Driven Collection

by K. Bromberg

  I’m ready to lash out and thank God the fucker sitting beside her is the perfect size for a punching bag because my fists are clenched and vision is red.

  No one touches what’s mine.

  Even when she tells me she’s not.

  No one.

  Things happen so fast. A shout sounds and I don’t even realize it’s mine until Becks is pushing my chest from the front and Sammy holds my shoulders from behind. It doesn’t fucking matter who’s on me because right now I want blood. I need an excuse to release my anger, at her for not believing me, at me for the stunt I pulled, and because I want to touch her so fucking badly it’s not even funny.

  And he’s touching her instead.

  “Let me go,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to shrug them the fuck off of me. And I don’t care how hard they hold me back because nothing is stopping me. I break free, Becks says something about priorities to which I think I only have one right now and that’s getting this fucking guy away from her.

  The crowd is smart and moves apart as I stalk toward her, mind focused, heart armoring up. She says something to the guy and stands as I near. Her eyes meet mine and they make me so fucking angry and so goddamn whipped that I push it away and focus on him.

  If I was smart I’d haul her over my shoulder, take her upstairs and show her just exactly how I haven’t cheated. But fuck smart and fuck being reasonable because she’s being neither of those right now either.

  Two wrongs don’t make a right but hell if it doesn’t feel good in the process.

  I stop in front of her, lips so fucking close I can taste them, and she lifts that chin of hers up in a non-verbal fuck you. That defiance I find so goddamn sexy is in full effect but right now I’m also scared shitless because the hurt I see mixed with it is my doing … and my undoing.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  My head is such a clusterfuck of emotions and thoughts. The biggest one is hurt her first. Deliver the first blow. And I know it’s not right, know it’s the worst kind of way to be, but my chest hurts so goddamn bad I can’t think straight.

  “What the fuck are you trying to pull, Rylee?” I ask. I know the answer, payback’s a bitch, but I don’t care because bar-boy shifts behind her and his eyes lock and then glance away from mine.

  Good. At least he knows who’s calling the shots here. Too bad Rylee doesn’t.

  And then she reaches back and pats his knee. I have flashbacks of the Merit launch party and Surfer Joe, the déjà vu almost comical.

  Almost.

  Because then she was just an addictive challenge I had to conquer and now … now she’s part of my fucking world. I’m a man with something to lose and that’s not a good place to be.

  “What business is it of yours?” she sneers as my eyes keep flickering back and forth to her hand on his knee.

  And I can’t help it, need to take it off of him, so I reach out to grab her arm and she yanks it away from me. I know why she did it, but the look she gives me mixed with the action flashes me back to my other hurt. When I fought away from any touch at all because of what would come next. The calling to my superheroes.

  I’m staggered.

  And fucking furious.

  At her for fighting me and at me for making her feel that way. It takes a moment to pull me from the thought, to separate the two events that just melded when one has nothing to do with the other and fucked up my head even further.

  I look in her eyes—see the hurt, the defiance, the sadness—and use what I see there to gain my bearings again.

  “I don’t like games, Rylee. I won’t tell you that again.”

  “You don’t like games?” she says, her tone laced with disgust. “But it’s okay for you to play them?”

  Fuck yes I played them, but that’s not the point. The point is right here, right now. At the Merit party she gave me the choice: go or stay. Now it’s my turn to ask.

  “Why don’t you tell your little boy toy he can run along now before things get even more interesting.”

  Watcha gonna do, Ryles?

  Pick me.

  Go with me.

  Fix this shitstorm I started and get us back.

  She shoves against me as hard as she can. “You. Arrogant. Conceited. Egomaniac!” spewing from her lips as she falls into me.

  And every part of me stands at attention at the feel of her against me, wanting and needing but knowing I can’t have, because she sure as fuck didn’t give me the answer I wanted.

  “What the fuck are you trying to prove?” I ask, wanting her to say she wants me, wants to fix this, believe I didn’t cheat on her.

  But she doesn’t. Not even fucking close.

  “I’m just testing your theory,” she says with a smirk.

  “My theory?” What the fuck is she talking about?

  “Yeah, if losing yourself in someone helps get rid of the pain.”

  Ah fuck. In a single second I rein in everything that tumbles inside of me at the thought of her being with someone else, everything but my anger. I sure as shit hold onto that.

  “How’s that working for you?” It’s all I can think to say because her rejection stings something fierce.

  “Not sure.” She shrugs with a smirk. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  And I’m so focused on that look on her face when she pushes away from me that I don’t even notice the fucker’s hand in hers.

  When I see it, anger turns to motherfucking fury. “Don’t you walk away from me, Rylee!”

  “You lost the right to tell me what to do the minute you slept with her.” She says, her voice breaking through the haze of my colliding emotions. “Besides, you said you like my ass … enjoy the view as I walk away because that’s the last you’ll be seeing of it.”

  I snap. No excuses, no regrets. My fist is clenched, fury ready to unleash on bar-boy.

  But none of it fucking matters because I feel the steel grip of Sammy on my arm before I get my chance. And then the melee ensues.

  Rylee is screaming at me, insults and names. Sticks and stones, baby. Sticks and stones.

  You got to me.

  You beat me at my own game.

  At least it’s Becks leading her away from me and not the fucking bar-boy. I’ll take any kind of victory I can get at this point.

  The crowd’s buzzing seeps through my rage, drowns out her voice as it fades. And then Sammy’s arm is around my shoulders leading me out of the bar and down a hallway.

  “Calm the fuck down, Wood.”

  My pulse pounds in my ears, my head all is over the place, and my chest hurts even worse. “Just let me the fuck go, Sam,” I grit out. My only thought is: Fuck the race tomorrow, I need to visit with Jack and Jim for a bit.

  “Nope,” he says, ushering me into an elevator in this damn maze of a resort. All I want to do is walk, run, pound out this anger then get fucking plastered so I can’t feel the emptiness inside of me right now.

  We’re done.

  She just made it clear as day and I don’t want us to be done.

  But it really doesn’t fucking matter what I want or don’t want because she doesn’t fucking believe me. And why the fuck should she, Donavan, when you go kissing bimbos to spite her?

  I groan and run a hand through my hair, fucking beside myself as Sammy pushes me out of the elevator car and down the hall.

  “She’s irrational and fuck she was going to sleep with that asshole and … motherfucker!” I shout into the hallway, not caring who the hell is asleep or if anyone is listening. I’m feeling everything all at once when I’m so fucking used to feeling nothing that I can’t concentrate.

  Anger vibrates through me.

  My teeth grind. My hands fist. My blood pounding.

  Fucking Rylee.

  Sammy points to the door to his right and when I stop he puts both hands on my shoulders. “Get your fucking hands off of me, Sammy!”

  He just laughs at me in that snarky way he has, and I’ve just added him to the list
of people I want to punch. Right after that fucking bar-boy he prevented me from plowing. I try to jerk my shoulders from his hands as he steers me down the hall, but I should know better by now. He’s stronger than a fucking ox.

  I’m so angry at him.

  So pissed at her.

  So disgusted with myself for the shit I pulled earlier without trying to make things right.

  Rage blinds me and since every fucking room in this resort looks the same, I don’t even realize what room Sammy shoves me into. By the time I look up, it’s too fucking late.

  “Uh-uh! No way! Get that egotistical asshole out of here!”

  My head snaps up the minute I hear her voice. Sugar and spice laced together. Rage and lust and pure need collide momentarily until my mind flashes back to the image of Rylee with that fucker in the bar. The emotion hits me like a freight train.

  I hate her.

  I want her.

  I hate that I want her so much that this is fucking killing me.

  And she comes into view but without the dim light of the bar, I really see her. Hurt staining her face and defiance in her eyes, and I do the only thing I know how to do … push away the good and prepare for the pain. “Fuckin’ A, Becks! What the fuck is this?” I yell, furious that I was coerced into a confrontation that I don’t want. That I do want. I don’t know what the fuck I want because she doesn’t want me anymore.

  I notice her packed suitcase and my heart fucking constricts in my chest. She’s leaving me? The part of me that hoped this was all just a show dies a fast fucking death. And I thought her always saying she’d stay meant she would. That she understood I’d push and hurt to prove otherwise. I guess she doesn’t understand me as much as I thought she did.

  I say the only thing I can to hide the hurt lancing through me, to lash out. To hide the unexpected let down that drops through my soul knowing she doesn’t want to be here and watch me chase the green flag tomorrow.

  I confessed that I use pleasure to bury the pain … but fuck, right now, I’m about to use anger to hide the foreshadowed devastation.

  “Thank Christ! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, sweetheart!”

  She steps toward me and I can see the fire in her eyes, the fury in her lips, and that goddamn defiance in her posture. That defiance that makes me ache to take her like no other fucking woman I’ve ever met before, ever had before.

  “This is over here and now!” Beckett’s voice booms at us in a tone I’ve heard very few times during our friendship. Instinct has me turning to look at him because last time I heard him like this he threw a punch at me. I don’t need this shit right now. Not Becks pissed and sure as hell not him interfering. “I don’t care if I have to lock you in this fucking room together, but you two are going to figure your shit out or you’re not leaving. Is that understood?”

  I start to argue with him the same time that Rylee’s voice rises, but he cuts us both off. “Is that understood?”

  The anger in his voice stuns me momentarily, and fuck me, Rylee gets the first word in. “No way, Becks! I’m not staying in this room another second with this asshole!”

  “Asshole?” It rolls of my tongue as if it’s a question, but she’s right. Fucking right in every sense of the word but I’m so beyond angry right now. First her and now Becks turning against me? The hairpin trigger had been pulled tight in the bar, and I’m primed and ready to fight.

  I whip around to face Rylee, only to find her body fucking inches from mine. How can I hate and hurt right now but my body vibrates from her nearness? Fuck me, she’s my kryptonite.

  Where are the fucking superheroes now?

  And I’m so grateful when she speaks because it pulls me from my thoughts—thoughts that are so fucking scattered I can’t figure out which one to focus on. The woman makes me have more personalities than the splintered images of my reflection in that shattered mirror. For some reason though, I don’t think all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will be able to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.

  She snorts in disgust. The sound forces me to focus on the here and now rather than the memories of what she feels like against me. Beneath me. Part of me.

  “Yeah! Asshole!” She sneers at me with such derision that I can feel it pulse in waves off her.

  Good. The wall’s back up. Right where I need it to be. Fucking Christ! If she thinks that’s going to hurt me, she’s gonna have to try a whole fucking lot harder. It’s hard to hurt a man that died inside years ago.

  But I swear to God she brought me back to life.

  Get your head straight, Donavan. Hurt her before she hurts you. You told her the truth. You chased. You tried. She wouldn’t listen. Still isn’t going to listen.

  Which means she’s not going to hear me. She’s going to believe whatever the fuck she wants to. And in turn she’s going to leave me.

  Broken.

  Shattered.

  Irreparable.

  Break her before she’ll break me.

  “You want to talk about assholes? Try that stunt you pulled with bar-boy back there. I believe you claimed the title right then, sweetheart.”

  “Bar-boy? Wow, because having a harmless drink is so much worse than you with your gaggle of whores earlier, right?”

  She shoves at my chest like she did downstairs and I accept her anger. I welcome the physicality that comes with the force of the push. I welcome the sting in my heart from that goddamn look in her eyes that says she hates me, loves me, is hurt by me.

  I need a fucking minute, a pit stop second. I need to stop that burn in my gut and get my fucking head back in the game. I pace back and forth, blowing out a breath to shove the emotion aside and bury it down deep with the rest of my secrets.

  I notice the smirk on Becks’s face out of the corner of my eye—the one telling me I’m in so fucking deep and the cement’s starting to harden around my feet … and around my heart—and I can’t help the words that fly out of my mouth. “She’s driving me fucking crazy!”

  I’m talking to Beckett, friend to friend, searching for some kind of help here to quiet the confliction within and of course Rylee latches on to the one word I leave hanging out there for her like a checkered flag in the wind.

  “You’d know all about the fucking part seeing as you fucking Tawny is what started this whole thing in the first place,” she screams at me.

  I don’t even have time to register the jolt of Beckett’s body beside me before he stutters out, “What?”

  Oh fuck.

  “What? He didn’t tell you?” She sneers at him.

  Shut the fuck up, Rylee. Becks is in big brother mode and this is my fucking business.

  Motherfucker.

  “I told the asshole that I loved him. He bailed as fast as he could. When I showed up at the Palisades house a couple days later, Tawny opened the door. In his T-shirt. Only his T-shirt.” She takes a deep breath, focused completely on Beckett and ignoring me. “Colton didn’t have much more on either. Told me nothing happened. But that’s a little hard to believe with his notorious reputation. Oh and the condom wrapper in his pocket.”

  I cringe, her words hitting every part of me that wants to hide. Becks turns to look at me and I can see it hitting him, lie by fucking lie. That I let this argument fester to become this because I’m so fucking stubborn that I didn’t tell her the truth. I see the disbelief in his eyes and how infuriated he is in the clench of his jaw. “Are you fucking kidding me here?”

  “What?” I can hear the confusion in her voice, but I can’t look at her because I’m too focused on the look on his face.

  “Leave it, Becks.”

  “What the fuck, man?” Here comes the bulldog. Fuckin’ A. He’s not going to leave this alone, is he?

  “I’m warning you, Beckett. Stay out of this!” I’m so pissed at myself—at everything that’s happened tonight—the anger inside ignites and I turn the inferno toward him. My fists clench. My blood boils.

  He takes the bait, focus
ing on me rather than Rylee, and adds kerosene to my fire. “When you start jeopardizing my team and the race tomorrow, then it becomes my business …” He shakes his head. “Tell her!”

  “Tell me what?” Rylee shouts out in the silence of the room. The only other sound is the testosterone reverberating between Becks and me.

  He gives me the look—that look that tells me he is so disappointed in me, mixed with what the fuck are you trying to pull. I give him the only answer I can because right now I don’t even know what I’m fucking doing. “Beckett, she’s like talking to a goddamn brick wall. What good will it do?”

  “She’s right. You’re an ass!” he says, and I can see the challenge in his eyes even before he spits out his next words. “You won’t tell her? Fine! Then I will!”

  I’m done, trigger pulled, buttons pushed successfully.

  My hands grip his shirt and I’m pressing him against the wall without a second thought, jaw clenched, fists itching. “I said leave it, Becks!”

  What the fuck am I doing? About to go to blows with my best friend over a fucking chick? She must be the real deal. Fucking voodoo pussy, my ass. More like schizophrenic pussy. She has me all over the goddamn place.

  I can see the amusement in his eyes. The look that says, she’s got you by the balls, Wood, and I think you like it, want it, but are scared shitless.

  No fucking way.

  My emotions are ruled by anger and I’m so confused my game’s off and no one knows that better than him. He could have our positions reversed in a millisecond. So why hasn’t he pushed back? Taken the bait? Hurt me so I’m given the due I deserve?

  Instead he just lifts an eyebrow telling me to show him differently, then—show him that Rylee isn’t my final rodeo—before pushing me away.

  “Then fucking fix this, Colton! Fix! It!” He shouts the dare at me before yanking the hotel room door open and slamming it shut.

  Unsure what to say. Not sure how to escape these confines—from feeling and not wanting to feel and everything in between—I cuss out a storm as I pace the room again, trying to ignore the fact that Ry is watching my every movement—dissecting it and trying to draw conclusions I don’t want her to form. If she’s not going to believe me when I told her nothing happened, then she’ll never trust me anyway.