Chapter 37 Colt
Colt
All evening, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.
Radiant.
Beautiful.
Perfection.
Mine.
Adjectives echoed in my head, all of them accurate and yet none of them good enough to fully encompass the way she lights up the room simply by existing. No word is strong enough to describe the power she has over me.
When the car pulls up in front of my building, I can’t pull Stella from the backseat fast enough. The moment the front door shuts behind me, my hands are on her like I’ll starve if I go another moment without her kiss.
I might.
I cup her face with both hands, pulling her mouth to mine without even bothering with the lights. She kicks off her heels, never breaking contact with my lips, and pushes off my jacket before undoing my tie.
Walking her backward toward my room, I reach down and lift the skirt of her dress so she doesn’t trip.
I push her up against the wall outside my bedroom door, gripping her skirt in one hand and her waist in the other.
She finally gets the tie undone and tosses it aside, pulling my shirt free from my pants and beginning on the buttons.
Picking her up, I gather her dress around her thighs and wrap her legs around my waist, carrying her the rest of the way into my room before depositing her on the bed.
I shed my now-unbuttoned dress shirt, and Stella leans up to grab me by the belt.
My cock twitches, but then starts to ache when she bends forward to lick the V at my waist, then up to kiss the valley between my abs.
She stands at the foot of the bed, scraping her teeth along the side of my neck as she unfastens the buckle.
When I feel my belt loosen, I spin her around so that her back is pressed against my front, and kiss her neck the same way she was kissing mine. My fingers find the laces of the corseted dress and deftly start unraveling them.
As the dress loosens, Stella reaches up and holds the bodice in place. I look down over her shoulder, seeing the way her chest heaves in anticipation.
“Drop it,” I growl, and she releases her hold on the gown.
Her breasts become visible as the dress slides down her waist. From behind, I smooth my fingertips around the curve of her rib cage before gently squeezing one in my palm.
Stella lets her head drop back onto my chest as she shudders under my touch. “Good girl.”
Pushing the dress the rest of the way from her body, I help her step out of it and turn her to face me, capturing her lips in another frantic kiss. Her hands find my waist again, and she finishes unzipping the fly of my pants, palming my rigid cock through the fabric of my boxers.
I shove my remaining clothes down to the floor and pick Stella up again, only now, without the barrier between us, and the feel of her hot center pressed against me pulls a deep groan from my chest.
Carrying her back onto the bed, with one arm behind her back and the other under her thigh, I lay her down with my full weight positioned over top of her.
Slowly, so torturously slow, I ease myself into her with short, shallow thrusts, reveling in the way she squeezes around the head of my dick.
Her soft, breathy moans and nails on my back have me wanting to keep tormenting her a little longer.
She wraps a leg around my back, attempting to pull me deeper into her, but I resist with a chuckle and continue ravishing her mouth with my own.
“Do you know how obsessed with you I’ve been all night?” I whisper, nipping along her jaw. “How hard I’ve been for you since you walked down those stairs?”
I push into her deeper, her wet heat overpowering every nerve in my body, stealing all rational thought from my head. Her fingers make their way into my hair, tugging gently on the strands.
When I finally seat myself in her fully, I press my forehead to hers, eyes closed, cupping her cheek. “I love you. Fuck, I love you so much.”
“I love you,” she whispers in return, resuming the kiss. Our bodies move perfectly in sync, rhythm in time with my beating heart. And when she arches into me, the telltale constriction around my shaft letting me know she’s close, I make sure we finish in sync, too.
Days have passed since the gala, and I’m still daydreaming about Stella in that dress.
The two of us are sitting on the couch, each of us working on schoolwork and enjoying one another’s company, when the door to my apartment crashes open, and my three teammates stampede into the kitchen.
“I told you, I’ll pay for it!” Beau says forcefully.
I sit up straighter, sharing a glance with Stella, worried I’m going to have to mitigate an argument in the near future.
“I don’t want your fucking money, Warren!” Drew shoots back.
Booker looks at me helplessly from across the open-concept apartment.
“Well, then, what do you want me to do?” Beau volleys.
“I just want you to respect my fucking property. We can’t all go and buy a shiny new version of something when it gets broken!”
“Drewski, maybe take a breath, man—” Booker starts to cut in, but Drew isn’t having any of it.
“Don’t ‘Drewski’ me, asshole. You’re just as bad. You sat there and watched it happen!”
“Okay!” I interject, finally standing and joining in the conflict. “Someone start explaining. Now.”
Drew looks at me, as if realizing for the first time that Stella and I are in the room. His rage deflates slightly, and he’s left looking upset and dejected.
It’s Book who responds. “Beau crashed Drew’s Jeep.”
“What the fuck, Book? That is not what happened!” Beau looks at me, trying to defend himself.
“We…” he gestures to the three of them as a unit, “decided that it would be fun to go out to the lake to skate instead of the rink. And we always take your truck when we go, but since you were here with Stella, we decided the Jeep would work just as well. Except then we got stuck in the snow, and I offered to try my hand at the wheel to see if I could get it unstuck before we decided to get out and push. And then—”
“And then he drove my Jeep into a fucking tree!” Drew finishes, anger having returned in full force.
“And I. Will. Fix. It!” Beau growls through gritted teeth.
Drew doesn’t respond; he turns around and walks right back out the door, leaving the rest of us in stunned silence.
Never in my years of knowing him have I seen Drew angry before. He’s the guy you call when you want a good time and a laugh. The stereotypical class clown. The one who always knows the right thing to say to break the tension in any room.
I chase him down before he can get too far. Outside, he’s started walking in the direction of his house, not even bothering to call an Uber or ask for a ride.
“Drew, wait,” I holler, jogging over to him. He’s got his hood pulled up over his head and his hands in the pockets of his sweats. “What was that?”
“Sorry,” he apologizes. “That might’ve gotten out of hand.”
“You think? What’s wrong with Beau offering to fix it?” I ask, still not sure I’m grasping the whole story.
“Nothing’s wrong with that. That’s not even what I’m mad about. He didn’t tell the whole story.” He pauses before elaborating. “You’d maybe be the one to understand where I’m coming from. The two of them, though? Growing up the way they did? They don’t understand.”
I wait for him to continue, wishing I had the foresight to grab a heavier coat than the hoodie I was wearing.
“I told him they should just get out and push; the gas pedal on the Jeep is a little finicky, but I know how to handle it. Beau kept insisting I let him try first, because he didn’t want to get his shoes wet and full of snow.
Then, we got unstuck, but spun and hydroplaned the whole passenger side of my car into a tree, because he didn’t know about the pedal.
“But then—and this is the part I’m actually mad about—instead of apologizing or whatever, he said ‘at least it’s just this thing and not the Rover or the Camaro’ like it’s perfectly fine to fuck up my car and not theirs when they’re the ones who can afford repairs!”
Throughout the retelling of the story, Drew started animatedly talking with his hands, pacing around the sidewalk.
“Damn. Yeah, that’s a pretty rude thing to say,” I agree. Before I can comment on how Beau still offered to pay the repairs, he continues his rant.
“And then he said they’d probably total the Jeep anyway, since it wasn’t worth a repair, and that I could get something newer.
But I can’t afford newer. Besides, I got that Jeep when I got my license!
My granddad and I fixed it up together! I don’t want a new fucking car!
But they’re just such spoiled assholes sometimes, and it drives me crazy! ”
By the time he’s finished speaking, my eyebrows have probably disappeared into my hairline.
I get it, I’d probably still be driving the same truck I had in high school if my dad hadn’t passed.
Now, I’ve got his newer model. And it’s sentimental because it was his, so I understand that aspect of Drew’s feelings as well.
“So, you went off on him?” I finally ask.
“Not at first. We walked all the way back to his parents’ house from the woods, and the entire time, he was searching how much my Jeep would be worth if insurance paid out, and he was looking up newer cars, and not once did he ask if I wanted my car repaired.
He just assumed I’d want something newer. ”
I nod in understanding. “And where does Booker play into all this?”
“He doesn’t, really,” Drew concedes. “But he knows how much the Jeep means to me, and he just let Beau keep running his mouth anyway. I was annoyed by the time we got back to the driveway, and when I saw his shiny freaking Camaro sitting there, I sort of just lost my shit for a minute. And here we are.” Drew deflates, finally coming to the end of his enraged ramblings.
“Well, look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your Jeep. But you should let Beau have it fixed; I’m sure he feels bad after you explained.”
“I guess you’re right. I don’t know what got into me, man. I’ve just been on edge lately, I guess. Wrecking my car was just the icing on the cake.”
“Come on, let’s go back in and listen to Stella make them apologize. I’m sure she’s got the whole story out of them by now, and she’s not going to let them off scot-free.” I pat him on the shoulder, and he laughs, nodding acceptance.
Beau and Booker both grumble apologies when we reenter the apartment, Stella looking pleased with herself; Drew and I bust out laughing, the two of them looking properly scolded.
Once the tension of the situation has dissipated, Beau and Drew having worked out the issue, the five of us decide to order enough pizza to feed a small army.