Chapter 24
The ballroom hums with chatter, glasses clinking, and the swell of music threading the air. I should be listening to my father drone on about some deal, but my focus hasn’t shifted once from Peyton.
She’s across the room now, sitting pretty at the table, back straight, smile polite enough to pass. But I see the tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers twists against the stem of her glass. She doesn’t belong here—and fuck if that doesn’t make her stand out even more.
Every man sees it. Every one of them wants to test how far she’ll bend before she breaks.
And then Oliver Maine decides to be the sacrificial idiot.
He strides up to her chair with a grin too wide, bowing slightly like he’s some gentleman out of a fairytale. I see his hand extend, the way his lips shape the words even from across the room. Dance with me.
For half a second, I expect her to say no. To cut him down with that sharp little tongue she’s been using on me since the moment she walked into Broken Ridge.
But she doesn’t.
She looks up at him, lashes lowering, and she smiles. Small. Careful. But still—she fucking smiles. Then she lays her hand in his and lets him help her to her feet.
A hot crack splits down my chest.
The chair scrapes behind my when I stand, the sound sharp enough to silence half the table. My father glances at me and Sutton arches a brow, but I don’t give a damn. My pulse is a snarl in my veins, my jaw locked so tight I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack.
On the dance floor, Oliver places his hand at the small of her back. The same place mine was not twenty-minutes ago. His fingers skim silk that isn’t his to touch, and the sight of it is gasoline on open flame.
She tilts her chin, smiling politely as he pulls her closer. Too close. He says something, and she laughs softly. The sound I should be earning from her. Not him.
The leash snaps.
I cross the room with slow, deliberate strides, every inch of me vibrating with a violence that makes men part before I reach them. The crowd shifts, creating space as I step onto the dance floor. Oliver doesn’t notice me yet. He’s too busy looking at her like she is his prize.
My hand cuts in, sliding over Peyton’s hip, and I tug her clean out of his arms. My chest collides with her back as I drag her flush against me, my palm flattening over stomach, pinning her in place.
“Mind if I cut in?” My tone is polite, but my smile is lethal when I finally lift my gaze to Oliver.
He freezes, mouth opening like he might argue. One look from me shuts him down. Peyton stiffens in my arms, her breath stuttering when I dip my head close enough that only she can hear me.
“You think you can say yes to him and not pay for it?” My lips brush her ear, my voice a growl meant to brand itself into her bones. “You’re mine. I don’t give a fuck what game you think you’re playing.”
Her pulse hammers beneath my palm. I can feel it, quick and sharp, betraying every emotion she’s trying to hide.
“I’m not the one playing games, Colter,” she snarls, her eyes darting to where Melanie is quietly fuming on the edge of the dance floor.
Across from us, Oliver swallows hard, mutters something about needing a drink, and retreats. Smart move.
The music swells. I tighten my hold, guiding Peyton into the rhythm, forcing her body to sway with mine.
She should shove me off. Should claw her way free, but she doesn’t.
And that’s my undoing.
She’s fire and resistance wrapped in silk, and every time she twists like she might bolt, I tighten grip until she has no choice but to bend.
Peyton tilts her head enough to glare up at me. God, that look—daggers in her eyes, heat in her cheeks. Fury and pride and something else she doesn’t want me to see.
Jealousy.
It hits me like a sucker punch.
She hasn’t said it, but I saw the moment Melanie breezed in earlier, acting like she owned me.
Peyton’s spine snapped straight, her eyes went sharp, and her jaw tightened.
She thinks Melanie matters. That what happened in the pool house meant something more than a cheap way to bleed off pressure before it ate me alive.
She doesn’t understand. Doesn’t see that Melanie’s a placeholder. A body. Nothing but noise.
The only time I’ve felt anything that wasn’t numb, anything that cut deep enough to remind me I’m alive was when Peyton walked in and caught me. That look on her face. Like I’d carved her open with me bare hands.
And fuck me, but it gutted me.
Now she’s pressed against me, every line of her body rigid, and I know she’s still thinking about it. Still comparing herself to a woman who isn’t worth a second thought.
“Stop it,” I murmur low against her ear, my mouth brushing her skin as we turn.
She stiffens. “Stop what?”
“Thinking you’ve got anything to prove.” I press her tighter to me, my fingers digging into her hip. “Melanie doesn’t matter. She never did. You’re the one unraveling me, Peyton. You’re the one making me lose my grip in a room full of people.”
Her breath catches, sharp and shaky, before she tries to mask it. But I feel it. I know.
I drag her closer, until there isn’t a fraction of space left between us. “You don’t get it yet, do you?” My voice is a growl, private and lethal. “I don’t want her. I don’t want any of them. I want the girl who keeps trying to connive herself she doesn’t want me.”
The orchestra swells around us, but all I hear is the thud of her pulse under my thumb where it rests against her wrist.
I lean lower, my mouth at the curve of her jaw. “So go ahead. Be mad. Hate me. Fight me. But don’t you dare waste a second being jealous of Melanie. She’s nothing.”
I let the words sink in, heavy and dangerous, before I drag her through another turn, making sure the entire ballroom sees her in my arms.
Because she is mine.
Her head snaps back enough for her eyes to lock with mine, fire sparking there. “If I’m yours, Colter…” her voice is low, but edged with steel, “…then why Melanie? Why would you—”
“Careful,” I cut in, my jaw tightening. The name alone leaves a sour taste in my mouth when it comes from her lips. I don’t want Peyton’s mouth forming her name ever again.
She doesn’t back down. Her chin tilts higher, challenging me. God, she’s the only person alive stupid enough, or brave enough, to stand in the fire with me and not flinch.
“Answer me,” she pushes. “You tell me I am yours but then you chose you. Why?”
The band swells, bodies twirl around us, but all I see is her. My grip on her waist tightens, almost punishing, until she sucks in a sharp breath.
“Because she was there,” I grind out, my voice so low it barely makes it past my teeth.
“Because it was easy. Because for a second, I thought fucking someone else would silence the noise you put in my head. Because wanting you, and having you are two separate things, one of which puts a target on your back. But guess what?” I lean down, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear.
“It didn’t work. You were still there. You’re always there and no matter how hard I try to justify it.
Now matter how much I long to keep you out of my world, you keep pulling me in. Over and over again.”
She flinches, like my words strike harder than my hands ever could. But I don’t let her pull away. Not now. Now when I finally have her cornered in the truth.
Her lips part, but before she can spit something back, I move.
I rip her from the dance floor, ignoring the gasps and curious glances. My hand clamps around her wrist, dragging her past tables, past shadows, through a side door into the darkened hall beyond.
“Colter—” she starts, but I spin on her, pressing her back against the wall hard enough that the breath rushes from her lungs.
“Don’t you ever question what you are to me again.” My hand cages her jaw, forcing her to meet my eyes. “You’re mine, Peyton. Not Melanie. Not anyone else. You.”
Her chest rises and falls fast, anger and confusion warring in her gaze. “You don’t get to say that and then—”
“I do. I get to say it. And you’ll believe it, because I’ll make damn sure you feel it every time I touch you.” My thumb drags across her lower lip, rough, claiming. “Every. Time.”
Her bottom lip trembles under my thumb, but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t push me off.
“Now…” my voice drops to a dangerous whisper, “…are you going to keep torturing us both with your questions, or are you going to admit what you already know?”