Chapter 34 #2
Cheryl glanced back at him, catching the immediacy of his answer. Something like understanding flickered across her face.
“She’s lucky,” Cheryl said. Then, after a beat, she corrected herself. “You’d be lucky.”
The words didn’t pass through him—they stayed.
“Yeah,” Colter said quietly. “I would.”
Cheryl reached for her napkin, folding it carefully, as if giving both of them a moment to settle.
“You should go,” she said gently.
“I don’t want to be rude.”
“You won’t be,” she assured him. “You’d only be dishonest if you stayed.”
That, somehow, hurt worse.
He pushed his chair back, standing. He threw a hundred on the table. “Thank you. For your grace and your honesty.”
She smiled up at him. “Just promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“If you do go after her,” Cheryl said, voice calm but firm. “Do it right. She looks like someone who deserves that.”
His chest tightened. “She does.”
He stepped away from the table, the weight of the evening shifting decisively now. As he headed toward the exit, the only thing he could think was that Sutton leaving had felt like losing ground—and this time, he wasn’t willing to pretend he didn’t care who won.
Colter didn’t think—he just bolted out the door, heart in his throat, knowing if he didn’t catch her now, he’d regret it for the rest of his damn life.
She was parked at the back of the lot a few spots away from his truck. He ran up to her just as she yanked open her car door.
“Sutton.”
She froze, one hand gripping the handle, shoulders tight like she was braced for impact. For a second he thought she might pretend she didn’t hear him. Then she turned slowly, eyes flashing.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” she said.
He stopped a few feet away, breath still uneven from the way he’d bolted through the restaurant. “You left.”
“You were busy,” she said and he knew he had her.
Something reckless sparked in his chest. “You looked jealous.”
Her laugh came out brittle. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Was it?” He took another step closer. “Because it looked a hell of a lot like it hurt.”
Her throat worked. She looked past him, then back again, like she was deciding whether to lie or go down swinging.
“I hated it,” she said, quietly. Something in her voice that was honest and goddamned thrilling. “Seeing you with someone else being happy and easy.”
The words landed between them like a match.
Colter’s jaw tightened as something hot and sharp punched straight through his chest. He hadn’t expected honesty—not like that. Not bare and unguarded and aimed directly at him.
“Happy? Easy?” he repeated, low. “You think that’s what that was?”
Her shoulders lifted in a small, defensive shrug, but her eyes stayed locked on his. “You looked like it. Like it was easy and you weren’t thinking about anything else.”
“That’s the thing,” he said, taking a step closer before he could talk himself out of it. “It wasn’t.”
Her breath stuttered, just barely. He noticed. He noticed everything—how her fingers flexed at her sides, how she leaned back against her car like she needed the support, how she didn’t step away.
“You shouldn’t care,” she said. It sounded like a rule she was reciting. “We agreed—”
“I know what we said,” he cut in, not unkindly. “Doesn’t mean it stuck.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and humming. The kind that pressed against his ears and dared him to say the wrong thing.
“You left,” he said quietly. “Didn’t even say goodbye.”
Her mouth curved, sad and bittersweet at the same time. “Because you were on a date.”
“Which you wanted me to go on.”
“I didn’t,” she said so low that the words were taken by the night’s air.
“Didn’t what? I need to hear you say it.”
“I lied. I never wanted you to go on the date.”
That did it. That cracked something so wide open between them that he could feel the shift in the atmosphere.
Before he could say another word, she crossed the space between them in two strides, slid a hand behind his neck, and yanked his head down and then their mouths melded.
He hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected her to take the lead.
Her kiss. It wasn’t careful or polite. It was desperate and heated and full of everything she’d been telling him she didn’t feel. Her mouth crashed into his, fingers fisting in his hair like she needed the contact to stay upright.
Colter groaned, low and involuntary, and his hands were on her before his brain caught up, gripping her hips, thumbs gliding under the hem of her shirt. He kissed her back just as hard, teeth tugging at her lower lip, like he’d been waiting all month for permission to stop holding himself back.
“Jesus,” he muttered against her mouth.
She made a soft, broken sound that went straight to his dick.
He walked her backward without breaking the kiss, guiding her step by step until her back hit the side of his truck. She gasped, hands bracing on his shoulders, and he took full advantage—deepening the kiss, slow and devastating now, like he wanted her to feel every second of it.
He popped the door open and lifted her just enough to sit her on the edge of the bench seat.
Her breath hitched as his hands slid to her thighs, thumbs pressing into warm skin, not so much roaming as claiming space. He stood between her knees, kissing her like he’d been starving and she’d finally handed him the damn meal.
Her fingers, still in his hair, tugged, and he swore under his breath, forehead dropping to hers.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispered, her breath skating across his lips.
“Yeah.”
She kissed him again anyway.
The world narrowed to heat and breath and the way her body leaned into his like it already knew where it belonged. For one suspended, reckless moment, nothing else existed—not consequences, not timing, not all the reasons they shouldn’t.
Not even that they were in a parking lot in the heart of town.
All that registered was the way she tasted like wine and want. And the way he was already ruined.