by Skye Warren
His voice is soft now, filled with regret. And I can’t look at him like this, because I know I really will cry. So I turn away and stare up at the moon.
“You just disappeared,” I tell him. “And I miss you. But the only thing I can think is that you really don’t want to be around me anymore.”
I feel his warmth behind me first, and then the strength of his body as he pulls my back into his chest, his lips hovering near my ear.
“I couldn’t hate you if I tried, Pepper,” he whispers into my ear. “And believe me, I have tried.”
I turn in his arms and stare up at him with a million questions in my eyes. But the one I ask is the only one that matters.
“Why?”
His response is to kiss me. To pull me against his body and taste me like he’s finally giving himself permission.
“Pepper,” he groans.
His hands are all over me. Touching, exploring, feeling what he hasn’t allowed himself to take before. But I’m offering it to him now.
It’s always been his.
I have always been his.
“I don’t care anymore,” he murmurs against my lips. “I need to have you. Tonight.”
“Yes.” I tell him without delay.
He takes me by the hand and leads me into a small cottage on the back of the property. It’s empty, and it’s ours.
Colton strips off his shirt and tosses it to the floor before coming towards me. Helping me to undress.
It isn’t rushed or frenzied the way our kiss was in the yard. It’s soft and sweet. Like he knows this is my first time.
He has to know.
I’ve saved myself for him.
I feel vulnerable as my eyes move over the perfect planes of his body. Exploring him. Touching him with my hands.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers into my hair as he guides me onto the bed. “And you are mine.”
When he reaches down and strips off his jeans and boxers, I bite my lip as my eyes take in his cock. He’s hard and huge.
Because of me.
I still can’t seem to wrap my head around that. But when he positions his body between my legs, all thoughts are forgotten.
When he touches me, discovering how he has affected my own body, he groans. His fingers move over me, torturing me and making me squirm.
It feels good. Incredible and amazing. But it isn’t what I really want.
“Please,” I beg, terrified that if it doesn’t happen now, it might not happen at all.
Like this trance between us will somehow be broken.
Colton feels it too. This desperation.
And he indulges me, rubbing the head of his cock against me before pushing inside. Slowly and deliberately kissing me at the same time. Telling me how long he has wanted this. How many times he’s thought about this moment. How good I feel around him.
His words and his body and his scent and the feeling of him moving inside of me all combine to form an atomic bomb of pleasure. When I come around him, so does he.
And there’s a vague nagging at the back of my mind that we didn’t use a condom. But it isn’t something I have time to process before the door to the cottage opens.
Two of Colton’s so-called friends are standing in the threshold, laughing and smirking as they take in the sight before them.
Colt quickly covers my body with his and growls for them to leave. But they don’t.
“You owe me a hundred bucks,” one of them says.
I can’t tell if he is talking to Colton or the other guy, and suddenly I’m confused and humiliated.
“Get the fuck outside,” Colt barks at them. “I’ll talk to you out there.”
And then he’s covering me over quickly as he throws his clothes back on. He isn’t looking at me, but his face is red and he looks defeated. Angry. Torn.
“Did you make a bet with them?” I whisper. “About me?”
He looks at me, and his face is completely blank. Just as I feared, the trance has been broken.
“Pepper…” he says. “I…”
He scrubs a hand over his face and turns away, like he can’t even stand to look at me right now. To admit that it’s true. That this was all some stupid bet. And I was just the idiot who fell for it.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he tells me.
But there’s something in his voice that makes me believe he’s lying. He still won’t look at me. He won’t turn around.
“I have to go deal with them.”
The way he says it makes it sound like he’s walking towards his doom. And I can’t understand any of it.
“Will you be back?” I ask him in a quiet voice.
There’s a pause. And then a quiet yes.
Only, it’s a lie.
Because he never comes back.
He never comes back at all.
Chapter 10
When we leave the room, we don’t even make it downstairs before Colton catches up to us.
“Kristina, I need to borrow Pepper for a few minutes,” he tells her. “Can we catch up with you at one of the stops on the tour?”
Kristina gives me one of her signature ‘told you so’ looks and shrugs.
“That’s fine,” she says.
I try to protest, but Colt is dragging me back down the hall and to his room before I can even get a word out.
I’ve never seen him move so quickly, or efficiently, as he shoves the keycard into the door and pulls me inside behind him.
Again, I try to protest, but he cuts me off by caging me against the wall and crushing his lips down onto mine.
And I could have sworn that only a moment ago I had a lot of things going through my mind. But right now, with his hands on my body, and his lips on mine, all I can think about is how right it feels.
How nothing has changed over the years.
And I know it’s wrong, because I’m still so fucking angry at him. And I want to punish him. I want to hate him for what he did. For staying gone, and for coming back and doing this all over again.
I try to push him away, and he pulls me closer.
“No,” he growls. “I told you, Pepper. I fucking told you. You are mine.”
He kisses me again, and this time he’s the one acting like he’s angry. His touch is rough, and I can no longer find it in me to protest when he starts tearing at my clothes. Because I want it so much. I want him to be angry. I want that frustration.
Because it means that what we had wasn’t nothing.
“I don’t know what you think you are playing at,” he tells me as he turns me around and starts pulling up my dress, ripping through my tights with his bare hands. “That fuckwad downstairs does not get to touch you like that.”
“Fuck you,” I tell him. “You don’t have any right…”
“I have every right.” He cups my panties beneath his palm and rubs the wetness onto his fingers for emphasis. “I’m not a kid anymore. And nobody is going to stand in the way of what I want now. Not your father, not fucking Vincent, not anyone…”
His words don’t make any sense, but I’m long past caring when he starts grinding his erection into me from behind.
“I’ve got five years of pent-up want for you, Pepper,” he tells me as he unzips his pants. “And it isn’t going to be sweet. Not right now. Right now I just need to fuck you and claim you.”
A moan erupts from my throat when he rubs his cock against me and then shoves inside.
He wasn’t lying.
There’s nothing sweet about this.
He fucks me hard and rough against the wall, burying his face in my hair. But the words that come from his lips are the ones I’ve always needed from him.
“You are so goddamn beautiful,” he groans. “So goddamn mine, Pepper.”
“No,” I whisper, but it’s half-hearted, and we both know it’s a lie.
“Yes.”
He makes me come twice on his cock before he growls out his own release. And then he collapses against m
e, stroking my hair beneath his palm. Kissing my neck and holding me as he softens inside of me.
“I know that it’s five years too late to say,” he tells me. “And I know that you fucking hate me, Pepper. But I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I’m back now. I want to be back in your life for good.”
Tension coils through my body and panic seizes my lungs.
Those words are undoubtedly the ones I’ve always wanted him to say.
But I’m terrified.
And all I can think about is that he’s lying.
That he’s going to leave again.
And this time… he will really destroy me.
Destroy us.
“You’re right,” I tell him as I yank away and readjust my clothing into a presentable state. I can’t even look at him. I can’t watch the expression on his face when I move towards the door.
“You’re five years too late, Colton.”
Chapter 11
It’s Christmas Eve. And tomorrow is Kristina’s wedding and the holiday I’ve looked forward to most every year.
Soon, it will all be over.
Kristina will be married, Christmas will be over, and Colton will be gone.
And then it will just be Paisley and me.
I keep trying to tell myself that I’m okay with that.
But it doesn’t feel like I’m okay. At all.
I’m lying in bed and trying to sleep when I hear a noise in the living room. It’s Paisley’s voice. And she’s talking to someone.
I swear my heart leaps into my throat as I stumble down the hall in a panic, seeking out anything I can find along the way as a weapon.
“Paisley!”
I’m shouting her name before I even turn the corner.
“Mama,” she answers back. “Santa came!”
And when I round the corner and take in the sight before me, I can see how it would appear that way to her.
Her childlike innocence doesn’t notice the expression on Colton’s face as he stares at her in disbelief. All Paisley can see is the Christmas tree he brought, along with a box of decorations.
But as he can already see, they weren’t necessary.
I’ve been decorating my apartment for years on my own.
I reach out and pull Paisley into my arms, shielding her defensively, as though I can somehow protect her from his questioning eyes.
The eyes that are now staring at me.
Angry and hard.
I know that it’s only a matter of time before he gives voice to those questions, so I do the only thing I can at this point.
“Paisley, you need to go back to bed.”
She pouts and looks up at me. “But the cookies…”
“The real santa will find them when he arrives,” I tell her. “But this man isn’t him.”
Paisley glances back at Colton, and I know he can see the resemblance. She has my eyes and hair, but she looks just like him. Even if I could find it in me to lie to him, he can already see the truth for himself.
Paisley yawns and I give her one last kiss on the cheek.
“Go back to bed and I’ll be in to check on you in just a few minutes.”
“Okay, mama.”
She pads back down the hall, and Colt’s gaze lingers in her direction long after she’s out of sight. I wait quietly, wrapping my arms around myself in the hopes that maybe he won’t say anything at all. Maybe he will just leave.
“I thought you’d be with your family.” Are the first words to come out of his mouth. “You’re always with your family on Christmas Eve.”
“Not in five years,” I tell him.
The room is quiet around us, and his eyes are moving over everything. The Ikea furniture. The photographs on the wall. This place looks nothing like my childhood home. Because it’s a real home.
“How old is she?” Colton asks as he stares at the photo of me in the hospital with Paisley.
“Colt…”
“You didn’t fucking tell me,” he growls, the tension in his body growing with every passing second. “You didn’t fucking tell me this?”
“How could I?” I snap back. “You left. Remember? Without so much as a goodbye. You made it a little difficult to keep in touch since you walked away without looking back.”
“Is that what you think?” he stares at me in disbelief. “God, Pepper, you are fucking deluded. That father of yours really did a number on you.”
“What does he have to do with any of this?” I bite out.
Colton turns away and stretches his arms behind his head, taking a deep breath and then blowing it out. His rage is palpable right now. And I don’t understand how he feels entitled to that rage. But before I get a chance to tell him so, he turns back towards me. And the expression on his face isn’t that of Colt the grown man. But Colton the kid. The one I used to know and love all those years ago.
“He made me stop spending time with you,” he tells me. “After that first night you brought us to dinner at your house.”
“What?” I stare at him in disbelief. “No, he wouldn’t do that.”
I’m shaking my head, because I don’t want to believe it. But I know my father. I know that when he found out I was pregnant, he disowned me. I’d ruined every plan he’d ever had for me.
But this? What Colton is talking about? That’s something else entirely.
“I didn’t tell you, because it was your father. You loved him. And I couldn’t hurt you like that. He knew that, and he made me choose. By threatening my father’s job at the plant.”
His voice softens a fraction, and he looks away. “If I didn’t stop hanging out with you.”
“No,” I say again. But it’s weak this time, only a whisper. Colt just keeps talking. Unburdening himself of the truth he has carried all this time.
“You know how powerful he was,” he says. “I had no choice, Pepper. But I couldn’t stay away. So I started sneaking in your room.”
“And then he caught you,” I murmur.
And suddenly, it all makes so much sense. Colton’s words from that night. How he told me he’d fucked up. That’s what he meant.
“He had them cut back my father’s hours,” he explains. “Then he told me the next time it happened, he’d be bringing charges against me. Ruining any chance I had at a career.”
“Charges for what?” I demand.
“Those guys you thought were my friends,” he says. “He paid them to keep an eye on me. To make sure I was really steering clear of you. But that wasn’t all.”
My heart jumps into my throat as I remember their words from that night. About the bet. I thought it was Colt. But it was really my father. And I had never known.
“They were going to testify and say that I had assaulted you,” Colton says. “Whether it happened or not.”
“No,” I say again. “It can’t be…”
“It’s the fucking truth, Pepper,” Colton bites out. “And that is why I had to leave. Why I had to join the military. Because when he found out about that night, it was either that or prison. But if I had known, if you had told me that…”
He curses and scrubs his hands over his face, his rage returning full force.
“I wouldn’t have gone,” he says. “Fuck, Pepper. I would have done anything for you. Any-fucking-thing. But you hid this from me.”
“I didn’t know,” I try to justify. “And I wasn’t hiding it. I just…”
“You could have told any of my family the truth. They would have contacted me. But you didn’t.”
My eyes are glassy, and my lips are devoid of the words that I need right now. The rationale that I’ve been hanging onto for all these years, thinking I had done the right thing.
“Colt…”
“I need to leave,” he says. “I need to cool off. I just can’t… I’m going to say something I’ll regret if I stand here another minute.”
And so he goes.
Leaving me to crumple to the floor in a giant mess when the door closes behind
him.
Chapter 12
I’m standing in the doorway of Paisley’s room watching her sleep when I hear the front door open again.
I forgot to lock it after Colton left. But somehow I know it’s him. That he’s returned.
When my red and puffy eyes meet his gaze in the hallway, regret fills his face.
I’m not sure what to expect, so when he comes up and pulls me into his chest, cradling my head in his hand, it’s a surprise. But it’s also exactly where I need to be right now.
For a while, he just holds me while I cry again. And he kisses my forehead, stroking my back with his hands.
“I’ve missed everything,” he says solemnly. “Everything.”
“Not everything,” I whisper against his chest. “She’s still young.”
“I should have been here,” he tells me.
And I know I can’t argue with him. Because it’s true. He should have been here. And all these years I have been blaming him when the devil was literally my own flesh and blood.
“I’m sorry, Colton. I’m so sorry.”
“I meant what I said before, Pepper,” he tells me. “Nothing is going to come between us now. Nothing. And the same goes for my daughter. You are mine to protect. Mine to take care of. Both of you.”
“My father hasn’t been a part of our lives since he found out I was keeping Paisley,” I tell him.
And it sickens me to know that he could have unburdened himself of the truth then. He knew exactly who Paisley’s father was, and he sent him away.
But he never said a word.
“I’m here now,” Colt says, reading my thoughts. “And I swear to you, Pepper, I’m never going to leave you again.”
“But the military…”
“I’m out,” he says. “I’m done for good.”
“Is that why you came back?” I ask.
He shakes his head and nuzzles into my neck, breathing me in like he’s been waiting all this time to do just that.
“I couldn’t ask about you,” he tells me. “I couldn’t know anything about you. If you were dating someone else. If you were happy. If you’d done all the things your parents wanted you to. But there was a part of me that hoped when I came back that maybe you would still feel the way that I did. That maybe you’d never gotten over me. Because I never got over you.”
