“That’s like my biggest fantasy come to life.” She grinned.
“He can’t take his eyes off you,” I said. “He stares at you when he thinks you’re not looking. Bring this shit to a boil and I guarantee he’ll be taking whatever Colt gives him. Just make sure when you get him into bed, he has no reason to leave.”
“Oh, I’m on it. There are years of sexual tension between us. We might burn the house down.” She winced. “Shit. Sorry.”
The humor on my lips died and I suddenly felt way too sober. “I think I better call it a night.”
She nodded. “It’s late. You need to be alert when you give Colt hell.”
Rachel finished her cigarette and Joni got up from the table. We walked inside the clubhouse and I paused. “You notice that Darcy never came back to join us?”
“She’s probably on top of Gray right about now,” Rachel said with a grin. “Come on, Shelly. I’ll show you the couch in the theater room. Darcy’s kids are probably asleep on the floor in sleeping bags, so don’t be alarmed if you see tiny people first thing in the morning.”
Shelly laughed. “Thanks for the heads up.” She hugged me hard. “I work tomorrow at nine, so you might still be asleep by the time I get out of here. I have to go home and shower and stuff before then. Can’t show up at the salon with mascara around my eyes and smelling like a tequila emporium.”
I laughed. “Yeah. That wouldn’t be a vote of confidence.”
“You’re okay though?” she whispered in my ear. “I mean, he treats you well? We never really did get to talk about him. Not in depth, and not in the way that we normally do.”
“He’s great.”
That was the truth.
Right now there was something between us—a cold wall—and I knew Dev was the one who’d put it there. But when Colt got home tonight, I’d claw my way through the bricks and mortar, I’d scale his fortress, I’d dig a tunnel underneath if I had to. I’d find a way back in, because we were stronger together than apart. And even if Colt couldn’t tell me everything about the Blue Angels, this thing with Dev was about me specifically and I deserved to know.
Shelly pulled back and her hands went to my shoulders. She took a moment to stare into my eyes. “The house? It’s just stuff.”
“Photographs, Grammie’s favorite tea cup, Mom’s jewelry? That’s all just stuff? There is sentiment attached to those things.”
“What did my father do when I moved out of the trailer? He set all my shit on the lawn and torched it. Things I’d bought with my own money. Tapestries that hid the dirty, water stained walls, the collage posters I spent hours making from recycled magazines I’d found outside the bowling alley. I cried. I did. Because at that moment I only had one suitcase full of shitty old clothes that were falling apart. But I made it through, and you will too.” She squeezed my shoulders. “It’s just stuff. The fire didn’t take your memories. Okay?”
I sighed. “This is why I need you. Always.”
“Soul sister.”
“Soul sister.”
With one last hug, she turned and followed Rachel down the basement steps.
Joni placed a hand on my shoulder, reminding me that she was still there and had heard my entire exchange with Shelly. “She really is amazing. It’s too bad she already has a man. She’d be a great Old Lady.”
Chapter 19
Cool air kissed my skin and then I felt stubble on the inside of my thighs. A tongue stroked me, making me shiver.
“Colt,” I whispered.
My hands reached out to grasp his hair. I saw him in the moonlight, big and brawny, a dark shadow giving me more pleasure than I could take.
He wouldn’t let up, not even when I was coming on his tongue, shaking and moaning, crying out with need.
Colt lifted his head. “I need you.”
I nodded.
“All fours.”
He flipped me over, his hands angling my hips. I felt him at my entrance and then he was inside me. I gasped at the invasion, feeling him everywhere. His thrusts were ruthless, determined to fill me up so that there was nothing but Colt.
My fingers gripped the sheets and he continued to assault my every nerve. I was liquid fire, and with each stroke it became an inferno. One hand pinned my hip, the other reached around to play with me.
Heat blazed between my legs as Colt continued to drill into me from behind. I couldn’t see his eyes. I didn’t need to, knowing they’d be full of lust.
He slammed into me and I went up in flames. My limbs gave out and I would’ve collapsed onto the bed if Colt’s hands hadn’t been there to hold me up, his fingers digging into my skin as he rammed me like an animal.
Brutal and savage.
And I loved it.
“Mia,” he growled and then he came.
He wrapped an arm around me and brought us down onto our sides, mindful of my injured wrist. We were silent as our breathing and heartbeats returned to their natural cadence—and with it came the return of my anger.
I pushed away from him and scrambled from the bed, looking for my underwear, which he’d somehow pulled off of me without me knowing. Sure, I’d been woken up in a pleasurable way, but it felt like he’d done it to lull me into a state of acceptance for his behavior.
Sex was not a bandage for the wound of his emotional withdrawal.
I hit my knee on the corner of the bed and cursed, hobbling my way to the nightstand table and turning on the lamp. Colt was on his side, head propped up on his elbow, looking devastatingly gorgeous in nothing but skin and ink. His eyes followed me as I found my clothes and quickly covered myself.
“Words, babe,” he said after a moment.
“Words? What words?” I snapped.
“I’m asking you to talk to me instead of cursing and running from the bed.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
He sat up, looking like a jungle cat stretching before it pounced. “I want to know what’s going on inside your head.”
“Right now? A whole mess of shit.” I stared at him. “You shut down on me today. After you talked to Dev.”
“Yeah. I did.” He nodded. “But you shut down on me too.”
“My grandmother’s house was on fire. And what the hell, Colt? We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”
“So—talk.”
I was so angry I felt like my nerves were going to burst into flames, causing a raging wildfire within me. “You can’t come in here and wake me up the way you did, not after how you treated me this afternoon. You didn’t tell me you were leaving; you were just gone. And then you called me to tell me not to wait up.”
He didn’t reply for a long moment, studying me with a thoughtful expression.
“Where were you tonight?” I demanded.
“Giving Dev a dose of his own medicine.”
“I don’t know what that means.” We stared at each other for a long moment and Colt didn’t volunteer what a dose of his own medicine meant. “What did Dev say to you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I need to know what makes you go all dark and cold. I need to know things like that so I can,” I sighed, “handle you.”