3. Jayne
JAYNE
Ispend the next hour trying not to think about the fact Colt kissed me against my own wall like twelve years hadn't happened.
It doesn't work. Every time I look toward the hallway, I can still feel his hand around the side of my neck and the weight of his body pressing mine back.
I can taste him. Feel the roughness of his beard against my skin.
Apparently twelve years is long enough to forget exactly how dangerous kissing Colt can be, but not long enough for my body to forget what to do when he touches me.
Which is inconvenient considering I'm getting ready to meet another biker.
I pull a black top from the closet, stare at it for three seconds and put it back.
Too much. The blue one isn't right either. I catch sight of myself in the mirror and almost laugh.
“This is ridiculous.”
I'm not dressing for Raze. I'm dressing to convince a man I find repulsive that he has enough of my attention to keep talking. There is a difference. Unfortunately, there is also a part of me that knows Colt will see me before I leave, and that part has opinions.
The knock at the front door comes earlier than I'm expecting.
Colt stands on the porch in his cut with both hands in his pockets, looking like he has spent the last hour becoming more annoyed rather than less.
His gaze moves over me when I open the door.
Slow enough that heat immediately crawls under my skin.
“You're early.”
“I know that.”
I step aside. He comes in and closes the door behind him, but doesn't move farther into the house.
For a few seconds neither of us says anything.
The silence isn't awkward; awkward would be far easier.
Instead, it's loaded with everything we were doing against this same wall and everything we stopped before doing.
Colt looks at the top I'm wearing and his mouth tightens. He's always been terrible at hiding his true feelings. I know for certain that having me dress for another man is eating him up inside. I pick up my purse from the table.
“I'm leaving in fifteen minutes.”
“There's still time to change your mind.”
“No, I need to do this.”
“I had to try.” He shrugs.
“You've tried several times.”
“And I'll probably try again.”
I shake my head, but I can't stop the smile that threatens. Colt sees it and his expression changes.
“You really thought I was okay with it?”
The question comes from nowhere and I lower my purse. “With what?”
“Us ending.”
I stare at him. “You didn't exactly give me a reason to think otherwise.” His eyebrows pull together. “You were the one who ended it.”
“I know that.”
“Then what was I supposed to do, Jayne? Fight you until you changed your mind?”
“No. But I asked if we could still be friends. You said yes, and then you just disappeared.”
His face hardens. “Because we couldn't be friends.”
“You could've told me that.”
“I was twenty-two and trying not to make what you were already doing any harder.”
“What I was doing?”
“Leaving me.”
The words land harder than they should. “I wasn't leaving because I stopped loving you.”
“I know that now.”
I look at him carefully. “But you didn't know it back then?”
“You told me you couldn't live with the club. Couldn't spend your life waiting for somebody to tell you I'd been killed. You were nineteen, Jayne. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Tell you your fear didn't matter because I wanted you?”
Colt drags one hand over his beard. “I didn't want us to end.” My chest tightens so fast it hurts, but he keeps looking at me.
“I thought if I loved you, I had to let you make the decision that was right for you. So I did.”
“And then you disappeared.”
“Because watching you move on would've fucking destroyed me.”
I stare at him. Twelve years rearrange themselves in the space of one sentence.
Every time I wondered why he hadn't called.
Every birthday where I'd thought maybe this year.
Every stupid moment when someone mentioned Kingdom Come and I'd pretended my first thought wasn't Colt.
All those years telling myself I'd mattered less to him than he had to me.
“You could've told me.”
“Yeah.”
“That's it?”
“What do you want me to say? I was twenty-two and fucking stupid.”
A laugh breaks out of me, except my eyes suddenly burn. Colt notices and he closes the space between us.
“I wasn't okay with it. Never have been.”
I swallow hard.
“Neither was I.”
His hand lifts to my face. This time there is no hesitation before he kisses me.
Neither of us has any left. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer, and the sound he makes against my mouth is rough enough to send heat straight through me.
His hands settle on my hips, then slide around to my ass and drag me against him.
The hard press of him between us wipes out whatever thought I might have had about slowing this down. I kiss him harder. He backs me into the wall again, only this time neither of us pretends we're stopping at kissing.
His mouth moves down my neck while his hands slide beneath my top, rough palms finding bare skin. I tip my head back, breathing his name when his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts.
“Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I've had twelve years to stop wanting you.”
His eyes lift to mine. “Didn't work?” I shake my head. “Not even a little.” Something inside him breaks. His mouth takes mine again, and I push his cut off his shoulders because I need less leather between us. It hits the floor behind him. My hands go under his t-shirt.
The body I remember is there somewhere beneath the man he became, but Colt is broader now, harder through his chest and stomach. My fingers catch over muscle and tattoos I haven't seen before. He watches my face while I touch him.
“That different?”
“You have no idea.”
“Show me.”
I pull his shirt over his head. That was a mistake, or maybe the best idea I've had in years. Ink covers far more of him than it used to, black lines disappearing over his shoulders and down both arms. His chest is hard under my hands, his stomach tighter than I remember.
He grabs the hem of my top and waits while I lift my arms. The shirt disappears onto the floor. His expression when he sees me in my bra makes every smart comment vanish.
“Fuck. I want you, you know that?” I should feel self-conscious.
I'm not nineteen anymore either. My body changed.
Softened in places. Became something different from the girl he knew.
But Colt looks at me like different is exactly what he wants.
His fingers trace the strap over my shoulder.
“You're fucking beautiful.” The simplicity of it hits harder than a dozen clever lines could.
I reach for his belt, and his breath changes.
“Still leaving for that drink?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Then you better stop doing that.”
I undo the buckle anyway and he closes his eyes for half a second.
“Jesus Christ.”
I smile. “That sounded almost religious.”
“Keep talking.”
I slide my hand lower and his hand closes around my wrist before I get very far. Not stopping me, just looking at me.
“Bedroom, now.”
The word makes my pulse jump and I should probably think about whether this is sensible.
Instead I take his hand and lead him upstairs.
When we get to my bedroom, he stops us and his mouth closes over the side of my neck.
My decision gets considerably easier and we barely make it through the bedroom door.
Colt turns me toward him, hands at my waist while I work open his jeans.
He pushes mine down at the same time, and there is something almost funny about twelve years of emotional damage being temporarily defeated by two adults getting tangled in their own clothes.
Then his hand slips between my thighs and I stop laughing.
“Fuck, Jayne.”
My forehead drops against his shoulder and I grip it. Colt remembers enough to know exactly what makes my knees weaken. His touch is slower than I remember, more confident, and he watches me with an intensity that makes the whole thing feel dangerously intimate. I tug him closer.
“Bed.”
“Thought you'd never ask.”
He pushes me gently backward until the mattress catches behind my knees. For the first time since we started, we slow. Not much, but enough. Colt stands between my legs, looking down at me, and the heat in his expression changes into something that hits deeper.
“Twelve fucking years.”
I reach for him.
“Then don't waste another minute talking about it.”
That gets his mouth back on mine. The rest comes fast. Clothes disappear.
His weight settles over me, familiar and completely new at the same time.
His hand closes around my thigh and pulls it higher as he moves between my legs.
The first push inside makes both of us stop.
Not because anything is wrong, but because everything is suddenly too much.
Colt's forehead drops against mine. “Fuck, Jayne.”
I wrap one leg around him. “Keep going.” He does.
Slowly at first, giving my body time to remember something my mind never forgot.
Then deeper when I pull him closer. The sound that leaves me makes his control disappear.
His rhythm changes, harder and faster, and I meet every movement because I've spent too many years remembering what this felt like only to discover memory didn't come close.
His hand slides beneath my back, holding me tighter while his mouth finds mine again.
Nothing about it is polite and nothing is cautious.
It's twelve years of anger and missing and wondering poured into skin and breath, and the way Colt says my name against my mouth like it still belongs to him.
I dig my fingers into his shoulders. “Don't slow down.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good.” He gives me a look that would probably make me laugh if he wasn't moving inside me like that.