If I chose to be with Colt now, it meant risking an unknown future, my safety, and being pulled deeper into a lifestyle I didn’t understand.
Rationally explaining all of that to my overworked libido wasn’t doing the trick.
“Will you please, please, please take me to the garage with you?” I asked again, setting down the crust of my toast.
“No,” Colt said for what had to be the hundredth time that morning.
“I’m bored out of my skull.”
“No, Mia,” Colt said, setting down his empty coffee cup. “It’s not safe yet.”
“It might never be safe. You can’t keep me locked up here.”
He grinned. “Sure I can.”
“Colt, seriously.”
“Dev went underground,” he said. “That’s a bad enough sign already. Men like that don’t go underground unless someone very dangerous is after them, and there’s still a prospect at your house, so we know Dev hasn’t forgotten about you. This is serious shit, Mia.”
A chill of fear skated down my spine and I was grateful that I had a safe place. “I’m okay lying low, but can’t I hang out at the clubhouse or something? I’m going crazy with the lack of entertainment.”
Colt’s face morphed into a ferocious scowl. “I don’t want you at the clubhouse without me.”
“What do you think will happen?” I asked.
“I won’t leave you alone at the clubhouse until you tell me you’re mine.”
“Seriously?”
“My brothers are good guys, but if you’re unclaimed, then you’re fair game. Rules are rules.”
“I’m sorry, did we suddenly time travel back to the eighteenth century?”
“It’s just the way of things, Mia. You’re not a club whore. But you’re not an Old Lady either.”
“So yet again, I’m being punished for not making a decision.”
“How else are you being punished? I invited you into my home. I promised to get you out of town. Fuck, woman, I’ve even cooked for you. What else do you want from me?”
“You’re using sex as a weapon!” I yelled. “You haven’t been here the last three days, and all I do is sit here and stew.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Sex as a weapon?” He grabbed my hand and placed it at the fly of his jeans. “You don’t think I’m suffering, here?”
“You’re the one who put this stupid edict in place,” I reminded him.
“You still don’t get it.” He shook his head. “I’ll give you raw and dirty so good that you’ll never want to leave and then you’ll be stuck in this life you didn’t want to live, all because you couldn’t keep your legs together. Trust me, darlin’. I’m doing you a massive favor.”
“No,” I stated, yanking my hand away from him. “All you’re doing is treating me like a child who doesn’t know her own mind and body. I want to be in your bed. So why won’t you let me?”
He stilled and clamped his jaw shut.
“You think I’ll still want to leave,” I said slowly. “You think if it’s only sex, I’ll leave. You don’t want me to leave you…”
Something dark moved in his eyes and my heart cracked open in understanding.
“You’ve had enough of people leaving you, haven’t you, Colt?”
He didn’t answer my rhetorical question.
But he was correct, I wasn’t ready to commit to him or to this life—and it had nothing to do with time and how long I’d known him. I was still unsure.
Colt wanted me to choose him and he wanted me to do it without being swayed by him. So he’d stayed away, pulled back from spending time with me because even though I wasn’t committed, Colt was.
It all made sense now, what Joni and Zip had told me about him, about how fast Colt declared his intentions despite trying to fight them.
“You have a few more classes you have to take for your college degree, right?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.
My head was still reeling from what I’d just figured out about Colt. His change in conversation threw me for another loop. “What?”
“Your degree. You have some classes you need to finish?”
“Yes.”
“Can you take any of them online?”
I blinked. “I don’t know.”
“Look into it,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said without any real heat, and it caused Colt to give a small smile.
“You like it when I tell you what to do. I think you like it more than you want to admit.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked pointedly.
Colt was unable to hold in his laugh. He shook his head and then left. I wished I could say I enjoyed the quiet after our heated exchange, but I still felt the current of tension in the air. Tension that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I had two choices: commit to being with Colt and everything that entailed, or remain his houseguest until he could get me out of Waco safely.
There was no middle ground with him.
I put the dirty breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and then wandered into the den where Colt had a new desktop computer set up. For the next few hours, I researched online classes offered at the local community college. I had a few lined up and ready to go, but I couldn’t pay for them until I got my new credit card.
By mid-afternoon, I was going insane. I couldn’t do anything about my college courses and I replayed my conversations with Colt over and over in my head.
I needed to talk to someone who might be able to offer me some insight. I scrolled through the three numbers in my phone and shot out a text message to Joni asking if she wanted to come hang out with me. Chances were she was working a shift at the hospital, but I crossed my fingers and hoped.
“I don’t understand your brother,” I said, half way through my first margarita.
Colt’s sister grinned and raised her almost finished cocktail. “Tell me all the things.”
“I thought men were scared of commitment.”
“They are.”
“I thought bikers were unfaithful—according to my friend Shelly.”
“Some are,” she agreed. “Except my brother isn’t wired that way. He’s never been wired that way. I mean, he’s had his interludes, of course. He is a dude. But he was never a playboy.”
“Has he ever been serious about anyone?”
“No.”
“Why does he want me?” I asked in confusion. “I’m a mess. I’m trouble. I’ve got the Iron Horsemen on my back. If he was smart, he’d send me on my way and wish me well.”
“Colt never takes the easy road. And you give him something no one else does.”
“Lip?”
Joni laughed. “No. He keeps himself separate, you know? He’s my older brother, he’s the president of the Blue Angels. He runs things, but he hasn’t—he doesn’t let people in. Not even those he considers family. But you, he’s different with you. I don’t know how to explain it, but you have to trust me. Colt isn’t like this with anyone.”