Chapter Nineteen
Dylan
The next two days were a bit of a blur.
The only things that really stood out were bringing the sweet, neglected Rotties all the food they needed… and jumping Colter any chance I got.
Really, I almost felt bad for the guy.
Over a year of sexual frustration was being taken out on him in a forty-eight-hour period. But I had to give Colter credit; it didn’t matter how many times I was aching for it, he rallied and got the job done.
And that meant that I was swimming in an orgasm high pretty much nonstop.
“What would you do if you did something else?” Colter asked, sitting beside me on a picnic table with the red paint flecked off, both of us careful where we put our hands because the wood was splintered in spots.
“What do you mean?” I asked, watching the side of his almost annoyingly handsome face. And that beard. God, that beard was practically a sex toy all its own. Just the memory of it brushing the skin of my inner thighs had desire starting to ratchet up again.
“If you didn’t run a club, what do you think you would do?” he asked, tossing the ball and making Sugar bolt after it.
That was actually a question I’d asked myself a lot. Over the past year, sure, when I wasn’t sure if I’d get my club back. But more so over the past few days. After I’d finally admitted aloud something I’d been harboring in my heart for a while. That maybe I didn’t want the club life anymore.
“Well, I was never someone who loved school. So going back to get a degree is kind of out of the question,” I said as Sugar came trotting back to drop the ball into Colter’s hand.
“No one says you gotta have a degree. Plenty of shit to do without one.” He sent the ball sailing again.
“She likes playing with you. I can’t throw it anywhere near that far,” I admitted. “I don’t know… maybe it’s silly…”
“I’m sure it’s not,” he said, looking over at me with such sincerity in his eyes that I immediately wanted to believe him.
He looked at me like that a lot.
Like he saw me.
Got me.
Believed in me.
Each time, it made my chest feel all shivery.
And every time, I had to try to tamp down any thoughts about what that could possibly mean.
I wasn’t ready to analyze. I just wanted to enjoy.
“What is it?” he asked.
He was good at that, too—knowing when to press, sensing I was just feeling uncertain or exposed, or when to let it drop.
“I was thinking about training dogs,” I admitted.
“Service dogs,” I clarified. “There’s a really big need for them.
And there aren’t a lot of really solid organizations that do it.
Which is probably part of why they are so expensive.
If there were more trainers, maybe prices could drop and people who would really benefit from it would be able to access them. ”
“And you have a unique advantage, having diabetes already.”
“There is still some need for diabetes alert dogs. However, with continuous monitoring, they’re a lot less in demand.
But there are so many other conditions for which service dogs are really useful.
I mean, it’s a process. I’d need to learn to do basic dog training.
Get that going more professionally. And then start to specialize. ”
“You’re making it sound like it’s impossible,” Colter said, throwing the ball again. Then he turned to give me his full attention. “It’s not. It’s doable. You’re still young. You’ve got plenty of time to learn and then make that dream a reality.”
“It’s just an idea,” I said, my eyes lowering, always so uncomfortable admitting anything I wanted.
“Don’t downplay it,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and curling me into him.
Saint and Syn were at the park with us.
But without either of us actually agreeing to it aloud, at some point, we’d both stopped pretending we weren’t screwing around. We weren’t hiding anything from the guys. And that, somehow, made it feel just a little bit more real. That it wasn’t a secret.
“I’m being practical,” I insisted.
“You’re afraid to admit it’s something you want,” he clarified. “They’re different. Luckily, you’ve got me here to tell you when you’re being a coward.”
“Hey!” I said, nudging him with my whole body. But I might as well have tried to move a brick wall. “I’m not a coward.”
“Not when it comes to kicking ass, no,” he agreed. His arm tightened around me to soften the next words. “But when it comes to anything that matters to you on a personal level, you can be a bit of a chickenshit.”
“I might not be able to take you in a fight,” I said, turning my head to glare at him, even if it felt forced. “But remember that you let a very delicate part of your anatomy inside the part of mine that has teeth.”
We were close enough that his chuckle vibrated through me. “You like that part of my anatomy too much to damage it.”
“You think too highly of yourself.”
“Do I? So, you weren’t crying and shaking while I fucked you this morning?”
“Shh!” I hissed, ramming him in the side with my elbow, painfully aware that there were people milling all around.
“We both knew that I could have you spread open for me on this table, panting and begging for my cock, with a whole audience watching.”
“You make me sound desperate. When you were the man who was telling me this morning that you couldn’t eat anything at breakfast because all you wanted was to taste me again.”
“Yeah, but unlike you, baby, I got no reservations admitting I’m down bad for you.” He wasn’t lying about that. He took every opportunity to make it clear that he wanted me, that he was interested in me. “If you want, when we get back to the room, you can put me on my knees again to prove it.”
“Stop,” I said, but my voice was breathless and needy already.
“You can ride my face until you’re shaking and screaming and—”
“Colter,” Saint’s voice broke in, making a pained little sound escape me that, of course, only made Colter chuckle.
“Yeah?”
“Slash wants to talk to you,” he said, holding out a phone.
Colter offered me a regretful glance but took the phone and walked away with it.
One look at Saint told me he knew exactly what he’d interrupted.
“I’d say sorry, but you two are fucking like rabbits. There’s never a good time to interrupt.”
“Did you rat on us to Slash?” I asked, watching his face, daring him to lie to me.
“Rat on you?” he asked, brows scrunching. “Babe, Colter already told Slash about you two.”
“He what?”
“Yeah, short of pissing on you, he’s claimed you in every way he could think of. Wouldn’t be surprised if the whipped bastard had your name tattooed above his junk.”
“He doesn’t.”
“You would know.”
It was one thing for us not to hide around Saint and Syn. It felt like a whole other thing to know he’d had a talk with his club president about what was going on with us. To ‘claim’ me to everyone important to him.
There it was again, that little shivery sensation.
Only, it wasn’t so little anymore.
It felt like it was getting stronger each time it happened. Harder to deny. Harder still to try to call by any other name but what it was.
Though, damn, I was fighting for my life when it came to trying not to admit it to myself, let alone anyone else.
“Do you have a problem with it?” I asked, watching as Sugar scented Syn then turned and ran toward him, her tail wagging.
“With you and Colter?” Saint clarified.
“Yeah,” I said, turning to look at him.
“My only problem would be if you’re leading that guy around by the dick when he’s trying to give you his heart.”
I didn’t expect for those words to rip my defenses away like they did.
Because he had me nailed down, didn’t he?
I was trying to focus on the sex, on the simple shit.
When Colter was doing everything to show me that he wanted the complicated stuff. The stuff I didn’t even know if I could commit to.
“I’m…”
“An emotionally constipated commitment-phobe?” he cut me off. “Yeah. Trust me. Those vibes are popping off you. It’s probably something that Colter was first drawn in by. The chick who doesn’t need to be taken care of. But the one who fucking desperately needs it at the same time.”
“I don’t need to be taken care of,” I snapped.
But Saint went ahead and ignored that.
“And the thing with Colter is, he’s a caretaker. That’s his whole schtick. He wants to give. He wants you to take. He’s perfectly happy to be whipped.”
“But?” I asked, sensing it hanging in the air.
“But I want to make sure you’re not making him your own personal whipping boy. Because you’re too dense or too defensive or too fucking dumb to see what you’ve got.”
“Wow, Saint. Don’t hold back.”
“You want shit coated in sugar, I’m not the guy.”
“Clearly.”
“You can take it.”
“I’ll only take so much,” I warned him.
“Trust me. I’ve seen your handiwork,” he said, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips.
“Are you done?” I asked, glancing over to look at Colter, still walking on the path as he talked to Slash.
“This is the part where, if you were a man, I’d threaten to kick your ass if you fuck up.”
“And you’re way too moral to hit a woman,” I drawled.
Again, he ignored me and my sarcastic tone.
“So instead, this is where I remind you that man has already been fucked over by a woman who didn’t know what she had. And he doesn’t deserve to have another one dick him over again. All good?” he asked, changing his tone as Colter walked up and handed him the phone.
“Yep.”
“Alright, meet you two back at the hotel,” Saint said, walking off.
“What happened?” Colter asked.
Damn him.
He read me too well.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have to tell me, but don’t lie to me, alright?” Colter said.
I glanced at Saint’s retreating form, his words rolling around my head. Before I could stop them, mine tumbled out.
“Saint just had some things to say about us. Well, about me, I guess.”
“He what?” Colter asked, posture stiffening. “What’d he say?”
“It’s not—”
“What’d he say, Dylan?”
Alarm bells were going off in my ears. But something about Colter right then said that he wasn’t going to give up until he got an answer.