CHAPTER 23 #2
“I’m a cowboy, Blaire. I’ll eat my eggs however they come.” I shrugged, and the urge to reach out and smooth a bit of her hair out of her face was overwhelming. “If you think I’m going to be upset about a broken yolk, you don’t know me very well.”
Her phone buzzed on the counter, and she lunged for it with a reflex so quick I almost didn’t catch the name that flashed across her lock screen. But I did.
Grant.
A picture of the two of them flashed behind his name, an engagement picture, and it felt like a punch to the gut. I watched her thumb hover over the screen, uncertainty flickering across her face as the phone shuddered in her hand.
She didn’t answer. She quickly sent it to voicemail, and only the faintest tension in her shoulders betrayed her. She set the phone down, face down this time, and glanced at me with a flicker of guilt in her eyes.
“Why is he still calling you?” I asked, and I couldn’t hide the anger in my voice.
“What?” She pretended her attention was solely on the food.
“Why is Grant calling you? What does he want?”
She hesitated, spatula in hand, then shrugged like she’d only just noticed the missed call. “He wants me to talk to him. Or come back to Raleigh and see him.” Her voice was light, almost dismissive, but her hands were tense as she poked at the eggs.
I stared at her back. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“No.” She let out a sigh. “But he and my dad apparently think if they call enough, I’ll…forgive him, and everything will go back to the way it was.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to calm myself down. “You mean to tell me he cheated on you for the last year, and now your dad expects you to forget it happened?”
She pulled the eggs off the burner, cutting the heat, then she finally turned to look at me. “He thinks I’m throwing away an entire life because of one mistake, and I guess I am.” She shrugged, and I wanted to shake her.
“Cheating on you is not a fucking mistake, Blaire.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “I’m here, aren’t I?
” She held my stare until she let out a breath.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, hair veiling her eyes.
“I— My dad keeps telling me to go back, that I owe Grant a conversation, at least. He says this isn’t like me to give up on people.
” She let out a hollow laugh. “He called three times yesterday, and Grant called twice.”
“I’ve always hated him,” I said bluntly.
I’d wanted to teach her to cook eggs, just breathe in the smell of her skin as she stood at my stove. But the words popped out of me.
“Grant?” she asked, her voice smaller than it had been before.
I shrugged, feigning indifference I didn’t feel. “Grant. Your dad. I hate them both.”
She made a noise that was half laugh, half scoff, and set the spatula down. “You never liked my dad.”
“For good reason.” I crossed my arms. “Your dad doesn’t deserve you and neither does Grant.”
She glanced up at me, and there was a flicker of something vulnerable in her eyes. “And you do?”
“I didn’t say that.” I shook my head. Fuck, I knew I didn’t deserve her. I never would.
“Well, they aren’t the biggest fans of yours, either.
” Her hands shook enough for me to notice, and I wanted to reach out and steady her.
“I’d say they definitely wouldn’t be after…
” The way her cheeks flushed pink, blooming up her cheekbones and across the bridge of her nose, made something in me ache.
I forced myself not to move closer, not to touch her, not to make anything harder for either of us.
I wanted to tell her I didn’t give a shit about her father or Grant, not when she was standing here barefoot in my kitchen, hair mussed, and everything about her raw and real in the morning light.
Instead, I took a breath and leaned back against the counter, trying to look casual, even though my heart was pounding.
I lifted my mug and cradled it in my hands so I wouldn’t have to look directly at her. “So, you’ve been talking to him? Grant, I mean.”
She didn’t answer right away, just pressed her palm flat on the counter and stared at me. “I’ve talked to him once since I left. The other day after the bakery.”
Fuck. She answered him because she was angry with me, because I hurt her again.
“And what did you tell him?” I told myself not to push her, but I needed to know if the door to Raleigh was closed or if it was still cracked, waiting for her to slip back through it.
“What?” she breathed, so soft I almost missed it.
I took a step closer, slow enough not to startle her. “When he asked you to come back to Raleigh—” I tried to keep my voice even “—what did you say?”
Her eyes met mine, and there was a flicker of panic underneath. “I told him no.” She said it like a confession, voice stripped raw.
I didn’t know what to do with the relief that crashed through me. It was cold and sharp and left me almost dizzy.
“Good.” I nodded, my eyes dropping to her mouth. My fingers ached to reach for her, to trace the curve where her lip dipped in the center. One step, and I could taste her again. It had been so long since I last kissed her.
“Colt.” The way she said my name was with more conviction than I’d heard from her since she’d been back.
“I don’t want you to go, Blaire.” The words weren’t enough, but they were all I had.
She looked up at me, her eyes suddenly dark and unguarded. “Colt,” she whispered my name again. “About last night?—”
“Yeah?” I said, feeling my heart thundering in my chest. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
“We should forget that it happened. We were drunk.” Her throat worked, but she still hadn’t looked at me. “It shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen again.”
Her words slammed into me, and every muscle in my body went rigid as she stood there, trying to erase what had happened between us with a few careless words.
“Don’t,” I growled. “Don’t you dare blame last night on alcohol when I can still taste your pussy on my tongue.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. Fire sparked there, but it was laced with something raw and desperate. “I got off, Colt. I was wet, and you were there.”
The lie hung between us, and it gutted me how fast we could switch from raw honesty to this. Her eyes refused to meet mine, both of us building walls with every breath, desperate to protect the broken parts we’d exposed to each other.
“That’s why you begged me for it.” I closed the distance between us until her back hit the counter. “That’s why you called my name as you came?”
She flinched, lips parting slightly, but she didn’t push me away. “It doesn’t matter what I said. It was a bad idea, and we both know it.”
I bit down hard on my lip and watched the flush creep up her neck. “You don’t get to rewrite what happened, Blaire. Don’t make it less than what it was because you’re scared.”
She looked up at me, and her eyes blazed with something that made my cock twitch in my shorts. “It should scare you, Colt. What about Ruby? I’m living in your house, for God’s sake.” She tried to step back, but there was nowhere for her to go. “This can’t happen again.”
Maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe the smart thing was to stop it for Ruby, for the ranch, for the small bit of peace I’d found. But looking at her, every argument I’d used to stay safe sounded like a lie. I didn’t want what happened between me and Blaire to be a slipup. I wanted it all.
“The hell it can’t.” I crowded closer, pinning her between my body and the counter. “You think I’m just gonna sit here and pretend I don’t want you?”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.” She raised her chin, but her breathing was rushed and her nipples were hard against her thin shirt.
I leaned down, looking her straight in the eye to make sure she heard me. “That’s not going to happen, Strawberry.”
She turned like she was going to walk away, her ass grazing against me, but I couldn’t let her. Not again.
I caught her wrist in a grip that made her eyes widen, yanking her back against me hard enough her breath left her in a sharp hiss. My fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, pinning her ass against my front. The whimper that fell from her mouth was my undoing.
I dragged my nose up the length of her neck, breathing her in, before I raked my teeth along her skin hard enough to make her gasp and arch into me.
“Colt.” I didn’t know if she was begging me to stop or pleading for more.
I growled against her skin and my hand shot up to grip her jaw, turning her face toward mine, daring her to deny what was happening between us.
Her lips fell open, and the tiniest sound escaped. “We shouldn’t do this,” she whispered, and her breath fanned over my chin.
“I fucking want you.” My thumb traced the line of her jaw. “I need to hear you say that you don’t want this too.”
The whole width of her body shook against mine, and her throat worked as she swallowed. “I can’t.”
My hand slid from her jaw to her throat, fingers pressing into her pulse point where her heartbeat hammered. Something in me snapped. It clicked into place.
Touching her didn’t feel reckless, it felt like resolve. I’d spent years pretending like the risk of Blaire Monroe wasn’t worth it, but she was. I wanted to take the hits, take it slow for both our sakes and for Ruby’s, but I refused to let her go again.
I slammed my mouth against hers, swallowing her gasp as my teeth caught her bottom lip hard enough to make her whimper. She spun to face me, nails digging into my chest.
The kiss was frantic. Her mouth opened beneath mine, desperate and starved, and I fisted her hair at the roots, pulling her head back as she moaned.
Mine.
The thought tore through me as I devoured her, claiming every inch we’d denied each other for too long. She kissed me with a fury matching my own, her hands clawing down my abdomen, dragging me closer until there wasn’t any space left between us.
My heart pounded so loud I swore she could hear it, and it scared the shit out of me how good it felt, how much more dangerous this was than watching her come apart last night.