Chapter Six
W hen they woke up the next morning, they were tangled in each other. Colton had never slept with somebody all night before. Having Lily naked and wrapped around him was a surprise. A good one. It was Christmas Eve, and the roads hadn’t opened up yet. The storm had, however, moved toward the coast, and when he got out of bed and looked out the window, he saw snow. On the beach.
“Look at that,” he said.
She stirred and got out of bed, and for a moment, all his attention was on her. On her body. On how beautiful she was.
“What?”
“Snow on the beach,” he said.
“Weird,” she said, getting out of bed and making her way to the window.
He turned and looked at her. “Yeah. But fucking beautiful.”
He mostly meant her. Even though the scene out there was stunning, it was nothing compared to Lily.
He grasped for the hurt he normally felt when he looked at her, because it was a talisman. A good one. One that served as a reminder for why he couldn’t afford to have too many feelings. One that served as a reminder of what he was. Except, he had basically bled all his guts out to her last night, and she had still gone to bed with him. She was still here.
“Let’s get some coffee and go for a walk,” he said.
She lay back across the bed for a moment, stretching, and his heart lifted. Along with other things. She was so damned beautiful. He wanted her again.
But that was the problem. He had always wanted her. Wanting her was nothing new.
Having her, now that was an interesting turn of events.
He didn’t know how to have her, that was the thing. For now, for this couple of days, maybe. But he was a tangle of dysfunction in his soul. And...
He would never make the mistake of believing everything was going to be okay again when it just wasn’t going to be.
It just couldn’t be.
Because that wasn’t how life worked. You didn’t get infinite good things. He had tricked himself into believing that back when he had been young. Like his luck had changed, his fortune altering itself entirely, which meant he would get everything. He had gotten a family, why not falling in love? Yeah. Well. He knew better than that now.
He didn’t do wild, reckless hope.
It didn’t end well.
He didn’t want to know where his mother was. He didn’t want to know how this ended.
This was going to be complicated. Because he didn’t know how he was supposed to go back to not knowing how it felt to be inside of her. He had downplayed that last night, but he was good at downplaying how he felt.
Just detach. You know how to do that.
But he couldn’t seem to do it right now. Right now he felt too much; right now he felt everything.
“I’m cozy,” she said.
“You’ll live,” he said, reaching down and picking her up around the waist, bringing her naked body up against his. “I can warm you back up.”
“After the walk,” she said.
He saw something like fear dancing through her eyes, and he wondered if she was trying to sort out how all this was going to end too.
Not the most pleasant thought process. But hell. What did you do about that?
They both dressed and walked out of the house. He looked up and saw that the snow was still falling. The sound of the waves was crashing in the distance. It was surreal. But then, the whole thing was. Being here with her.
He took her hand, and the two of them walked down the path that led to the sand.
Their feet sank in deep, a couple inches of snow, a couple inches of sand. The snow faded away where the waves touched the shore, but back further, the gray sand was covered in bright white.
“What the hell does this mean?” he asked. He hadn’t realized he had asked it out loud. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant to marvel at it at all.
“What do you mean?”
“Well...” He cleared his throat. “It’s a thing Buck talks about a lot. Watching for signs. Listening to your gut. I don’t know. It sounds dumb and mystical when I say it. When he does it, it kinda makes sense. He says you have to always look around you. Figure out what the world is trying to tell you. I never did that, not when I was younger, because I was just trying to survive. I was just reacting. I wasn’t... You don’t pay attention to signs and wonders and all that shit when you’re just running from a monster on your heels all day every day. But Buck made me try to be more mindful. Pay attention. Snow on the beach. It’s weird. Unusual. And so was this, between us. I just wondered if it was something I needed to pay attention to.”
He thought about his mom. How last night was the first time he had thought of her in a while. The first time he’d talked about her. He wondered if this was a sign from her.
If that meant she was gone.
Or if he was supposed to look.
He had never really considered that he had something to give his mom. Not until Lily had said what she did. That perhaps knowing someone had loved her unconditionally all these years could make a difference to her.
Or maybe he was just supposed to be here with Lily. But he didn’t know to what end.
She took his hand, her fingers laced gently with his, the kind of touch he hadn’t had much in his life. Something sweet. Not demanding. A connection.
They walked along in silence. Until he thought something inside of him was going to burst. Then he turned to her and kissed her. Right there on the beach. He didn’t care if anybody saw, but there was nobody out there with them anyway.
He held her close, kissed her deep. Until they were both gasping for air.
Then he walked with her, in their own footsteps, back up to the house. He brought her inside and walked upstairs with her, turned on the shower. “I’m going to make good on my promise keep you warm,” he said.
He stripped his shirt off, the rest of his clothes.
She looked at him, her eyes filled with a kind of bashful hunger he found intoxicating.
As the water warmed, he went and grabbed a condom. Then he stripped her bare. He brought the condom into the shower with them, and she gazed at it wide-eyed.
“Oh come on,” he said.
“I don’t know. This seems like a really good way to die. And I don’t really want to have to explain it to my mom.”
“Well, in fairness, if you’re dead, you don’t have to explain it to your mom.”
She choked a laugh. “I guess. But it’s going to end up being news. It’ll be on the internet.”
“Have a little faith in me. In my skill set.”
He moved the water over her soft skin, aroused her until all objections were lost. Her hands slick, gliding over his body, pushed him to a whole new place. One he’d never been to before. And he could talk about his skill set all he wanted, but this was uncharted territory for him. The feelings.
He pressed her against the wall and kissed her, moved his hands between her legs until she was crying out his name. And then he took hold of the condom, tore it open and rolled it over his hard length. He positioned himself between her thighs, lifted her up and pushed slowly inside of her.
She let her head fall back, but then forward, her eyes fluttering open. “Colton,” she said.
His name on her lips like that, it set a fire off inside of him. Ignited something.
He was wild then, pushing them both to the brink. There were no skills here. It was just brute, driving need. And nothing else.
It was just all these years of wanting her and not having her. All these years of wishing it was her with him. Her and no one else.
His whole body felt raw with that realization.
You’re always wishing for someone who isn’t there.
He felt like that truth tore him open. Exposed the ugly part of his detachment.
He was holding on to himself, to his heart, to all the pieces inside of him, because he was never with the person he missed the most.
He was able to care for Buck. He cared for his brothers.
But there were parts of himself he held on to ferociously because he missed his mother.
Because whatever woman he had in bed with him wasn’t Lily.
Love could be so painful.
And it felt significant to have this realization. With her, with the snow, with everything. Like it was meant to be. Because there shouldn’t be snow here, and there shouldn’t be snow on the roads, and he shouldn’t be in the shower with his stepsister, but all those things were true, and they were happening.
There was no should . There was just this.
He was pretty damned cynical sometimes. He made a study of it. But he couldn’t be cynical about this.
Worse, he didn’t want to be.
He wanted to feel.
She clung to his shoulders, shouted out her climax, and he followed behind her. It wasn’t only physical pleasure, it was something more. Something deeper. Something that left him feeling scarred. Ravaged.
And he wanted to feel it. The pleasure, the pain, all of it.
He wanted this.
He wanted it. But he didn’t want to look too far ahead.
But he didn’t know what to do with any of it, so he just clung to her.