everything about you too.”
We’re just staring at each other, and I’m about to lean in to kiss her when she puts a hand to my chest. “Feed me, Colter.”
I let out a breath and chuckle. “Okay, stay right there.”
I get out of the truck and walk around to open her door. As we walk into the restaurant, hand in hand, I can’t help but be thankful that I didn’t cancel this date because already I’m having a better time than I have in years.