Chapter Thirteen
Colt woke to early morning dimness, the mercury light dancing with the shadows of wind-ruffled leaves on the wall, competing with the first glow of the rising sun.
Holly was warmth tucked along his spine, her thighs and knees fit to his, her arm over his waist, hand splayed on his belly beneath his navel.
Sweet magnolia and orange blossom blended with sunshine and fresh air, wrapping around him like his sheets wrapped them up.
He was hard, a combination of having her pressed near and the lazy caress of her fingertips swept along the sensitive skin between his obliques.
His balls and belly heavy with arousal, he stretched.
Her hand drifted lower, beneath the band of his boxers, playing with the upper line of his pubic hair, tracing the crease where his thigh met his groin, leaving weighted anticipation in the wake of her touch.
Gentle fingers swept along his hard-on, a wave of sensation singing along his nerves, and he shuddered, a hiss escaping between his teeth. Her drowsy laugh shimmered over his shoulder blade.
He laid his hand over hers, pressing her to a firmer touch. “Lord, that feels good.”
So good that giving in would be easy. He wanted to, but he had that whole rule about not making the same mistake twice.
Sketching a caress over her wrist, he rolled to his back, dislodging her touch. Still on her side, she propped on her elbow. He caught a stray lock of golden hair and wrapped the silky strands around his finger.
“The only place Tyler and I really got anything right was in bed, and that didn’t last long.
” Her little jolt of surprise vibrated through him.
Probably real smart of him to be bringing this up while they were in bed, but her pained honesty about her insecurity in Andy’s driveway had gutted him.
He meant to give her what she needed, from this point onward.
“We went there too fast, so we didn’t see everything we couldn’t get right. ”
Her fingertips landed against his ribs, a light brush of skin on skin. “And you think we’d be the same?”
“I already know we’re better.” He covered her hand, rubbing his thumb over her wrist. “But I learned from that, how a strong initial physical attraction can hide things.”
The feathery touch of her finger along his rib transformed to a poke. “I don’t really want to listen to you talk about being strongly attracted to her.”
“About like I don’t like to hear you say you love Barlow.”
“Loved.” She placed a hard emphasis on the past tense, and a smile pulled at his mouth.
“Anyway.” He gave the smooth lock a gentle tug. “We have more to build on. I mean, how long have we been friends?”
She rested her temple on her fist, and even in the dimness, he could make out the teasing note in her smile. “I suppose you’re going to say since we were analysis partners junior year? Newsflash, Colton, you were absolutely my nemesis on some of those texts.”
“I was not.” She was hyperbolic, for sure.
Her nemesis? More like her ally because she came up with the most convoluted analyses and his sorry ass produced the evidence to back her up.
Innate honesty and the need to shore up her security in him prodded at him, and he swallowed hard, preparing himself to jump, about like that time he and his cousins had scaled the lime pit walls and leapt into the swim hole.
If he remembered correctly, that had been Will’s harebrained idea, goading Tick into it, and then Colt had jumped with him, sure they’d bust their heads and kill their fool selves.
He cleared his throat. “So I wasn’t fair to Tyler. ”
Her brows dipped into a delicate frown. “What are you talking about?”
“We got in pretty fast after we met, but the hot and heavy was already cooling off about the time Tick came home from Texas and told Aunt Lenora about his kid and her mama.”
The vee between her brows cut deeper. “Colt, you are not making sense. What does that have to do with anything?”
He scuffed a hand through his hair, then folded his arm behind his head. Geez, his throat wanted to close up, hold back the words making him naked and vulnerable. “I know him. If he was telling his mama he was with her, that meant something.”
Silence hung between them, heavy and loaded, like the twist of nerves in his belly.
He cleared his throat again. “And it meant he wasn’t with you.”
“Oh, my Lord.” With a huff and an eye roll, she flopped to her back beside him. She puffed her bangs out of eyes. “Do you know how old that mess is—”
“Holly, you’re not listening to me.” He kept his voice patient, despite how it wanted to shake. He was laying himself out here, and she was off in old resentment. “I tried, but I couldn’t be what Tyler wanted. And once I had an inkling you weren’t with him—”
“Colt.”
“All I could think about was whether that might mean eventually you’d look at me.” He clenched his hand, then flexed his fingers, working out the tension. “You didn’t. Now I get why. Anyway, I’d let the idea of you and me go, but the way I felt meant the idea of Tyler and me had to go, too.”
She stilled next to him, then rolled to her side in an explosion of movement. “Are you telling me you had feelings for me a year ago?”
Holy hell. He hadn’t been this tied in knots since .
. . well, probably that Christmas a couple of years ago when he and Tick ended up alone in the laundry room at Grandma and Grandaddy’s, packing up the house for their move to Orlando.
He’d opened his mouth a couple of times, I’m sorry on his tongue, but the unyielding wall of Tick’s back turned to him had smothered the impulse each time.
At least he had hope this might turn out better.
“Yeah.”
She didn’t have to know it was longer than a year. He didn’t have to open that up, admit how long he’d made himself not look at her because he’d believed she belonged to his cousin.
“Colton.” Yeah, he could totally read that tone. Was she pleased? Horrified? What? “And you didn’t say anything?”
He scoffed. “Yeah, sure. I was gonna just roll up in the vet’s office and go, ‘Hey, Hols, let’s you and me give it a shot.’ Right.”
“You dumbass.” She landed a punch on his shoulder, hard enough to jar him.
“Hey.” He rubbed at the spot. “That is not okay.”
“You dumbass.” Her voice shook. “I wasted a year, trying to change . . . and we could have been together? I would have loved to hear that from you.”
“Pfft.”
She shot to an upright position. “Don’t you dare negate what I’m telling you.”
“Holly.” He injected a hefty dose of warning in her name. She wasn’t going to play with him about this.
Sitting cross-legged, she clasped her hands in her lap. “So me and Scott.”
Oh, shit. Tension crawled up his neck. Listening to her wax poetic about the asshole lawyer defined his worst nightmare.
“I want a family. He doesn’t.” She brushed her tousled bangs to the side. “Polo was my compromise, trying to see if I could be satisfied without having kids.”
Biting the inside of his cheek, he eyed her. She fiddled with her clasped fingers, chewing on her bottom lip. He reached up to stop that with a finger, caressing the reddened flesh.
“I get that life happens and even if he agreed to having children, we might not be able to.” She blew out a slow breath.
“But really? It wasn’t about the baby issue at all.
It was about me being the one who’d make all the compromises, and I don’t want to live like that.
Mama tried it, and there’s no way I’m going down the same road. ”
“It took you years to figure that out?”
“Hope springs eternal.” She shrugged. “I did love him, Colt. Giving up what I hoped for . . . yes, that took a while because I turned waiting for him into a toxic habit.”
Her sigh vibrated on the quiet air.
“So if you’d walked in the clinic and said, ‘Hey, Hols, let's you and me give it a shot,’ I’d have been thrilled.” Her knuckles glowed pale as she ground her fingers together. “Because I’d have had something so much better to hope for.”
“Well, hell, Hols.” Now he felt like a dumbass, loss a painful constriction in his throat. He understood better than most how lost time couldn’t be made up. He had years of it.
“I’m not going to be distracted by sex between us.” A smile trembled at her lips and disappeared. “Because I already know what we can have would be good and strong. Because I know you, probably better than I ever knew Scott.”
He scuffed at his hair again. “Did love him?”
“Did.” Her smile lit up the dim bedroom. “Definitely past tense.”
Flexing his arms above his head, he cracked his knuckles, running his tongue over his teeth. “Huh.”
“You and that ‘huh.’” Her expression softened, and she slid down into the bed, cotton rustling, arms framing his neck. “Amazing you can express so many ideas in a monosyllable.”
“I’m a man of few words.” He dared to trail a fingertip down her spine. “But also a man of action.”
“Action, he says.” She laughed, the sultry sound bubbling between them. “Mr. Let’s-Take-It-Slow.”
“Heard it from Gene and D all my life.” He traced along her hip, beneath the hem of his blue shirt. The way they were going, every shirt he owned would be at the dry cleaners this week. “A man’s got to know when to take his time.”
The slight hitch in her breath vibrated into him. She curled her fingers about his neck, stroking beneath his ears, sending a shiver down his spine to his balls. “You’re a tease, Colt Calvert.”
“Look who’s talking, Holly Callahan.” He shifted to drift a finger down the neckline of his shirt, resting on the top button, barely brushing the soft skin between her breasts. He buried his other hand in her hair, holding her glittering gaze with his own. “Naked except for my shirt, in my bed.”
He murmured the last against her lips, tasting her, his nostrils full of sweet magnolia and orange blossom.