Chapter Nineteen
What was that noise?
Burying his face in the pillow, Colt scrunched his eyes closed. The sharp tone cut through the quiet again, and he groaned.
“Colt.” Her voice a sleepy growl, Holly pushed at his biceps. “Answer your phone.”
Rolling to his back, he flung out an arm and fumbled for the offending device, swiping his thumb across the screen without opening his eyes. “Hello?”
“Morning, son.” His daddy’s voice rumbled over his ear. “You still in the bed?”
“Yeah.” He blinked. Early morning sunlight cast a golden shimmer on the polished wood of his bedroom floor. What did he mean still? Colt rotated his wrist to look at his watch. “It’s barely seven-thirty.”
On a Friday, when he didn’t have to go to work.
When he’d stayed up late because he’d barely shut the door before she was all over him.
They’d been up half the night because she kept coming back to him, like she couldn’t get enough of him.
Not that he was complaining, with her now-naked curves pressed close to him, her lips against his shoulder, a hand over his heart.
There’d been a raw, unfamiliar emotion, too, in the way she touched him, kissed him, made love with him. He didn’t want to look at it too much because he didn’t want to let himself hope too much.
“Colt?”
Daddy’s voice dragged him back, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, sir?”
“I said, can you pick up your grandaddy this morning?”
“This morning?”
A long-suffering sigh traveled over the line. Colt didn’t react – he loved D, but being woken up on a rare day off? Pfft. “For the golf course.”
Colt shook his head. His parents lived on the course, and D wanted him to pick Grandaddy up? Still, he’d do just about anything for the old man. Even crawl out of this bed he really didn’t want to leave because of who was in it, of how she made him feel.
“Yeah.” He scuffed a hand down his face. “I can pick him up.”
“He wants to leave by eight-fifteen. Make sure you’re on time.”
Make sure he was on time? Colt held the phone in front of his face and scowled at the screen. When was he ever late for anything? D obviously had him confused with Chuck.
“I’ll be early.” He’d have to push it because he had to clean up and drive all the way back to–
His thoughts scattered under Holly’s light questing touch along the lower line of his pecs. He caught her hand, stilling her playful caress.
“I’ll be early,” he repeated, voice strangling in his throat as she shifted against him, kissing the side of his neck. “Let me go so I can get moving.”
The call beeping to an end, he dropped the phone on the nightstand with a clatter. Gentle teeth closed on his skin, sensation shuddering through him, and he chuckled, cupping her head, shining hair sifting through his fingers like silk.
“I don’t have time.” He shifted away, even as he pressed her head closer to the curve of his throat. “I have to shower and shave and pick up Gene.”
Spend the day on the golf course with the men he loved best, even though one hated him.
Hard for his gut to tense up, though, when she rubbed teasing little circles over his abdomen.
“Use your electric razor.” She murmured the breathless words over his heart, shoving the covers back and straddling his thighs, his very interested hard-on brushing the smooth, bare skin of her stomach. She kissed down the center of his torso. “Take your coffee in the truck.”
“It’ll have to be—” Lush lips closed around him with no warning, and fast strangled in his throat, transforming to a harsh groan.
He bowed without thought, thrusting up, fingers scrabbling in her hair while his lungs tried to restart.
A hand wrapped around the base of him, she laughed, the sound vibrating over him with her tongue.
His lashes fell, his entire body centered on the wet wickedness of her mouth as she took him apart. “Lord, Holly.”
Her hand brushed his knee, her thighs widening across his shins. Holy . . . she was touching herself while she went down on him. With his eyes shut, the visual centers of his brain reeled out images of what that looked like, and damn, he was hanging a mirror in here for sure.
Heat and wet pressure merged with the scissoring of her thighs, with the quiet sounds of her arousal vibrating over him, with the firm grip of her palm jacking him while she sucked him. Lord help him.
The climax slammed through him, racing from the base of his spine to his skull, tingling from his balls to become helpless spasms, his hand clenched in her hair while pleasure tore a rough yell from his throat.
He had a dim awareness of her body going taut against his, of the shuddering moan she made when she came, then she plastered herself to his front, arms folded about his head, kissing his neck, his cheek, his jaw.
Gasping for air his lungs couldn’t quite hold, he felt her smile against his skin. “Good morning, Colton.”
“Yeah.” The rasp emerged shaky and breathless. He rubbed her hair, his gut jerking and trembling in the aftermath. “Good’s one way to put it.”
With her gently-curvy self soft and languorous atop him, she lifted her head, blue eyes sparkling with mischief and glee, with affection and something more evocative. “I love rendering you speechless.”
“Yeah?” He managed another inhale. “I kinda love when you leave me speechless.”
Dropping another kiss on his neck, she wriggled off him. “We need to jump in the shower so you’re not late to pick up Gene and I’m not late to meet Mona.”
“Yep.” Not that he wanted to move right now. Staying in bed with her all day sounded good, not to mention much more pleasurable than having Tick ignore him for hours while Colt tried to pretend everything was okay. A lick of unreasonable anger stirred to life below his navel.
Lamar didn’t owe him anything, but damn. How long did he have to atone for one drunken mistake?
Someone blackout drunk can’t consent.
He shied from that. She’d been drunk, reeking of the rum soaking her shirt, so what did that make him?
The guy who didn’t deserve a chance to atone for anything.
“Colt?” Sitting cross-legged beside him, sunlight gilding her curves, she stroked a hand over his belly.
“I gotta get moving.” He jackknifed to sit up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You know how Gene is.”
“I do.” Her soft, questioning tone grated down his spine.
He straightened, shrugging off the sensation.
She cared about him, and she wasn’t to blame for his past decisions and the fallout.
He needed to find a way to keep his bullshit separate from them — she’d been hurt enough and he didn’t want to add to that.
“Come on.” His voice was gruff, but that could be put down to a brain-stunning orgasm. He cleared his throat. “Let’s clean up so I don’t have to listen to Gene fuss and you can go pretend you’re still a virgin for your mama.”
“You’re hilarious.” Her light tone said he hadn’t quite covered his stress and guilt, but she was letting it pass. Relief bled out in a silent sigh. He didn’t want to fight this morning. He just needed to hold it together.
That was all.
True to his word — when he gave D a promise, he tried to keep it — he pulled into Gene and Louise’s driveway at ten after eight, his hair a tad damp still, the electric shave not quite as close as a wet one.
Gene’s clubs waited on the porch, and he set them in the back with his own.
His heart lightened as he approached the side door — Louise loved him hard, without reservation, and feeling bad in her presence was impossible.
About like he felt in Holly’s presence.
His brain nibbled around the edges of that, like the sensation held something important and enriching, but he couldn’t chase that down this morning. He needed his focus on keeping himself together.
Rapping a knuckle on the glass, he pushed open the door, aromas of rich coffee and savory breakfast casserole engulfing him. His mouth watered even as his stomach rebelled at the idea of food, coffee and acid pushing into his esophagus.
Constant stress really was a bitch.
“Colt.” Louise beamed at him and rose from the table to hug him, red hair a fluffy cloud about her shoulders.
She was still in her cotton pajamas and silk robe, but Gene finished off his breakfast, already dressed for the golf course.
She hugged him hard, kissing his cheek and rubbing his back. “Are you hungry?”
“No, ma’am.” Not for food anyway. Unconditional affection? Well, that was another story, always was. He held on tight, eyes squeezed shut. She always filled up the barren places in him, and days stretched between these hugs. He saved them up, banking them for the lonely hours in between.
Holly had started filling those spaces, pouring light and laughter into the dark cracks and crevices, like the way he could pour a shining river of epoxy into a cracked slab of knotty cypress or cedar.
“If you want something, dish it up for the road.” Gene wiped his mouth then rose to take his dishes to the dishwasher. “Our tee time is at nine, and we still have to pick up your cousin.”
His cousin? He had five, three of whom golfed. His intuition tingled to life, leaving him with a really bad feeling about this. “Which one?”
Gene topped off his travel mug with coffee he probably was supposed to skip because of his cholesterol levels. “Lamar. He wants to leave the Jeep with Caitlin.”
Fuck.
Colt scuffed a hand over his nape, skin hot and itchy beneath his fingertips. “He has his old Ford.”
“No reason for him to get it out if we can run him with us.” Gene fixed him with a level look over the rim of his mug. Louise watched him, too, love and concern softening her gaze.
Shit.
Fuck.
Hell.
Tick, in Colt’s truck. Distaste shuddered over him. How the everlovin’ heck were they even going to get Tick in the truck? Because he wasn’t going to want to ride with Colt.
“Sooner or later, you two boys are going to have to get past what’s wrong between you.” Gene brooked no argument. “Act like the men you are.”