Chapter 7 #2
Then I took a much needed look in the mirror. Colton was a gentleman, only putting love bites where they wouldn’t be visible in clothes. He cared about me. He respected what we had. He really was the best kind of man.
I still wanted him. It was selfish of me. He’d be better off if I let him go, if I lied and said it wasn’t real, that we didn’t matter.
But I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I wanted to spend a week in bed with him. Memorize every little trimmed hair on his chest, every freckle on his shoulders.
With trembling hands, I opened the bathroom door, finding him waiting on the other side with some clothes for brunch in his hand and a pained expression.
I was so many things at once: happy we got to see each other, sad it was ending, and wanting him so badly it hurt. I hadn’t put my dress back on, instead holding it in front of me.
“One last time?” I croaked out.
He shook his head, lips pursing. “No.”
I nodded feebly, looking away from him and starting to shake out the dress. “Okay. Sure.”
His voice was low. Even. Deceptively calm. “It’s not the last time, because I can’t let you go. We can make this work.”
I winced and clutched the material in my hands. “You have to. You have to let me go.”
His jaw popped, forward and back, forward and back. His eyes floated from my feet, up my legs, to the dress in my hands. His nostrils flared and his chest puffed.
“Fine.” Colton stepped forward, pace by pace toward me. “Last time today. Because mark my words, Vi: this is not the end of us.”
He pushed his underwear down and kicked them away at his feet. Then his finger hooked into the fabric balled in my hands and ripped it from me. Peach chiffon sailed toward the hotel room door.
I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want this to end, but I knew in my heart it had to. “It might be.”
“Tell me again it’s just your work. Tell me it’s just your parents,” he gritted out, eyes wild. I wasn’t afraid of him, of his intensity. He was mad at the situation, not me. “If that’s really true, say it.”
Adrenaline made me tremble. We both knew there was more to it, but neither of us knew what it was.
I had some idea, and it had to do with that hole in my memory.
But with my work where it was at the moment, I feared opening that memory would be the ultimate distraction.
My mom’s voice from that morning after the memory I couldn’t access rang in my head.
You’d do better to forget about it. It never happened.
I didn’t have time to unpack it.
“I don’t know.”
A thousand emotions flashed over Colton’s face, but the most crushing of all was the devastating sadness. The happy-go-lucky guy I knew was gone, replaced by some shell of a human. The darkness was coming for him, and it was because of me.
My next words were true.
“But I want you.” I focused on his eyes while mine watered, words caught in my throat to the point that I’d stopped breathing. On a gulp of air, I spoke. “I loved you.”
A guttural growl tore from Colton’s throat as he closed the space between us. I raised on my toes, the tile below my feet warm from how long I’d been rooted to that spot. His fingers sank into the hair at the nape of my neck, a gentle restraint keeping him from pulling too hard.
“I loved you, Violet. I fucking loved you.”
“I loved you,” I repeated against his lips.
He nipped my lower lip and I retaliated, his pained groan a little too satisfying.
His mouth dropped to my neck, nibbling, biting, stroking with his tongue.
His palm scraped down my belly until his fingertip met my clit.
“You’re dripping for me, Violet. Don’t even try to lie and say you’re not mine. ”
I reached between his legs to cup his balls and drag my hand over his shaft. He needed this. He needed me to lie. He needed me to turn the mood away from tender and toward a feverish passion, raw, unfettered, almost cruel. He needed to fuck his feelings out. “I’m not yours.”
Colt snarled, tightening his lips and pulling me close.
His hand dipped into his toiletry bag for a condom.
He tore it open with his teeth and sheathed himself.
His eyes searched the bathroom and surrounding area before he lifted me off my feet and found our landing spot: against the wall behind the hotel room door.
Vicious as he was being, he was still a king of consent, as always. “You want me to fuck you, Violet? To make you so sore your cunt won’t ever forget me?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Hold on tight, baby.” He notched himself at my entrance. His fiery gaze met mine, both of our mouths dropping open as he pushed inside me with a moan. “Fuck, that’s perfect.”
My inner thighs screamed from clutching his waist, ratcheting my arms tighter and cupping the back of his head. “I loved you, Colton.”
His breath hitched, and I knew why. The “d” on loved was almost silent. But he knew what I meant. “I know you did, baby.”
I cried out when he bottomed out in me, hard. I tried grinding to get a better angle on him, but couldn’t quite make it work. Colt got it.
“I won’t drop you. Touch yourself.” My eyes widened, but he softened his voice. “You know I wouldn’t drop you, baby. Lean back against the wall and I’ve got you.”
My head and shoulders flattened against the cool wall. A feral groan escaped Colton as he hemmed me in with his shoulders, sucking on my neck.
So much for not marking me.
My spine grated against the wallpaper behind me, leaving a burn in its wake. The pain only added to the pleasure: Colt buried deep inside me, holding me up, gripping my ass, all while I played with myself.
He dropped his forehead to mine as he rutted into me, slowing his pace to smooth, even thrusts, torturous in their cadence. His words came out stilted, broken by his exertion.
“You have me, Violet. Always. You fucking own me.”
Another desperate cry escaped me, and he spoke again.
“And now you’re going to come for me because you loved me, and I sure as hell loved you.”
It was all so intense. I held onto the back of his neck with one hand, eyes boring into each other. I wanted to tell him everything: I’m leaving, I can’t do this, I want to do this, I’m scared, I’m overwhelmed. But all of those things would ruin the moment. “I can’t,” was all I managed.
A renewed fire burned in his eyes. “Oh, you’re a lot of things, Violet, but you’re no quitter. Turn around.”
At those two little words, panic seized me. A flash of a memory. The black hole. The abyss. Danger. Losing control. The room felt far away, an out of body experience.
“Vi? Hey.” Colton was still inside me and holding me up. My toes stretched downward, trying to find the ground. The snarling beast had left his voice, and sweet Colton returned. “Hey.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Okay. Okay. Hang on.” He withdrew himself from me and, likely on instinct alone, reached to hold me.
“No!” I snapped.
He held his hands up, showing that he wasn’t going to touch me. “Okay. I won’t. What happened?”
I tried to focus on his eyes but they seemed strangely distorted. My breathing shallowed, like three quarters of my lungs had suddenly been cut off. “I have to go.”
“Vi, I can’t let you go like this. What’s wrong? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m fine,” came the wispy thin words, when I was anything but.
I didn’t have time for this. I couldn’t deal with this. My life was crazy enough as it was.
I had to stay focused. Letting this get to me now could mean the end of everything I’d worked so hard for.
I spent my life avoiding the abyss. I avoided violent TV shows.
I stopped reading romance novels because, occasionally, they’d give me a flash of the danger.
I loved them, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
I knew Colt would love to help me through this. I knew he’d be there if I just said the word. But I couldn’t ask that of him when I couldn’t even ask it of myself.
I had to do what I always did: shove it down and keep going.
I moved without knowing what I was doing. My dress was back on and I struggled to zip it up. A hand met my upper arm. “Violet. Baby. Look at me. Something’s wrong. I can’t let you leave like this. I’m worried about you. Tell me what’s wrong.”
If only I could have.
I forced a hollow smile and turned so he could zip my dress. “I’m good. I’ll see you at brunch.”
I heard his calls behind me as I stepped into the hallway, but I didn’t look back. I moved forward, just like I always had.