Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN | COLTEN
Istill taste her on my tongue.
Her breaths.
Taryn’s sweet, soft lips.
The honeyed, spiced flavor from my scotch that she sipped so easily.
I’m still savoring the faint moans she let me swallow when I rolled my hips and groin against her needy center through her clothes. The sounds Taryn made replay on a loop, each passing of the track furthering my craving.
For the last five years, I’ve worried that alcohol would become my addiction of choice. That I’d be driven to succumb to alcoholism like my father because solving your issues by forcing down bitter liquid is easier than facing issues head-on.
The business.
This family.
This property.
Even the withering relationship he had with my mother pushed his weak cognizance to locate his solution at the bottom of a bottle to numb the stress of it all.
The same pressure I combat daily because of him.
This is why I never give myself to the poison, giving it the power to flow through my veins and devour me from the inside out. It destroyed him rapidly, transforming him into a shell of a man rotting in a cell because his obsession reigned over him.
Lounging with a glass every night reminds me that I’m in control. Inhaling the aroma and being determined never to let it influence my mind shows me that I hold the power.
That’s my fix.
My drug of choice pushes me forward to be the best man I can be for my family.
It’s a reminder.
I always thought if something would destroy me, it would be the temptation and sensation of liquor. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It’s the taste of her—the feeling of her soft skin molding under my hands like putty. Alcohol impacts the brain, but I should’ve known that Taryn Meyers would be wildly more dangerous.
Like a lily of the valley that my siblings and I would come across playing in the woods—toxic if ingested, but with a sap that can seep through your skin and cause as much damage.
And I’ve done both.
I let my hands drift over her soft skin. I tasted her mouth. Her perfect cunt.
Because I let my control slip away.
She’s infecting my head, and it’s taking all my fucking willpower not to barge into her room and pretend that she’s the remedy to cure my insanity.
As I walk across my driveway, inhaling the fresh air to compose my racing heart and clear my muddled head, her scent clings to me. Follows me.
I have never kissed a woman I fuck.
It’s too intimate.
Has the ability to shift the casual relationship into something I will never allow myself to have.
But the moment I flipped her over onto that couch, she was the numbing agent. I forgot all I stand for as my body melted into hers, and she gave herself over to me.
Her brown eyes saw more than the man who has cowered behind the barricade he built five years ago when he witnessed his father attempt to murder his mother.
Love doesn’t fucking look like that.
Love isn’t a piece of glass cutting through flesh.
Devotion isn’t letting someone’s blood drip and soak into the carpet in a family home.
If love can break as easily as their marriage, I swore to myself I’d never want it.
For five years, no woman has slept in my bed.
I’ve always used a condom, and my lips were either sucking on their nipples or attached to their clit.
If she said words that were too intimate during sex, I would shove something in her mouth or shut her up by using my cock—resorting to bondage when they get too handsy.
Their touch and nails grating against me resembled ants swarming over every inch of exposed skin.
It’s been easy. Keeping up with the repetitive cycle and not breaking it once.
Until Little Ghost came along, and I gave her the power to fuck with my head.
Kissing her shouldn’t have happened.
And now she has made my principles short-circuit, and it’s only a matter of time until…
A hammering sound echoes through the night, mingling with the soft hum of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl somewhere tucked away in the dark orchard.
The banging continues, hardening my muscles.
What the hell is that?
The sound holds me in place, but suddenly, everything is eerily silent. My heart strikes violently against my ribs, and when the sound drifts through the night again, my feet move of their own accord across the gravel driveway.
Rocks crunch under my shoes, my skin prickling with irritation every time the thump, thump, thump hits my eardrums.
When I round the driveway, and my sidewalk comes into view, my heated blood solidifies into sharp icicles that scrape against my veins.
Taryn stands on my porch, the silver light from the moon highlighting her toned legs in those tiny shorts and the apples of her ass. I keep my steps quiet, holding my breath as I amble down the sidewalk toward her.
Turn around, Colten. Turn the fuck around.
“You better open this goddamn door, Colten,” she whisper-yells.
I don’t know why she’s keeping her voice so low when her banging is loud enough to be heard by the nearest neighbor a few miles away.
Her eyes are locked on the door, so I slip onto the covered porch behind her. Leaning against the beam, I tuck my hands into my pockets.
I clear my throat, announcing my arrival, making her straighten into a statue. “The way you knock on doors is very unpleasant. I think you need to work on your approachability.”
She outwardly cringes at my voice. Spinning around, Taryn clutches her hand to her chest. Between her fingers, I notice hot pink material. I eye it deviously, knowing exactly what it is.
“I’ve been knocking for several minutes! I thought you were in there.”
I shrug. “Needed a walk.”
She clenches her jaw, avoiding my gaze. My eyes fall to her hard nipples poking through her white tank top in the chilly night air.
I can’t catch a fucking break with this woman.
My head tilts. “I thought I told you to go to bed.”
Her chestnut eyes roll. “That was before you kissed me. Asshole,” she mutters through clenched teeth. “You have some nerve walking away from me.”
“You’ve run away from me several times, Little Ghost. Do you really want to play that game?” She swallows, staying silent. Raising a brow, I stalk forward. “I’m guessing you didn’t like the gift.”
She pauses, unclenching her fist to reveal the pink panties I gave her. God, she would look so beautiful in those with my cum leaking out of her and into the lace material.
Not helping the situation, Colt.
I want to know why she’s here. She’s standing before me like a fawn ready to be devoured, breathing heavily with her cheeks and chest flushed a similar hue to the underwear.
All my doing.
It’s making me want to do it more.
See how vibrantly flushed I could make her skin.
Taryn throws the wad of lace at my chest, the material falling to my feet. My eyes don’t stray from hers as my lips quirk upward, sending her into a tailspin that amuses me more.
She scrunches her nose, making me want to drift the pad of my finger over the dusting of freckles there. “You are revolting and twisted if you think I will wear those. I’m not interested in anything your sluts left behind, Colten!”
My chest vibrates with laughter as I lower myself to pick up the material. “If I remember correctly, your pussy was dripping on my tongue and gripping my fingers a few days ago.”
I step into her, the front of my body colliding with her chest. Her ragged intake of breath makes me smile. Taryn’s eyes dart away from mine, not wanting to acknowledge my proximity.
Using the underwear hanging off my index finger, I press it below her chin to angle her eyes to meet mine. “If they are my sluts, then what does that make you, Little Ghost?” I murmur.
She exhales shallowly, her irises bouncing between mine like little ping-pong balls.
I release my grip on her chin and walk to my door, leaving her standing there.
Opening the door and pushing it open, I enter my house, standing in the dark foyer with the living room and open kitchen to my right and my closed office barn doors to the left.
My favorite room as of recently because I know Taryn has a view of it from her tower.
She’d be much safer up there than standing helplessly on my porch.
The farther away I get from her, the more my skin prickles with unease, and my sternum tightens. She sluggishly turns toward me, her rosy lips still swollen from my mouth earlier. Her eyes analyze me through the doorway, her body visibly shaking.
If she decides to break the threshold, there’s no turning back.
Because once she’s in here, I won’t be able to control myself, and divulging my fascination with her is bound to annihilate us both.
Do it, Taryn. I fucking dare you.
I cock my head, challenging her, and place my hand on the door, flinging it closed. Right before it clicks shut, Taryn explodes into my house, breaking the barrier.
My skin crackles with energy—the once heavy oxygen is light and breathable.
Fuck yes.
No turning back now, Little Ghost. You’re in my home now, completely at my mercy.
Taryn slams the door shut, the vibration firing a surge of blood that rushes through my veins and straight to my cock.
She shoves her hands into my chest, her small frame no match for mine. “God, after everything you’ve done, I hate that you make me want you!”
“And what do you think you do to me, Little Ghost?” I wrap my hand around her throat, backing her up until her shoulders hit the front door.
Her pulse flutters against my fingers, her chest rising and falling against my forearm.
“Because ever since you mouthed off to me in that office, you have been driving me fucking insane. Why do you think I haven’t had a woman here since you watched me with Britt? ” My grip tightens.
She swallows against my palm, shaking her head.
I lower my mouth to her ear. “Because I can’t come unless I visualize you.
Unless I imagine that it’s your legs spread wide open.
Unless I visualize you stuffed full of my cock, your cunt taking every inch because you need all of it as much as I need all of you.
” She shudders at my words, and I hover my mouth over her lips, feathering my breath across them.
“That’s what you do to me, Taryn. I’ve always had fucking control, but since you’ve been here, you’ve had it the entire time without even knowing. ”
She licks her lips, provoking me. Agitating whatever’s left of my sanity. “Then take it back, Colten.”
Clenching my jaw, my fingers dig into her flesh as her hand reaches up, gripping my tatted forearm that’s holding her head hostage.
I crush my erection against her warm stomach, the electrical current between us zipping. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I do,” she breathes. “I lied. I didn’t picture your brothers that night when I slipped my fingers inside me.”
She’s killing me here. I’m barely holding on, the rubber band ready to snap and leave me with permanent scars. The sheen of sweat on my skin chills.
“I imagined you…imagined what it would’ve felt like—been like—to be her.”
My eyes fall shut, allowing the vigilant part of my mind to dig its claws into the unfathomable part of my soul to gather any remaining common sense to prevent me from carrying her to my room.
Her hand drifts up my arm and wrist, her fingers pressing into mine to choke herself more forcefully.
It only takes three words from her mouth to snap the rubber band and break me entirely.
“Take. It. Back.”