Chapter 20 Colton #3
Over the past decade and a half, I’ve become an expert at keeping the wall up between my feelings for her and our friendship.
I’ve been respectful and welcoming to her significant others without letting my jealousy take over.
We’d fall asleep together on my futon after a long day of studying without it turning into anything more.
We’ve gone to the movies or dinner or the goddamn opera without me wondering if it was a date.
But I can’t seem to think straight today, and I’m so fucking mad at myself.
How many magical moments like this will I miss out on with my favorite person because I can’t wrangle my dick under control?
I clear my throat. “I think I’m going to head back to the hotel. It’s been a long couple of days and I want to get some sleep.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice cracks on the last word, and the hurt reflected in her eyes feels like a blunt sword thrust straight into my stomach. “The fireworks haven’t gone off yet.”
“Yeah, go have fun. See you at the hotel.” I turn before I can see more of the pain reflected at me. I make it a few steps before turning around. “Call if you need me, okay?”
“Yeah. Will do. See you later.” She won’t meet my eyes, turning her attention back to the pizza box, and another rush of shame shoots through me.
Back in our room, the bed taunts me. It haunted me all day, a specter settling over us.
I get ready for bed, changing into plain black running shorts and a t-shirt.
But despite what I said to Quinn, sleep isn’t an option.
I sit down on the large love seat and pull out a book to try to relax.
No luck. I pull out student essays to grade—nothing like undergrad writing to put you to sleep—but even that doesn’t work.
The door creaks open an hour later. Her head peeks in, and when she sees me on the love seat, she doesn’t smile. “Glad I’m not waking you up.”
“Yeah,” I say awkwardly. I settle the book I picked back up on my lap. “How was the rest of the festival?”
“Good. Great.” She shifts from foot to foot, and I wonder if it’s a nervous tick or if she partook in some more Nocillo. Finally, she settles her hands on her hips and faces me head on, determination brightening her eyes. “But we need to talk.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left, but I was tired.”
She narrows her eyes and points at me. “Liar.” I try to stand up, and she shoves me back onto the love seat. “You’ve been weird all day.”
“No, I haven’t,” I say, even though I definitely have.
“Yes, you have. We both have. I hate being like this,” she says, a pleading note in her voice, “and ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away.”
“Quinn, we’re fine.”
“No, we’re not, and we need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I just need to figure out how to stop wanting you so badly and we’ll be golden.
“You’re either a liar or in total denial,” she says, crossing her arms.
She’s so beautiful this way, strong and passionate and not willing to take any bullshit. I start to harden—fuck, I’m a mess—and I know it’ll only get worse the longer we speak. Avoidance is the only logical way to handle this.
I stand from the love seat, but Quinn abruptly steps in front of me, determined to finish this conversation. Our bodies collide, and Quinn gasps at the feel of me pressed against her stomach. Her mouth opens in a perfect oh shape that has me imagining all the things I could do with it.
We hold each other’s gaze, neither speaking as the moment stretches between us. I brace for what will follow—her shuffling away and avoiding me for the rest of the trip, or her letting me down easily. We promised not to go there again, and I’m the one breaking that rule.
But instead, Quinn’s hand comes to my hip, so close to where I desperately want it that I have to stifle a groan.
“Sit down, Colton,” she says, softly pressing my body back onto the love seat. “Please.”
I go willingly, hypnotized by her wide eyes. She slowly places a knee on either side of my lap, like she’s giving me time to stop her. When I don’t—how could I?—she lowers down, then intentionally rocks herself over me, never taking her gaze away from mine.
“What are you doing?” I barely get the words out of my mouth.
“Just for a minute,” she murmurs.
A minute, a second, the rest of our goddamned lives. She can do whatever she wants to me for as long as she wants.
She whimpers. “Doesn’t it feel good?”
Fuck yes, it feels good. Hearing those words on her lips makes me groan and drop my head on the back of the love seat. “We— fuck— we said we wouldn’t, Chaos.”
“I know.” She runs a hand through my hair, and I open my eyes to find hers, desperate and mesmerizing. “I’ve tried so hard to be good, but I can’t anymore.”
She’s tried to be good? I’ve been fucking dying all day. Was I so focused on keeping her from realizing I was completely lost to her that I didn’t see that she was right there with me?
“All day?” I ask, the words choked.
“All day, all week, all year.”
“Fuck, Chaos, you’re killing me,” I say, my breath coming faster with each shift of her hips. “Me, too. All year.”
Longer.
“And that’s why…” She trails off when she finds a particularly pleasing angle, her words fading into a moan. But I know what she’s trying to ask.
“You want to talk about why I’ve been weird? You need to hear me say it?”
She lets out a sigh. “God, yes. Please.”
I wrap a hand around the back of her neck, dragging her ear to my mouth.
“Because you made me hard all day. After waking up with you wrapped around me and your scent in my nose and your perfect fucking body rocking against my cock, I’ve fought like hell to keep from giving the people on this island a show they didn’t pay for. ”
“Fuck. Colton,” she moans my name, and I want to swallow the sound.
Her hand snakes inside my running shorts and whips out my rock-hard dick. I look down between us as I help her shift my shorts down my legs, my hips bucking into her hand. I’ve dreamed of that hand wrapped around me more times that I can count, and that sight alone is almost enough to undo me.
I instantly miss her touch when she lets go, but she doesn’t make me wait. She replaces her hand with her lace-covered pussy, her heat branding me through the fabric as we both work her over me.
“It’s not enough, Colton.”
She inches my shirt up, and I rip it over my head.
Her hands trace the lines of my chest and stomach before pushing her panties to the side.
I finally—finally—get to feel the pussy I’ve spent half of my life fantasizing about, pressed against my cock.
Fuck, she’s already so wet. Her hips tilt so I can put pressure right where she needs, both of us getting worked up past the point of insanity.
She whines with every swivel of her hips, and I’m so fucking close already.
“You know you’re my best friend, right?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I groan back, my hands squeezing so tight on her hips that I know there’ll be marks in the morning. “Mine, too.”
Her head drops to the crook of my neck. “But I can’t stop. I don’t know how to stop.”
“Then don’t,” I pant. “Please, Chaos. Please don’t fucking stop.”
“I want you so much. Please, Colt,” she whimpers against the shell of my ear. “All I’d have to do is lift my hips.” She does just that, brushing her entrance over the tip of my cock. “You could be inside me in a heartbeat.”
I moan into her neck, a deep, guttural sound of regret. “I don’t have a condom.”
“If you’ve been tested since the last person, I don’t care. I have an IUD and am clear.”
My head yanks back in surprise, tilting hers so our eyes meet. “You’d trust me with that?”
She watches me, her fingertips following the same lines as her eyes, like she’s mapping me. Weighing me. She smiles softly when her eyes find mine again.
“You’re my Colt. I’d trust you with anything.”
At her words—the trust and care of them—my heart squeezes in my chest. I bring her lips to mine for the first time tonight, pouring every ounce of my love for her over the past fourteen years into a single kiss.
This moment, her wanting me and choosing me, is a dream I never thought would come true.
“Please, Colt,” she pants against my mouth. “Let’s take the edge off and everything will be fine. Back to normal.”
A stone settles in my gut.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Here I am, thinking she has feelings for me, too, when she’s just drunk and horny. I might as well be a sex toy, the vibrator she pulls out when she’s desperate. I was about to pour my guts out to her, offer her every part of me, when the only part she wants is my dick.
“That’s what you want? One time?”
She nods before the words are even out of my mouth. “I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like. Can you?”
Of course not, but that’s not a new problem for me.
She pushes on, determined to convince me. “We can get it out of our system and then we’ll be fine. All this awkward tension will disappear. We’ll be us again.”
There’s no getting this woman out of my system. I’ve tried for a decade and a half, and it’s impossible. She’s as much a part of me as my own soul at this point.
The idea of having her is so fucking tempting, I almost say yes. But she didn’t want this a couple weeks ago. She’s been drinking tonight. How can I trust that she truly wants it and that it isn’t just an effect of the alcohol?
“We’re not having sex.”
“Why not?” she whines, and it makes me want to flip her over my lap and spank her.
“You’re drunk and we need to stop.” My hand tightens on her hip, stilling her movements.
“I’m not drunk.”
“I saw you drink at least one glass of Nocillo, and I know you well enough to know there was at least one more. You can’t say you haven’t been drinking.”
“Drinking, yes. Drunk, no. Tipsy at worst.”
“Still too drunk for this.” I close my eyes, knowing I’ll break if I look at the fire in hers. “You’re not wasted. But I’m still not fucking you when you aren’t 100 percent sober.”
She whimpers, dropping her lips to my ear. “Would you fuck me when I am 100 percent sober?”
“Quinn,” I say, forcing out the stern voice that makes my undergrads cower.
She groans. “You’re no fun.”
“You said that once freshman year, and it took all my self-control not to pin you to that twin bed and prove how fun I can be.” She whimpers, and I bury my face back in her neck, breathing in her intoxicating scent and running my lips along the enticing curve.
“And here you are, testing that self-control all over again.”
Quinn takes my hand, sliding it along her thigh and under the hem of her dress. When I stop at the junction of her hips, she brings it between her legs, guiding two fingers inside, and her pussy clenches around them.
Hot and tight. Perfect. She’s everything I’ve spent years fantasizing about. Everything I’ve tried and failed to find with a dozen other women.
She’s just everything.
So what if she isn’t offering more than one time? If that’s all she wants, I’ll take it. I’ll take anything this woman wants to give me. My heart will feel like it’s gone through a wood chipper by the end, but I don’t care.
I pump two fingers inside of her, grinding my palm against her clit. She moans loudly.
“See how fun I can be?”
“Says the guy who won’t fuck me,” she says, shooting for indignation, but it’s undermined by the breathiness of her voice.
“Tomorrow,” I pant against her lips, knowing there’s a very serious chance when the sun comes up she’ll remember this is a terrible idea and never let me touch her again. “The second the alcohol’s out of your system, I’ll give you what you want. Anything you want.”
I pull my fingers from her, and she cries out in protest. She’ll have to wait, because before giving her what she wants and letting her walk away, I’m going to explore her the way I should have the first time.
I devour her delicious mouth. My hands run over every inch of her.
Across her chest that heaves under my touch.
Down her thighs that settle over me, the weight of her body reassuring me that she’s here, that this isn’t a dream.
She moans, sliding her hand down her curves to replace my fingers between her legs.
I grab her wrist before she can put pressure where she needs it.
I want to give this to her. To be the one responsible for her pleasure.
To burn the feeling of what I can give her into our memories.
Something to keep me warm when she leaves my bed.
“Please, Colton,” she says desperately.
Her words go right to my dick, and I grab her by the hip and start working her on me again. I lean forward, using my other hand to yank the front of her dress down.
I dive on her, sucking and biting at her nipples. Her breath comes faster, and I know I almost have her there. My hands move around to her ass, gripping her tight, and she moans loudly at the bite of pain.
“That’s it. Take what you need. Think about how good you’ll feel when I’m finally inside you.”
God, please let her still want that tomorrow.
She whimpers, moving herself along my shaft, and I go back to playing with her tits, imagining her heat wrapped around me.
“Fuck, Quinn. So beautiful. So fucking good. Always so fucking good for me, aren’t you?”
“Oh god, Colt. I’m gonna come.”
One last drag against me and she lets out that moan, the one that’s been on repeat in my mind for the past weeks.
It’s like a strike of lightning through my body, pushing me over the edge as I come between us.
I can’t even be embarrassed that I came so quickly when I have her, sated and smiling on my lap.
She leans back to look at me, her fingertips tracing the line of my lower lip, and I shiver. “There’s that smile I love so much.”
I know what she means. She loves me, but not like I want her to. But it’s hard to remember that after what just happened.
Once in bed, Quinn tucks herself against me. I run my hand lightly over her hip as her breathing evens out.
I know I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. But for tonight, I’m going to let myself enjoy her body next to mine and the way my heart feels complete for the first time in my life. I place a kiss on her forehead, a light brush of my lips this time.
“I love you, Quinn Riley.”