by J. Lynn
The way he said it almost had me convinced he could single-handedly ensure that. I wanted to believe that, but he couldn’t be around me twenty-four hours a day. The fear I’d been holding back pressed on me. “Should I…should I be worried about this Isaiah?”
“Honestly?” The muscles moved along his spine. “No. But he’s not a good guy. Don’t ever mistake him for that, but he has his own sense of moral code and conduct. Violence against women or children is a surefire way to get on his bad side. He will leave you alone.”
“That’s sort of comforting,” I mumbled, taking a sip of my coffee. “Kind of.”
“Gotta say, though, you’re handling all of this like a champ.”
I got a wee bit distracted by the way his bicep bunched and blurted out, “I cried myself to sleep last night.”
Colton stilled.
My eyes widened. “Oh my God.” I placed my hand over my forehead. “I cannot believe I just said that out loud.”
Lowering his hands, he let the tarp flap to the side as he faced me. The roll of duct tape dangled from his fingers.
Warmth invaded my cheeks. “I mean, I didn’t like sob or anything, and I don’t cry a lot. It’s just that—”
“Honey, you don’t have to explain anything. You saw some shit last night.” Dropping the roll of tape on the arm of the chair, he walked around the coffee table and got right in between it and me. Plucking the cup out of my hand, he placed it beside his and sat on the corner of the table in front of me. He was so close our knees pressed together when he leaned in, resting his arms on his thighs. “Having an emotional reaction is expected. If you hadn’t, I would be concerned. To be honest, I didn’t like the idea of you being alone after seeing something like that.”
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Why do you care?”
He tilted his head to the side. “I’m not sure what to think about that kind of question.”
I exhaled slowly. “I mean, do you treat all your witnesses this way? Bring them crepes in the morning and fix vandalized windows?”
Colton raised a brow. “No.”
Well, that was a blunt answer. “Then why are you doing it now?”
“When I asked you if you believed in second chances, I was hoping you’d say yes.” Those thick lashes lifted. “I don’t like the way our paths crossed again, but I’m glad they did.”
There were no words.
A playful grin appeared. “I noticed you in high school, Abby. I thought you were pretty and smart. I liked how you were always the first one in the class and the last one out.”
Oh my God, I was always the first one in and the last one out.
“I liked how you were nice to everyone, even the assholes who didn’t deserve it,” he continued, those azure eyes glimmering. “So, yeah, I noticed you, but you had a boyfriend. You always had a boyfriend. I respected that, but I know you noticed me.”
The warmth increasing in my cheeks had nothing to do with embarrassment.
“You know, every couple of years, you’ve crossed my mind. That’s the damn truth.” His eyes met mine and held. “It was always unexpected. Never unwelcomed. Did you think of me?”
“Yes. I’ve thought of you,” I whispered.
His grin turned smug. “Hell yeah.”
Stunned by what he was admitting, it still didn’t make sense. “I’ve seen you around town, Colton, since I moved back. At the store or the movies.” I left out the part that he was with someone else because that was irrelevant. “You never noticed me then.”
“Then I’m a fucking idiot if that’s true.”
I blinked and my gaze centered on his well-formed mouth. What did his mouth feel like? Was it hard? Soft? A mixture of both? And what did he taste like? I bet a marvelous mix of coffee and man. “Colton—”
“I should’ve noticed you. Damn, I hate the idea that I hadn’t.” Sincerity filled his tone. “I notice you now, Abby.”
My heart started tripping all over itself. “This doesn’t seem real.”
A chuckle rumbled out of him. “Why not?”
“Because these things don’t happen in real life,” I told him, leaning back and needing the space before I decided to find out exactly how his mouth felt and what he tasted like. “They don’t.”
His brows knitted together. “This is happening. It’s real life.”
“You are not getting what I’m saying.” I drew in a deep breath. “Extremely gorgeous men like you—”
“You think I’m extremely gorgeous?” His grin reappeared and so did the left dimple.
I shot him a bland look. “Like you don’t know that. And see, that’s the thing. You’re the gorgeous, confident cop and I’m not the worst thing walking on two legs, but I’m not the type of woman who snags the interest of a guy like you. That only happens in books.”
He stared at me for a moment and then he shook his head. “First off, what the hell do you mean by woman like you?”
“Do I really need to spell it out for you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah, yeah you do.”
Frustration rose, racing across my skin like an army of fire ants. He couldn’t be serious. “I don’t look like the woman I saw you at the movies with. She was a tall, thin beautiful blonde. No one in this world would describe me as that beautiful woman with the hot guy. They would be like, wow, he’s really with someone quite average. And I’m totally okay with being that average chick. I know what I am, so this doesn’t make sense. I mean, unless you’re just horny and want to get laid and you have no other prospects at the moment, then that makes more sense, I guess.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and then tried again. “If I’m horny and want to get laid?”
Yeah, I sort of couldn’t believe I said that myself.
“Honey, how old do you think I am that all I’m about is getting laid?” he asked.
“Well, I mean, I get horny and want to get laid too, and we’re roughly the same age.” I really needed to shut up. “All I’m trying to say is that it’s human nature.”
“Human nature?” His blue eyes brightened as he laughed under his breath. “Can I just tell you that I’m thrilled to hear you get horny, and honey, you want to get laid, I’m your man, but you don’t really know me, Abby.”
I was still stuck on him being my man if I wanted to get laid, and boy, did I ever want to get laid. Hadn’t even really considered it seriously in the last four years. No guy had sparked my attention, but right now? An ache had already blossomed and my breath came in and out in little shallow bursts, a reaction just to the mere idea of sleeping with him.
“And we’re going to change that,” Colton said. “You and I are going to get to know each other in a way that’s long overdue.”
My breath caught as a tight shiver coiled. “We are?”
That half grin did crazy-insane things to me. “Oh, we are. You know why? Because we got a second chance to do so and we aren’t going to miss that, are we?”
I couldn’t look away. “No?”
“That’s right.” Lifting his arm, he cupped my cheek with his hand. “Here’s an important piece of information about me. If I’m looking for just a lay, I’m not going to bring that woman crepes in the morning or fix her window. And I’m sure as hell not going to risk my career to just screw around with a witness. If I’m going to take that risk, it’s going to be worth it.” His thumb dragged under my lip, causing me to suck in a shallow breath. “And honey, I have a good feeling, you’re worth it.”
Before I could respond, before I could say anything that would probably ruin everything he’d just said, he slipped that hand along my cheek, his fingers tangling in my hair as he leaned in, forcing his knee between mine. I took a breath. My heart beat. All I saw was the blue of his eyes.
And then Colton kissed me.
Chapter 8
Every enjoyable, exaggerated thing my authors have ever written about being kissed was totally true, and it had been so long since I’d been kissed that
I’d forgotten that.
The moment his lips touched mine, my body flushed hot, and it was a gentle kiss, nothing more than a light sweeping of his lips across mine—once and then twice. As if he were slowly mapping out the feel of my lips, he took his time familiarizing himself.
And then he caught my lower lip between his, creating a mad flutter in my stomach. The hand on my cheek shifted and his long fingers cradled the back of my head as he lifted his mouth from mine. His eyes burned a blue fire. There was a questioning in his gaze, and when I didn’t pull away, his hand tightened.
Colton kissed me again, full on, and his lips were an amazing combination of soft and hard, satin stretched over steel.
My hand fell to his chest and the other to his knee as I felt the tip of his tongue tracing the seam of my mouth. My lips parted, and that kiss deepened. I tasted the coffee on his tongue and I knew he tasted me.
At first, I didn’t really move. I let him lead the way, take that kiss in a direction that caused my blood to simmer, but when his tongue touched mine, it was like I woke up. My senses came alive. Every nerve ending in my body fired all at once.
This…this was what I had been missing.
Tilting my head to the side, I slipped my hand around his neck, anchoring his mouth to mine. I kissed him back, devouring him.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and then he was moving.
Not away, but standing, and then he was hovering over me, his other hand curving around my hip. He lifted me, and I wasn’t a small girl. I marveled in the act as he laid me on my back, his mouth never leaving mine. One elbow planted into the cushion of the couch beside my head, and he kept his body off mine even as the demand of his lips increased and the pleasure of his mouth moving over mine heightened.
I didn’t know a kiss could feel like this.
Like he was touching every part of me.
I clung to him, willing him to lower his body to mine so that I could feel his weight. A shiver worked its way across my skin as my fingers sifted through the soft brush of hair along the nape of his neck. He tasted decadent, a deep, rich maleness.
And when he lifted his mouth again, I whimpered from the loss. Actually, whimpered. “I like that sound,” he said in a rich, sensual voice. “Really fucking like it.”
Colton kissed me once more. “There’re a few things I want to get straight.”
“Does that require talking?”
His answering chuckle brushed my lips. “It does.” There was a pause as his mouth brushed the corner of my lips. “But I can multitask.”
“Thank God,” I whispered.
His body shook with another laugh and then his mouth was moving along the curve of my jaw. “You’re not pretty.”
My eyes flew open and widened. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t think you’re pretty.” His mouth found my pulse. “I think you’re fucking beautiful.”
“Oh.” I gasped as my hand curled around the straining bicep. A warmth grew in my chest.
“I thought you were beautiful damn near a decade ago.” The hot, wet lick against my pulse caused my back to arch. “With your dark hair and fair skin, you were like a living Snow White.” That mouth of his was on the move, coasting down my throat, scattering my thoughts. “I don’t have a type, Abby. I don’t go for just blondes or whatever.” With his other hand, he worked my shirt to the side, baring my shoulder. “Checkered?”
At first, I didn’t get what he was referencing, but then I felt his finger trailing the lacy strap of my bra. “I think checkered print is underrated.”
He laughed and then he pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat. “And something else I want you to understand, Abby. You’re not average. You could never be average.”
My breath caught. “You barely know me.”
Blazing a trail of fiery little kisses across my collarbone, he dragged his hand down my side, over my waist, to the flare of my hip once more. “Nothing about you screams average. Never did. I know damn well that hasn’t changed.”
This had to be a dream.
His hand squeezed my hip as he coasted those lips all the way back to mine, kissing me slowly, deeply. Blue fire still burned in his eyes when his gaze met mine.
Then he slowly pressed down, the hardest part of him against the softest part of me. I gasped at the feel of the heavy bulge. Liquid heat pooled. A tempting warmth built inside of me, a raw fire. God, I hadn’t felt this way in…
“That’s what you do to me,” he said, nipping at my lip as he rocked his hips against mine. Desire darted through my veins. Goodness, he was—there were no words. “You get what I’m showing you?” he asked, lust hardening his words.
Part of me did. There was the other part that couldn’t comprehend his interest, and finally, another part that wanted to stop talking and start kissing again.
But that second part of me won out. “Where do you see this going?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and in that short space, reality kicked in. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to ask that question, but what were we doing? Last night had been the first time we’d talked in years and now we were kissing? Hell, we were doing more than kissing. I was flat on my back and he knew I was wearing a checkered print bra.
And I also now knew that all areas of his body were exceptionally well-proportioned; something in my wildest dreams I never thought I’d ever have personal knowledge of.
I thoroughly believed in insta-lust. Criminy, I’d experienced it several times at the gym, but I was never one to act on it. Or was I? I never really had the chance to do so. I’d never given myself the chance.
But this seemed so fast, because it was fast. Possibly record-breaking fast, but he, the guy I’d admired from afar for quite some time, thought I was beautiful. And he thought there wasn’t a single thing about me that screamed average.
My wry gaze flicked over his handsome face as the seconds ticked by. Uncertainty slammed into me. “Colton, I—”
His mouth silenced my words, but the softness of his kiss, the tenderness behind it, quelled the brimming disquiet. When he spoke, his nose grazed mine. “That’s a hard question to answer, but you know what I do know, Abby? Despite how you came back into my life last night, I was thrilled to see you. I came over this morning because I wanted to see you again and I didn’t want to wait for a better excuse. I’m impatient like that,” he added, and I felt his lips form a grin against mine. “And I kissed you and I am right where I am because I want you. I think you can feel that.”
“I can feel that,” I said, my voice throaty. There was no way I couldn’t feel that.
“And I think the way you kissed me back tells me you are right where you are because you want to be here.” He kissed me softly, stirring up the flutter into a crazy spiral. He lifted his head slightly and stared down at me. “I don’t know where this is going or what to expect, but I know what I want and I’m the type of guy that goes for it. Why would I wait getting that message across? It doesn’t feel like something that’s going to change in a week or a month.”
The type of guy who goes for it.
Was it really that simple? He wanted me, so he was going to go for it. Why waste the time? Could it really be that simple for me? Because I did want him. I wanted him so badly it was a physical ache. And why did I really need to even think about the future, where this could lead? We were both consenting adults, and there was no mistaking the fact that he was attracted to me. Could I pass this up?
Pass up the chance to feel again? To be alive?
Because that would be what I was doing if I listened to the tiny, annoying voices in the back of my head. In the hours spent here and there with Colton, I’d felt more than I had in the four years since Kevin passed on. The most I felt was through the words and stories I edited. Was there something wrong with wanting to feel alive again, for wanting more?
I hoped not.
“Okay,” I whispered, placing my shaking hand on his cheek, drawing his mouth back toward mine.
Colton came willingly, and his breath hitched before he closed his mouth over mine. There was nothing sweet about this kiss. Our lips parted, and his tongue was a hot, moist demand inside my mouth. He took complete control, as if he was staking his claim, and there was a possessiveness in the way he kissed that shattered memories of any other kiss.
He splayed his palm flat against my cheek, still for a moment, and then he glided it down my neck. His hand stayed there, the touch gentle and so at odds with the fierceness of the kiss. I moaned, my body arching toward his, wanting to melt into him. Between my thighs, I pulsed and I ached. I was so into the taste and feel of him, but that voice was in the back of my head, this time preaching a different story.
Could I actually get naked in front of him?
Speaking of getting naked, I was pretty sure the Hanes boy shorts I was wearing were the least possible sexy thing I could have on, along with the checkered bra.
Would he still be so aroused once he realized there was more cushion for the pushin’?
His pelvis thrust against mine, scattering those fears like ashes in the wind. He nipped at my lower lip, the tiny bite sending a wave of pleasure through my veins.
Making a deep sound in the back of his throat, he lifted his mouth from mine. “I really need to fix that window.”
“What window?” I murmured, dazed.
Colton laughed as he dipped his head into the space between my neck and shoulder. “Cute.”
“What?”
“You’re cute.” He kissed my neck. “You can be cute.”
I opened my eyes. “I thought I was beautiful?”
“You’re both.” Pushing himself up, he paused just long enough to kiss me again and then he popped up onto his feet with grace I was envious of. “It’s good to be both.”
“Uh-huh.” I was still lying there, half sprawled on the couch, trying to get control of my thoughts and breathing. I wetted my lips that felt swollen.
Colton extended a hand. “If you stay like that, I’m going to be way too tempted.”
