Chapter 17
COLT
Hallie’s skin was warm under my hands, sun-kissed and soft as I traced the curve of her waist. We were on the top deck of my yacht, but it was summer now. The sun blazed overhead, the sky was impossibly blue, and the ocean stretched endlessly around us.
“Colt,” she breathed, her dark hair spread across the white cushions like silk.
I kissed down her neck, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. She arched into me, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer.
“Please,” she whispered.
My fingers trailed over her nipples before I kissed one, then the other.
Her little gasps and quiet moans encourage me to keep going. The woman wants me as much as I want her.
I moved lower, tasting salt on her skin. Her breath hitched when I kissed her stomach, her hips. Then the inside of each thigh. I loved taking my time. Anticipation was half the fun.
She gasped, her hands tightening in my hair when my mouth kissed right over the part of her that had her body nearly bucking right off the deck.
I’d never heard anything more beautiful than the sounds she was making. Never wanted anything more than to make her fall apart completely.
I ran my tongue across her slit and then worked on the bundle of nerves that had her crying out and thrashing under my face.
I grabbed her hips to hold her in place.
I lapped at her while working two fingers inside her.
I drove her wild over and over until she was begging me to give her the release she desperately needed.
The yacht rocked gently beneath us. The sun beat down. Hallie’s hands, Hallie’s mouth. She was perfect—
The screech of tires shattered the fantasy.
Metal crunching. Glass breaking. A scream cutting off mid-sound.
No. No, not again.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart trying to punch through my sternum. Sweat covered my chest and back. My hair was plastered to my forehead. My hands were shaking.
The room was dark. Wrong. Not the yacht. Not summer.
The hotel. Shelter Island. Winter.
Shit.
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt like they were being crushed, like someone had wrapped iron bands around my chest and was squeezing tighter and tighter.
The images wouldn’t fade.
“Colt?”
A hand touched my chest. I flinched violently, nearly falling out of bed.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.”
Hallie. Right. Hallie was here. In the bed. We’d fallen asleep.
She’d been the little spoon. I’d held her. And then I’d dreamed about her in ways that would make her slap me if she knew, before the dream had turned into the nightmare it always became.
“You’re okay,” Hallie said softly, her hands still on my chest directly over where my heart was pounding. “You were having a nightmare. But you’re awake now. You’re safe.”
The concern in her voice made everything worse. She was looking at me like I was broken, like I needed to be fixed. It was too much. Too familiar. Too much like the way people had looked at me in the weeks after Lauren died.
Like I was fragile. Damaged. Someone to be pitied.
“Get off me,” I hissed.
“Colt—”
“I said get off.” I pushed her hands away and stumbled out of bed, my legs unsteady. “You have no idea what kind of stress I carry. Being Colt Jesson, running a billion-dollar company, living up to my father’s legacy. You don’t—”
I stopped, realizing I was rambling. Saying things I didn’t mean just to push her away.
Hallie sat in the bed, the covers pooled around her waist, her expression hurt and confused. “I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help.” I grabbed a sweatshirt from my bag, pulling it on with shaking hands. “I’m fine. Just a bad dream. Happens to everyone.”
“Colt, that wasn’t just a bad dream. You were—”
“What? What was I?” I turned on her, anger flooding in to fill the space where the fear had been. Anger was easier. Safer. “Go ahead. Say it. I was what?”
She stared at me, and I could see her trying to choose her words carefully. “You seemed really scared. And that’s okay. Everyone has nightmares—”
“I’m not everyone.” I snatched my shoes and shoved my feet inside before I moved toward the door. “And I don’t need you psychoanalyzing me or trying to play therapist or whatever this is.”
“I’m not—”
“I need air. I’m going for a walk.”
“Colt, it’s three in the morning—”
I was already out the door.
The hotel was silent at this hour. Thankfully, the hallways were empty. I walked without direction, just needing to move, to get away from Hallie’s concerned eyes and gentle voice.
Away from the images still playing on repeat in my mind.
I ended up in the lobby, where a lone night attendant looked up from his computer with surprise. “Mr. Jesson? Is everything alright? Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just couldn’t sleep.”
He nodded but didn’t look convinced. I kept walking, pushing through the doors into the cold night air.
Snow was still falling, lighter now but steady. The grounds were blanketed in white, pristine and untouched. I walked down one of the paths, my breath forming clouds in front of me, the cold biting through my sweatshirt.
But I welcomed the cold. It was grounding. Real.
Unlike the nightmare that still clung to my thoughts.
I found myself at a bench overlooking the ocean and sank onto it, not caring that snow immediately soaked through my sweatpants. I closed my eyes and saw her face.
Lauren.
The girl next door. Literally. Her family’s estate had been right next to ours when we were growing up. Our parents had been friends. We’d spent summers together in my pool, winters on ski trips, springs at the country club.
I’d known her my entire life. Had been in love with her since I was fifteen.
She was blonde, athletic, always tan from hours in the sun. But her beauty came from more than just her looks. She was kind. Smart. She got my humor, called me on my bullshit, made me want to be better.
We’d started officially dating senior year of high school. It was easy. We had been friends for so long, dating just came naturally.
But it had become serious. Fast.
By the time we graduated, I knew I wanted to marry her. I was eighteen and stupid and so fucking sure that what we had was forever.
I bought a ring that summer. A small one. I didn’t have much money of my own yet, just my allowance and what I’d saved from summer jobs. But it was real. A promise.
I was going to propose before we went to college. We would graduate, get married, and build a life together. I had it all planned out.
The night I was going to do it, we were at my house. My parents were away. We had the place to ourselves. We spent hours in my room, kissing until our lips were swollen, touching each other with the desperate intensity of two young people in love.
She had to get up early and didn’t want to stay the night. I offered to walk her home, but she laughed at me. Her house was next door. And I was naked in bed. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t even the hundredth time. We had been walking back and forth for most of our lives.
It was safe.
“I love you,” she’d whispered.
“I love you too,” I’d said. “See you tomorrow?”
“Always.”
I was downstairs getting a glass of water when I heard it.
The squeal of tires. The sickening crunch of metal hitting something—someone. The scream that cut off too quickly.
I ran. God, I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life, my heart in my throat, knowing even before I saw. Lauren was in the street. Her body twisted at wrong angles, blood pooling beneath her, her blonde hair matted and dark.
A car was speeding away, taillights disappearing into the night. Hit and run.
I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands hovering over her body, not knowing what to do, where to touch, how to help.
“Lauren,” I choked out. “Lauren, no, please—”
But her eyes were already empty.
Then her parents were there, her mother’s screams splitting the night open. Her father trying to pull me away, trying to check for a pulse that wasn’t there, calling 911 with shaking hands.
I’d thrown up in their bushes. Collapsed on their lawn. Let her father hold me while we both fell apart.
The police came. The ambulance. They covered her with a sheet.
They never found the driver. Drunk, they assumed. Probably didn’t even realize what they’d hit until they sobered up the next morning.
If they realized at all.
I sat on that bench now, all these years later, and felt the nausea rising just like it had that night. Clutched my stomach and tried to breathe through it.
Lauren had been my whole world. My future. My everything.
And in one moment, she was gone.
I’d fallen apart after that. Completely and utterly shattered. Spent weeks in a fog, unable to eat, unable to sleep without seeing her broken body every time I closed my eyes.
My parents had tried to help. Frankie had tried. Friends had tried.
But nothing worked. Nothing made it better.
Eventually, I learned to bury it. To lock it away in a box deep inside myself and pretend it didn’t exist. I threw myself into school, into work, into anything that would keep me from thinking about her.
And into women. So many women.
Because if I never let myself care about anyone, if I never let anyone get close enough to matter, then I’d never have to feel that kind of pain again.
It had worked. For years, it had worked. Until the dreams started coming back.
Until Hallie.
The way Hallie had looked at me tonight like she actually gave a damn if I was okay had terrified me.
Because that was how Lauren used to look at me. With that same softness. That same worry when I was stressed or upset or struggling.
And I couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t let myself care about someone knowing that at any moment, they could be ripped away. I could not live through that hell all over again.
It had nearly killed me the first time. It would definitely destroy me if it happened again.
It was better she think I was heartless than know that my heart had been buried with a girl years ago and I was too scared to try to get it back.
I stared at the water.
“I’m sorry, Lauren,” I whispered to the wind. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The ocean roared back, offering no absolution.
It only offered the harsh reminder that some losses you never really recovered from.
You just learned to live with the gaping wound they left behind.