Driven Collection

by K. Bromberg

  He mutters a curse into the back of my hair, his heated breath warming my scalp. “You just wouldn’t go.” He exhales in exasperation. I’m about to respond when he continues, “And I needed you to go. I was terrified you’d see right through me and into me, Rylee, in the way that only you’ve been able to…and if you did, if you saw the things I’ve done…you’d never come back.” His last comment is barely a whisper, so soft I have to strain to hear him. The words unzipping his hardened exterior and exposing the vulnerability beneath. The fear. The shame. The unfounded guilt.

  So you tried to make sure my leaving was on your terms. Not mine. You had to have control. Had to hurt me so I wouldn’t hurt you.

  I know his confession is difficult. The man who needs no one—the man who pushes people away before they get too close—was afraid to lose me. My mind spins with thoughts. My heart squeezes with emotions. My lips struggle to find the right words to say. “Colton—”

  “But you came back.” The utter shock in his voice undoes me. The significance behind his admission hangs in the air. He tested me, tried to drive me away, and I’m still here.

  “Hey, I’ve gone up against a teenager with a knife before…you’re nothing,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood. I expect a laugh but Colton just pulls me back and holds me tighter, as if he needs the reassurance of my bare skin against his.

  He starts to say something and then clears his throat and stops, burying his face back into the curve of my neck. “You’re the first person that’s ever known about those dreams.”

  His bombshell of a confession rocks my mind. In all his therapy dealing with whatever it is that has happened to him, he’s never talked to anyone about this? He’s that hurt, that ashamed, that traumatized, that whatever, that for almost thirty years he has kept this festering inside of himself without any help? My God. My heart twists for the little boy growing up and for the man that sits behind me—so disturbed by whatever happened that he’s kept it bottled up inside.

  “What about your parents? Your therapists?”

  Colton is silent, his body taut and unmoving, and I don’t want to push the issue. I lean my head back on his shoulder and angle my face so it nuzzles into the side of his neck. I kiss the underside of his jaw softly and then rest my head down, closing my eyes, absorbing this quiet vulnerability from him.

  “I thought…” He clears his throat as he tries to find his voice. He swallows harshly and I can feel his throat work beneath my lips. “I thought that if they knew about them—really knew the reasons behind why I had them—they wouldn’t…” He stops for a moment, and I can feel the unease rolling off of him, as if the words are physically hard for him to utter. I press another kiss on his neck in silent reassurance. “They wouldn’t want me anymore.” He exhales slowly and I know the admission has cost him dearly.

  “Oh, Colton.” The words fall from my mouth before I can stop them, knowing full well the last thing he wants is my sympathy.

  “Don’t…” he pleads, “Don’t pity me— ”

  “I’m not,” I tell him, although my heart can’t help but feel that way. “I’m just thinking how hard it must have been to be a little boy and feeling all alone without ever being able to talk about it…that’s all.” I fall silent, thinking that I’ve said and pushed hard enough on a topic he obviously doesn’t want to address. But I can’t help the next words that tumble from my lips. “You know you can talk to me.” I murmur against his skin. His hands tense in mine. “I won’t judge you or try to fix you, but sometimes just getting it out, getting rid of the hate or shame or whatever is eating you makes it a tad bit more bearable.” I want to say so much more but forcibly tuck it away for another day, another time when he’s a little less raw, a little less exposed. “I apologize,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he says with an agitated sigh, leaning forward and kissing the shoulder he tagged with his elbow. “For so very much. For my words and my actions. For not dealing with my own shit.” The regret in his voice is so resonating. “First I hurt you and then I was rough with you in the shower.”

  I can’t help the smile that forms on my lips. “Not going to say that I minded.”

  He laughs softly and it’s such a good sound to hear after the angst that filled it moments ago. “About your shoulder or about the shower?”

  “Um, shower,” I say, noting his attempt to digress from my comment and thinking that a change in topic is just what is needed to add a little levity to our extremely somber and intense morning.

  “You surprise me at every turn.”

  “How so?”

  “Did Max ever treat you this way?”

  What? Where is he going with this? His comment takes me by surprise. When, I turn and face him, he just tightens his arms around my torso and pulls me closer. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Did he?” he insists, the master of deflection.

  “No,” I admit contemplatively. Sensing I’ve relaxed some, he unlaces his fingers from mine and moves them back up to draw aimless lines on my arms. I look down at my hand and watch as I poke absently at the bubbles. “You were right.”

  “‘Bout what?”

  “The first time we met. You told me that my boyfriend must treat me like glass,” I whisper, feeling like I’m betraying Max’s memory. “You were right. He was a gentleman in every way. Even during sex.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Colton concedes, bringing his hands up to massage the base of my neck. I don’t speak, shocked at myself for feeling how I do. “What is it? Your shoulders just tensed up.”

  I exhale a shuddered sigh, embarrassed at my train of thought. “I thought that was how it was supposed to be…that was what I wanted sex to be. He was my only experience. And now…”

  “Now what?” he prompts with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  “Nothing.” Heat rushes into my cheeks.

  “Rylee, talk to me for Christ’s sake. I just fucked you in my shower like an animal. Used you basically for my own reprieve, and yet you can’t tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “That’s exactly it.” I aimlessly draw circles down his thighs that cradle my sides, the admission tackling all of my modesty and throwing it to the ground. “I liked it. I never realized it could be different. That it could be so raw and…” Oh my God I’m drowning here. I don’t think I even spoke to Max about sex like this, and we were together for over six years. I’ve known Colton less than a month, and we’re discussing how I think it’s a turn on to be manhandled. Sweet fucking Jesus as Colton would say.

  “Carnal,” he finishes for me, and I can hear a tinge of pride in his tone. He kisses the side of my head, and I shrug, embarrassed at my lack of experience and unfiltered admission. Sensing my discomfort, Colton squeezes me tighter. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. Lots of people like it lots of different ways, sweetheart. There’s a lot more out there to experience than just the missionary position with whispered sweet nothings.” He breathes into my ear, and I wonder how even he can turn me on with that statement.

  My mind flickers back to Colton demanding that I tell him that I want to be fucked our first time together. Of him pushing me to the brink by taking me hard and fast. Of him whispering the explicit things he wants to do to me when we have sex—lifting me up, pressing me against a wall, and grinding us toward release. Of how the knowledge of any and all of these things can cause me to ache with a need so intense that it unnerves me.

  My cheeks flush at the thoughts, and I am grateful he can’t see my face because he’d know exactly where my mind has wandered. I exhale a shaky sigh, trying to stifle my mortification at the direction of conversation and my own self-revelations.

  “That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re so uninhibited.”

  What? I feel like looking around the room to see whom else he is talking to. “Me?” I croak.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he murmurs. “You’re amazing.” His voice feath
ers over my cheek, the movement of his lips grazing my ear.

  His words leave me motionless. He’s echoed my thoughts of him despite the chaos and hurt from earlier. Maybe this combustible chemistry between us is because I possibly mean more than some of his others? He’s sending me all of the signals to validate this claim, and yet hearing it would mean so much more.

  He lathers his hands up with a bar of soap and then proceeds to run them over my arms and down the front of my chest. I suck in a breath as his fingertips slide lazily over the peaks of my breasts and his mouth licks its way up the curve of my shoulder. “I don’t think I could ever get my fill of you.” Proving my point exactly. Words that say it but don’t really say it. “You’re always so reserved, but when I’m in you…” he shakes his head, a low hum deep in his throat “...you lose all sense of everything, become mine, submit completely to me.”

  His words are a seduction on their own, never mind his thickening cock pressed up against the cleft of my backside. “How does that make me uninhibited?” I ask, angling my head back so I can rub against the coarse stubble on his jaw.

  Colton’s laugh is a low rumble that reverberates through my back. “Let’s see…we’ll put it in baseball analogies for you since you seem to be so keen on them. Almost third base in a public hallway. Twice.” He chuckles. “Second base on a blanket at a beach.” With each word I can feel my cheeks redden. “Homerun, pressed against the window of my bedroom,” he pauses “...that overlooks a public beach.”

  “What?” I gasp. Oh. Fucking. Hell. What is it about him that makes me lose my head? My ass was pressed against a glass wall while we had sex, and anyone could have enjoyed the show. I think dying from humiliation is a viable option right now. I have no other choice but to shift the blame. “It’s all your fault,” I tell him as I push away and splash water at him.

  A cocky grin lights up his face. It’s a welcome sight from the haunted look from earlier. The dark and brooding bad boy has returned and is sitting across from me, knees and torso peeking out from above an overabundance of bubbles with a playful look on his face. Is it no wonder I’ve fallen for this man who’s such a juxtaposition of characteristics and actions?

  And fallen damned hard without a safety line to hold on to. Fuck, I’m so seriously screwed.

  “How’s that?” He splashes water back at me and catches my wrist in a quick grab when I try to retaliate. He pulls me toward him playfully, and I resist in turn. He gives up and I flop back, sloshing water out of the tub at all angles. We both erupt in a fit of laughter, bubbles floating through the air at my sudden movements. “I’ve been with plenty of women, sweetheart, and most aren’t as sexually candid as you’ve been, so you can’t blame me.”

  I’m glad that we’re laughing when Colton makes his off the cuff remark because I can see him tense even though a smile remains on his face. I make a quick decision to remain playful despite the pang his remarks cause. I really don’t want to think about the plenty of women he’s been with, but I guess I can’t ignore them either. Maybe I can use this slip of his to my advantage, get more information on my fate as well as make a little point of my own.

  “Oh really?” I arch a brow and scoot closer, a smile playing on my lips. “Plenty of women, huh? Glad I can surprise an experienced man such as yourself.” I toy with him as I run my finger along the line of his throat and down between his pecs. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows at my touch. “Tell me,” I whisper suggestively as my hand dips beneath the water and rakes toward his already erect cock. “These plenty? How long do you usually keep them around for?”

  He sucks in his breath as my fingers graze over the tip of his shaft. “This isn’t the right time to—aarrgh!” He whimpers as my hand cups his balls and massages them gently.

  “It’s never the right time, but a girl’s gotta know these things.” I lower my mouth to suck on one of his flat nipples, tugging it gently with my teeth. He groans deeply, his mouth parting when I look up at him from beneath my lashes. “How long, Ace?”

  “Rylee…” he pleads before I take his other nipple between my teeth at the same time I press the pleasure point just beneath his balls. “Four or five months,” he pants out in response. I laugh seductively, hiding the jolt that tickles up my spine at knowing the clock is ticking on my time with him. I lick my tongue up the line of his neck and tug on his earlobe. “Ah...” He sighs when I trace it around the rim.

  “Good to know…”

  He remains silent, his shallow breath the only sound. “You play dirty.”

  “Someone once told me that sometimes you have to play dirty to get what you want.” I breathe into his ear, repeating his words back to him. My nipples, chilled from the air, skim over the taut skin on his chest.

  He chuckles low and deep, and his eyes alight with humor because he knows he’s not the only one affected. I slide my other hand down his chest beneath the water, and I watch him watch my hand disappear. He looks back up at me and raises his eyebrows, curious as to where I’m going with this. When he just continues to stare at me, I grip the base of his shaft with one of my hands and twist it up and back on his length while the pad of my thumb on my other hand pays special attention to the crest. “Oh God that feels good, baby,” he moans. The look he sends me smolders so intensely with need and lust it’s enough to ignite my insides.

  I stroke him a couple more times, enjoying this game I’m playing. Enjoying the fact that I can create such a visceral reaction from this man. I stop all motion and Colton’s eyes that have closed partway in pleasure fly open to meet mine. I smirk slowly at him.

  “Just one more thing...” I can see the confusion on his face, his jaw grinding as he silently begs for the pleasure to return.

  Now that I’ve gotten his attention, I continue again, altering my grip and angle of stroke. Colton hisses out at the difference in sensation, his head falling back against the edge of the tub. I stop again and cup his balls in my hand.

  “Look, I know you were upset, but if you ever treat me like you did this morning again...” I enunciate each word, the teasing humor in my tone gone as I gently squeeze my hand around him “…disrespect me, degrade, or push me away by humiliating me, understand now that I will not be coming back like I did today—regardless of your reasons, how I feel about you, or what’s between us.”

  Colton meets my implacable stare and doesn’t flinch at my threat. His mouth slides into a ghost of a smile. “Well it seems you have me by the balls both literally and figuratively, don’t you now?” he taunts, mischief dancing in his eyes.

  I squeeze him softly, fighting the smirk that wants to play at the corners of my mouth. “Is that understood? Non-negotiable.”

  “Crystal clear, sweetheart,” he says to me, his eyes conveying the sincerity within his response. Satisfied he understands what I am telling him, I shift in the water and release my hold on his balls. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I slide my hands up to his rigid length and repeat the motion that rendered him agreeable moments before. Colton groans a long, drawn out, “Non-negotiable.” And I don’t respond to his answer because I am so turned on watching his reaction. “Christ, woman,” he grates out, grabbing my hips and pulling me toward him. “You like to play hardball, don’t you?”

  I accept his nudging and position myself over the top of his shaft. I lean forward, tunneling my fingers in his hair and place my cheek against his. As I lower myself at an achingly slow pace despite his hands urging me faster, I whisper in his ear, his own words back to him. “Welcome to the big leagues, Ace.”

  “ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN handle it?”

  “Yes,” he drolly calls out from the kitchen.

  “Because if you can’t, I can whip something up real quick.”

  “The image you just brought to my mind of you with a whip, high heels, and nothing else on is exactly what is going to prevent me from getting breakfast done.” His laugh carries outside onto the deck where I sit.

  “Okay, I’ll just sit here quietly, enj
oy the sun, and leave you with those images while I wait for my food.”

  I can hear the carefree note as he laughs again, and it lightens my heart. He seems to have tucked away the earlier nightmare and ensuing incident, but deep down, I know it’s lingering just beneath the surface, always waiting patiently to remind him again of whatever atrocities he endured as a child. Nightmares. Shame. The overriding need for physicality with women. Memories so horrid he vomits with the reappearance of them. I can only hope the causes that flicker through my mind from my past work with other little boys with similar post-traumatic stress symptoms does not hold true for Colton.

  I force myself to sigh away the sadness and soak up the welcome warmth of the early morning sunlight, to enjoy the fact that we’ve turned this morning around from the disaster that it began with. I can only hope that maybe, in time, Colton will trust me enough to open up and feel comfortable talking to me. Then again, who am I to think that I’ll be the special one and make a difference in a man who’s emotionally isolated himself from everyone for so long?

  The speakers on the terrace come to life around me, and Baxter lifts his head momentarily before plopping it back down. Stretched out on the chaise lounge, I watch the early bird exercisers on the beach. I guess it’s not that early now after our diversion in the bathtub. I swear I don’t know what came over me and prompted me to act that way. That is so not me, but it sure was fun making Colton putty in my hands. And when all was said and done, with the bathwater growing cold, he made sure that my whole body ended up just as boneless as his.

  And then there’s the down side to our whole bathtub time. His admission that his average shelf life with a woman is four or five months. Shit. Tawny might be right. He’s going to get bored with me and my lack of bedroom prowess. I shrug away the notion time is running out for me. The thought causes my breath to catch and panic to fill my every nerve. I can’t lose him. I can’t lose how I feel when I’m with him. He means too much to me already, and that’s with me trying to be reserved in my emotions.