CHAPTER 18
COLT
I couldn’t blame her for being upset about Chelsey, but hell if I didn’t have my own reasons to be pissed at her.
Every time I tried to sort through my thoughts, they snagged on each other like barbed wire.
She had brushed past me without a glance this morning at the bakery, and she had been avoiding me since that first night she came here.
Since that night in the hallway when I’d almost taken things too far.
But I could still feel the way her body pressed against mine and her soft gasp when my hand found her throat.
The memory alone made my cock strain painfully in my jeans.
She could act indifferent now, but I’d seen the truth written across her face that night.
Her body yielded in all the ways her words wouldn't.
And if Ruby hadn’t interrupted us when she did, I would’ve crossed every line, would’ve ripped through every boundary between us, consequences be damned.
“A lapse in judgment,” she’d called me. Like I was just another mistake, no different from the asshole who'd cheated on her after he’d asked her to be his wife. Her voice had been so flat when she said it, like his infidelity was nothing more than a minor inconvenience she’d already forgotten.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to slam her against the wall, beg her for everything until her stubborn mouth yielded beneath mine, until her breath came in ragged gasps against my lips.
I wanted her to see how fucked up what he did to her was, to obliterate every memory of that worthless asshole who hurt her.
And I wanted to erase my own sins too, to burn away the years of regret with the heat of her skin against mine.
I ached for her with a hunger that silenced reason.
I should’ve gone to bed and let this obsession with her strangle out in the dark, but the heat spreading through my body was unbearable.
I shoved my phone into my pocket, yanked open the fridge so hard bottles rattled, and grabbed a beer.
I tried to breathe as I twisted off the cap, the muscles in my forearm tensing with each turn.
I needed air.
I cracked Ruby’s door open one last time, watching her small chest rise and fall, then slipped outside with my pulse hammering so loud I could barely hear the door click shut behind me.
The chains groaned beneath my weight as I dropped onto the porch swing. My skin burned despite the night chill, each breath rushing out of me while the lake’s silver surface mocked the chaos inside me with its perfect stillness. I dug my fingers into my thigh and told myself to chill the fuck out.
Blaire wasn’t mine, not anymore, and I had no right to get this worked up over a girl who was likely to leave again when she realized this town still had nothing for her.
I tried to tell myself this was nostalgia, the same kind of ache that came when you smelled freshly cut grass and remembered the nights of your childhood with fireflies and laughter.
I’d convinced myself a thousand times I was over her, and that whatever we’d once had was dead and buried beneath years of separation and hurt. We had been kids then. It wasn’t real; it wasn’t anything more than two people who were young, reckless, and infatuated with one another.
But that was bullshit, and even now I could feel the lie crawling beneath my skin.
I told myself I was angry for Ruby’s sake; that I didn’t want Blaire flitting in and out of my daughter’s life, making promises she couldn’t keep. But if I was honest, if I stripped it all the way back, I didn’t want Blaire to slip through my fingers again.
And that scared the hell out of me. The way I’d wanted her when we were kids was one thing, but the way I wanted her now, with Ruby asleep inside, was a fault line running under my whole life.
I drank half the beer in a single pull and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The cold bottle sweated against my palm, anchoring me to the here and now, but my mind kept drifting to her no matter how hard I tried.
The thought of her leaving again made me sick, and I turned away from the lake, facing the long driveway snaking off into the trees. The light over the path cast everything in yellow, and beyond it, the world was black and infinite.
I forced myself to breathe in and out through clenched teeth and listened to the night. The water lapped at the dock, the wind rattled through the leaves, and finally, the sound of tires against gravel hit me.
Headlights swept a slow arc over the shadowed porch. I watched them crawl closer, engine humming low beneath the hush of crickets, and every nerve in my body went tight with anticipation.
I didn’t move. I sat on the porch swing and watched her approach.
Her car rolled to a stop at the edge of the gravel, her headlights spilling across the front of my house, and for a moment, nothing happened.
She sat there, hands on the steering wheel, her outline barely visible through the windshield’s glare.
I wondered if she saw me waiting, if she could feel the way I watched her. I took another pull from the bottle, the taste bitter, and forced myself to keep still.
Blaire finally killed the engine and opened her car door. The porch light hit her as she stepped into the cool night. She stood there, uncertainty clouding her face, before squaring her shoulders and heading my way.
She was so goddamn beautiful.
Every step she took closer to the door made my breath catch behind my ribs, and by the time she reached the first porch step, I was barely holding myself together.
She fumbled for the railing, and even the way she breathed, tight, shallow, and defiant, told me she’d been rehearsing this confrontation all the way up the drive. She still hadn’t looked my way, hadn’t realized that I was here, and she almost reached the door before I forced myself to speak.
“Did you have fun?”
She jumped at the sound, flinched so hard her hand flew to her chest, and I instantly regretted not warning her that I was sitting here in the dark.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she heaved, looking from me back to the door.
But instead of backing down, she crossed her arms, a smirk already forming at the corner of her mouth. She looked me straight in the eye, her gaze clear and unblinking.
“Oh no. Am I in trouble?” she said, her voice low and teasing. “Never had the whole daddy waiting on the porch thing before.”
The word “daddy” from her lips hit me like a live wire, the syllables vibrating between us, and I forgot how to breathe.
I watched Blaire’s lips as if she might say it again, as if the sound itself could break me open and bring me to my knees.
My fist tightened around the bottle until I thought the glass might shatter, and I shifted in the swing, suddenly too aware of how close she was.
“Don’t call me daddy unless you want me to put you on your knees.” The words came out on a growl.
Blaire froze, and I watched her eyes widen while the pink flush on her cheeks spread right before my eyes. She blinked once, twice, and then her mouth opened like she was going to fire back but nothing came.
One hand curled tight around the strap of her bag, and she looked right at me as the threat and the promise of what I’d said pooled at our feet.
I watched her throat work as she swallowed hard, and I wondered if her mind, like mine, was replaying the last time I’d had her on her knees.
The velvet scrape of her tongue, the desperate way I wrapped my hands in her hair, the way she looked up at me like she’d never trusted anyone more in all her life.
She licked her lips, hesitated, and then she let out a shaky breath. “You can’t say things like that to me.”
Neither of us moved. The night air pulsed between us, crickets and cicadas fading to the background as silence stretched. I could see her pulse flutter in her throat, and I shifted on the swing, the chains creaking.
“Why not?” I cocked my head, voice low. “You started it.”
She rolled her eyes, but the flush in her cheeks only deepened.
“Grow up, Colt. You don’t get to say things like that because this—” she motioned back and forth between us.
“—isn’t a thing. The only reason I agreed to stay here was because you said we could be adults and this wasn’t complicated.
So don’t make it complicated.” She paused, swallowing hard and staring straight into me.
“What happened between us was in the past. You don’t want me, and I don’t want you. ”
She wanted to play it cool, act like I hadn’t gotten under her skin, but I’d seen it in the bakery. I saw how she’d lost her composure when Chelsey touched me, the way her hands had shaken when she stormed out.
I waited silently, until she looked away, blinking hard in the dark.
“You know,” I said, letting the words drag between us, “for someone who doesn’t want me, you did a hell of a job today acting jealous.”
Her mouth twisted, and she turned back, eyes glaring. “I wasn’t jealous,” she snapped. “But you know how much I hate Chelsey, you know how mean she was to me before?—”
Before she left.
I stood up, the swing clanging behind me, and her whole body tensed. “So you’re telling me you stormed off because of Chelsey? Not because she put her hands on me right in front of you?”
Her hands dropped to her sides, fists balling. “You’re such an asshole sometimes,” she whispered, her voice holding the slightest tremor.
I stepped in, closing the space between us, close enough for the scent of her to wrap around me.
“You think I give a single fuck about Chelsey or any other girl in this county? Do you really think I would ever be with someone who ever hurt you like that? You got pissed at me today for no reason.” I searched her eyes, and there was so much vulnerability there, so much hurt.
I knew exactly why Chelsey had set her off, because I felt it every time I thought about Grant.
“But what pisses me off, Blaire, is thinking about you.”
She bristled, but I was already burning through whatever restraint I had left.
“I can’t stop thinking about him, that worthless asshole who had you.” The words tore from my throat. “He cheated on you. That undeserving prick had you in his bed, had the right to touch you, had his goddamn ring on your finger, and he had the audacity to look at someone else.”
She jerked her gaze away, color draining from her face.
“He had every single part of you, the parts that haunt me in the dark when I can’t sleep, and he treated you like you weren’t enough.”
Her breath rushed out of her, and she blinked hard as she looked back at me, her eyes watery and furious. “That’s none of your business, Colt. You also treated me like I wasn’t enough.”
Her words should have been a wall, a clear boundary I wouldn’t cross, but all they did was set me on fire.
I took another step forward, close enough now that the light from inside the house glinted off her cheek, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin and to catch the slight quiver of her lips as she looked up at me.
“Maybe I did.” My jaw ticked as I looked at her.
“But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to kill the bastard.
I’m not the same kid I was when I told you to leave, when I let the world have a say in who we became.
I have a daughter now, Blaire. I have this entire life.
” I lifted my hand and motioned to the house and property around us.
“And none of it stops me from caring about you. You may not want me, but let’s get real fucking clear that I have never stopped wanting you. ”
I leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to turn her face, to step back, to stop me before I did something I’d regret. But she didn’t move. When my forehead touched hers, she closed her eyes, and we stood there, suspended between the past and the present.
My body ached with the need to close that final inch between us, to taste her again after all these years. The wanting crashed through me, and in that moment, I saw it clear as day. We were gasoline and matches, a collision that would leave nothing but a trail of ashes behind.
“Go inside, Blaire,” I said, my voice rough with everything I was holding back as I took the slightest step away from her. “Before I stop pretending I’ve got any restraint left where you’re concerned.”
She looked up at me. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
I met her eyes, and the raw vulnerability there gutted me.
Her breathing was shallow and quick, her entire body trembling with the same violent need that was tearing me apart from the inside.
But beneath the desire, I caught a flash of something that froze me in place.
I recognized that look. I’d put it there once before, when I shattered everything between us.
And tonight I’d prodded it again with my mouth and my temper. If I crossed that last inch between us, she would let me have everything, but when the morning came, she’d regret it.
“Go inside,” I repeated, my voice dropping to a guttural command that scraped my throat raw. She held my gaze, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Then she turned and fled through the doorway, and I forced myself not to follow.