Crashed

CHAPTER 17

Expectation vibrates and contentment flows through me as I drive the sun drenched highway back to Colton’s house, back to what I’ve been calling home for the past week. A silent tiptoe within a monumental step of our relationship.

It’s just out of necessity. Not because he wants me to stay with him for an unspecified period of time. Right?

My heart is lighter after spending my first twenty-four hour shift in over three weeks with the boys. I can’t help but smile, recalling Colton’s self-sacrifice to get me out of the house and to the boys without a paparazzi entourage. As I was behind the wheel of the Range Rover and its heavily tinted windows, Colton opened the gate on his driveway and walked right out into the media frenzy, drawing all of the attention on himself. And as the vultures descended, I drove out the other side and left without anybody tailing me.

Anticipation is not inconsequential. The phrase dances through my mind, a parade of possibilities rain from the four words Colton texted me earlier. And when I tried to call him to ask what he meant, the phone went to voicemail and another text was sent in response. No questions. I’m in control now. See you after work.

And the simple notion that after being with him basically non-stop for three weeks and now I’m not allowed to talk to him—that in itself has created serious anticipation. But the question stands, what exactly am I supposed to be anticipating? As much as my body has already decided, vibrating at what it knows to be the answer, my mind is trying to prepare me for something else. I’m afraid that if I think he’s really been cleared by the doctor, and he hasn’t, I’ll be so frenzied with need and overwhelmed with desire that I’ll take what I want—am desperate to have—even though it’s not safe for him.

I can’t help but smile in satisfaction as I think of what tonight just might bring, on the heels of a great shift with the other men in my life. I felt like a rock star walking into The House from the warm and loving reception I received from the boys. I missed them so much and it was such a comforting sound to hear Ricky and Kyle bickering over who is the best baseball player, to hear the sweet sound of Zander’s voice in its sporadic but steady bouts, to listen to Shane rattle on about Sophia and Colton getting better so he can teach him how to drive. There were hugs and affirmations that Colton really is okay and all of the headlines in the papers saying otherwise were not true.

I turn up the radio when What I Needed comes on and start singing aloud, the lyrics bolstering my good mood, if that’s even possible. I look over my shoulder and change lanes, noticing the dark blue sedan for the third time. Maybe I didn’t escape the paparazzi after all. Or maybe it’s one of Sammy’s guys just making sure I get home okay. Regardless, I have a slightly unnerving feeling.

I start to get paranoid and reach for my phone to call Colton and ask him if he had Sammy put a security detail on me. I reach across to the passenger seat and my hand hits all of the homemade gifts the boys made for Colton. It’s then I realize that when I loaded my stuff into the back of the car, I set my phone down, and forgot to pick it back up.

I glance in my mirror again and try to shake the feeling away that eats at me, that makes me worry when I see the car still a few lengths back, and force myself to concentrate on the road. I tell myself it’s just a desperate photographer. Not a big deal. This is Colton’s territory, something he’s completely used to but not me. I blow out an audible breath as I make my way through the beachside community and onto Broadbeach Road.

I shouldn’t be surprised that the paparazzi still obstruct the street outside of Colton’s gates. I shouldn’t cringe at having to navigate the street as they descend upon me when they notice I’m driving his car. I shouldn’t check my rearview mirror again as I push the button for the gates to open and see the sedan park itself against the curb. I should notice that the person in the car never gets out—never claims his camera to take the shot he’s been following me for—but driving with camera flashes exploding around me, it’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

I breathe out a shaky breath as the gates shut behind me and park the Rover. I exit the car, my hands a little jittery and my head wondering how anyone gets used to the absolute chaos from the frenzied media as I hear them still calling my name from over the wall. I look up to where Sammy stands just inside the gate and accept the nod he gives me. I start to ask if he’s added a man on me but I suddenly remember Colton’s text.

Anticipation is not inconsequential.

Everything in my body clenches and coils, my nerves are already frenzied and aching for the man inside the house in front of me. I open the back of the car and grab my purse, figuring I’ll leave everything else and get it later. I move quickly to the front door, have the key in the lock, and the door open in seconds. When I close the door the cacophony outside is silenced, and I lean back against the wood, my shoulders sagging at the literal and figurative notion that I’ve just shut out the world and am now in my little slice of Heaven.

I’m now with Colton.

“Tough day?”

I almost jump out of my skin. Colton steps out of the shadowed alcove, and it takes everything I have to remember to breathe as he leans against the wall behind him. My eyes greedily scrape over every defined edge—every inch of pure maleness—of his body, covered only in a pair of red board shorts hanging low on his hips. My gaze roams up his chest and over inked reminders to take in the lopsided ghost of a smile, but it’s when our eyes lock that I catch the spark right before the dynamite detonates.

And from one breath to the next, predicated by a carnal groan, he is on me—body crashing into mine, pressing me against the door, mouth doing so much more than kissing. He’s taking, claiming, branding me with unfettered need and reckless abandon. I immediately reach up and fist the hair at the back of his neck while one of his hands does the same to me, the other is on my hip, his desperate fingers digging into my willing flesh. My breasts pillow and pebble against the firmness of his chest, the warmth of his skin adding heat to the blaze building inside of me.

An inferno of need rises inside me that I don’t think will ever be sated.

We move in a series of fervent reactions, his hand holds my curls hostage so my mouth is at the mercy of his dexterous lips. So his tongue may delve and tantalize and taste like a man savoring his last meal, like a man saying fuck off to his restraint and accepting gluttony as a welcome sin.

My hands graze down the blades of his shoulders as he gasps—so grateful to have the chance to feel again—before he hikes my leg up and over his hip. I moan, the change in position allowing his rock hard erection to be perfectly placed against my aching core. I throw my head back against the door as the muted friction swamps me, and Colton takes advantage of my newly exposed neck. His mouth is on the tender flesh in the beat of a heart, his tongue sliding against nerves, bringing them to life and then simultaneously singeing them with desire.

My fingers grab onto flexing biceps as his hands make quick work of the button on my jeans. I wiggle my hips when his hands slide between the fabric and my anticipatory flesh. I step out of them as his fingers roam, feathering over my swollen folds to tempt but not take. His other hand palms my backside, a barrier between me and the door, and presses me further into him.

Need swells to unfathomable heights as the parasitic strains of desperation consume every part of my body.

“Colton,” I groan, wanting—no needing—him to complete our connection. My hands grope his torso and tear apart the Velcro on his board shorts. I hear the hiss of his breath as my hands find and encircle his tortured length. His whole body tenses at the feel of my skin on his.

“Ry …” He pants my name as I slide my hand up and down him. His hands find their way beneath my top, stripping it off me and making fast work of my bra clasp. “Rylee,” he says between gritted teeth. He’s so overwhelmed with the sensations ricocheting through him that he stops kissing me, stops moving his hands over my flesh, and braces them against the door on either side of my head. He presses his forehead against mine as he vibrates with the need coursing through him, his breath coming out in short, sharp breaths against my lips.

He says something so quietly I can’t hear it underneath the heavy breathing filling the otherwise silent room. I move my hands again, enjoying the feeling of him trembling against me. “Stop,” he says quietly against my lips, and this time I hear him. I instantly stop and move back to look at him, fearing that his head is hurting. And I am immediately unnerved by the sight of his eyes squeezed shut.

He draws in a pained breath and opens his eyes slowly to meet mine, as his fingers gently knead my ass. “I’m fucking desperate to bury myself—feel, lose, find myself—in you, Ry …” he says, the strain in his neck visible and his desperation audible. “You deserve soft and slow, baby, but all I’m going to be able to give you is hard and fast because it’s been so fucking long since I’ve had you.”

My God the man is so damn sexy, his admission such a turn on, that I don’t think he realizes I don’t care about soft and slow. My body is strung so tight—emotions, nerves, willpower—that a single touch from him will undoubtedly break me, shatter me into a million fucking pieces of pleasure that oddly will make me whole again.

I angle my head up to him, lean in, and brush my lips to his. I hear his pained intake of breath, feel the tension in his lips as I pull gently on his bottom one from between my teeth. When I pull back, I meet his lust-laden eyes.

“I want you,” I whisper to him, one hand wrapped around his iron length and the other fisted tight in the hair at his nape, so he can feel the intensity of my desire. “Any way I can have you. Hard, fast, soft, slow, standing, sitting—it doesn’t matter so long as you’re the one buried in me.”

He stares at me for a beat, disbelief warring with the need raging in his eyes. I can see him try to rein it in, can feel him tremble with need, and know the instant his resolve crumbles. His mouth meets mine—bruising lips and melding tongues—as he takes, tastes, and tempts as only he can. Strong hands map the lines of my torso, thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts already heavy with need, before descending back down the curve of my hips.

If I thought the seeds of desire planted before had bloomed, I have never been more wrong because right now—right now—I’m a garden of need.

He grows even harder in my hand as I rub my thumb over the moisture at his crest and am rewarded with a groan from deep in his throat. My other hand scratches up the skin of his back as my lips brand his with just as much fervor. In an instant, Colton has his hands on my hips, lifting me up and pressing my back against the door. My legs try to wrap around his waist but he holds me up, suspended so the one connection I want the most isn’t made, so the steeled length of him against my thighs is a torturous tease to my begging apex.

He sucks in a breath as I reach between my legs and grip him, wanting to control the man who is uncontrollable. Needing him in the worst way. The best way. In any way.

His eyes flicker with some undecipherable emotion, but I’m so pent up, so preoccupied with what’s going to happen in the next few moments I don’t even give a second thought to what it is.

I release him momentarily and reach between my legs to wet my fingers with the pool of moisture within before encircling his crest and coating it, preparing him physically and showing him figuratively what he does to me, and what exactly I want from him. And my little demonstration weakens all of his restraint.

His fingers dig into my hips and lift me up a little higher as I line him up before he pulls me back down and onto him. We both cry out as our connection is made. As my wet heat stretches past its limits to accommodate his invasion.

And it feels like it’s been so long since he’s filled me, my body has forgotten the pleasurable burn his presence can evoke. “My God,” I breathe as my body takes him in. “I’m so tight,” I tell him, chalking it up to the fact that it’s been over three weeks since we’ve been intimate.

“No, baby,” Colton says, mirth dancing in his eyes as he stills his hips so I can adjust. “I’m just that big.”

The laughter fills my mind but never makes it to my lips before I see a flash of his cocky grin and then his mouth is on mine again. But this time as his kiss claims mine, his hips begin to move, hands begin to guide, and his cock begins to stroke over every attuned inch within my nerve-laden walls. He is in complete control of our movements, our motions, our escalation of sensations.

I lift my head up from its leaning position against the door and take in the sight of him. His own eyes are closed, lips slightly parted, hair mussed from my hands, and shoulder muscles rippling as he moves us in rhythmic motion.

My broken man is now in pure dominant mode, and every nerve in my body screams to be taken. To be made his. To be the one he proves his virility to.

“Fuuuccckkk you feel good,” he tells me as he pushes me up and then plunges back into me as my muscles clench and nerves are paid the attention they most definitely have been craving.

“Colton,” I pant, my fingers digging into the tops of his shoulders as he drives me higher and higher. Sensation spirals—little shock waves of pleasure preparing me for him to shake the earth beneath my feet—and warmth starts to spread like a wildfire through my core. He drives back in again as my thighs tighten around him, my fingernails score lines, and my mouth seeks his with a frenzied need.

It only takes a few more seconds before the pleasure ratchets into an explosion of white in the abyss of darkness that has consumed me. And I am instantly lost to a world beyond our connection. It’s just him and me—sensation overwhelming and breath robbed— as I drown in the liquid heat and lose myself to the feeling, his name a repeated pant from my lips.

Within moments, Colton’s cry breaks through my pleasure induced coma at the same time his hips convulse wildly beneath mine, finding his own release. He rocks back and forth in me a few times trying to draw out the moment, his breath ragged and chest gleaming with our combined sweat.

His body sags against mine as he buries his face into the crook of my neck. My arms wrap around him from my position atop his pelvis and pressed against the door. I absorb the moment—the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his breath against my neck, the unmistakable scent of sex—and understand without a doubt that I’d move Heaven and earth for this man without a second thought.

Colton adjusts his grip on my hips, and I slowly lower my feet to the ground; although my head is still figuratively in the clouds. He slips out of me and yet our connection is not lost because he gathers me in his arms, skin to skin, as if he doesn’t want to let me go just yet.

And I’m okay with that because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let him go either.

“Fuck, I needed that,” he sighs with a slight chuckle and all I can give him is a noncommittal answer because frankly I’m still riding my own high.

We fall silent for a few moments, lost in the moment, enjoying the comforting feel of just being together.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he says, breaking the silence and shakes his head back and forth before pulling back so he can look at the questioning look on my face.

“Tell you?” I’m confused.

A ghost of a smirk graces his mouth as he brings one hand up to cup the side of my face, his thumb brushing ever so softly over my lips still swollen from his kisses. “What I said to you before I got in the car ...”

My inhaling breath dies and my heart skips a beat, lodging itself in my throat from the words on his lips and the emotion in his eyes. I want to ask him to say it, to tell me the words himself, because hell yes I know what he said, but I want to hear that he remembers those words and still feels the meaning behind them.

I try to control the hitch in my breath and wavering in my voice but I have to ask. “What do you mean?” I’m a horrible liar and I know he can see right through my feigned confusion.

He chuckles a quiet laugh and leans in to brush a tender kiss against my lips and then the tip of my nose before leaning back so he can look into my eyes. He darts his tongue out to wet his lips and says, “I race you, Ryles.”

My heart melts and my soul sighs at hearing him repeat those words I’ve used like glue to bind the broken pieces the crash created. Even though the words bring me peace, I can hear nerves shake his voice, can sense the anxiety in the bottom lip he worries between his teeth. And now I’m starting to get nervous. Did he say the words and now doesn’t feel the same way he did then? I know it’s a ridiculous thought, considering what happened between us moments ago, but the one thing I’ve learned about Colton is that he is anything but predictable.

“Yeah,” I sigh, meeting the temerity in his eyes. “Those words … are you saying them now because you’ve reclaimed the memory or because you still mean them?” There. I’ve laid it out on the table, given him the option to say it’s the former and not the latter—an out in case he no longer races me. In case the accident has changed how he feels and this—us, me and him—have reverted back to a just casual status.

Colton angles his head and studies me a moment, eyes beseeching but lips motionless. The silence stretches as I wait for the answer, as I wait to see if he’ll rip me apart or be the soothing balm to my healing heart.

“Ry … don’t you know I never forget a single moment when I race … on or off the track?” It takes a moment for the words to register, for the words and what they mean to sink in. That he remembers and that he still feels the same way. And the funny thing is now that I know—now that all of this worry can go away and we can move forward—I’m frozen in place.

We’re naked, leaning against a door that a hundred or so reporters are on the other side of, the man I race has just told me that he races me back, and yet all I can do is stare at him as my soul realizes the hope filling it, is finding its permanent home.

Colton leans in so his mouth is a whisper from mine, hands framing my face as he looks into the depths of my soul. “I race you, Rylee,” he says to me, mistaking my silence as not understanding his prior statement. Little does he realize I’m so head over heels in love with him, right here, right now—body naked and heart bared—that I’m robbed of the ability to speak. So instead I accept the brush of his lips over mine in a kiss that’s soft and reverent before he rests his forehead against mine. “Don’t you know?” he asks. “You’re my motherfucking checkered flag.”

I can feel his lips curve up in a smile as they brush against mine, and I let the laughter that bubbles up fall free. It feels so good to suddenly have that thorn removed from my side.

To know the man I love, loves me in return.

To know he’s caught my free-falling heart.

Colton’s hands start the descent back down the line of my spine—the tremor of his right hand so slight now I barely notice it—and then back up as I feel him start to harden again against my lower belly.

“I take it you’ve been cleared from the doc?” I ask, my sated body already thrumming with newfound desire.

“Yeah I did, but after my day,” he says, kissing my forehead and pulling me back into the comfort of his arms, “it didn’t fucking matter if I got the okay or not, I was taking what was mine.”

“What was yours, huh?” I tease him despite the words warming my heart.

“Yep.”

And then the words he said before register and have me pulling back to search for an answer. “What was wrong with your day?”

I see something cloud his eyes momentarily before he pushes it away. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, and I’m immediately concerned.

“What else happened, Colton? Was there something you remembered—something that—”

“No,” he says, quieting me with a press of his lips against mine. “I only remembered what was important. Some voids are still there.” Ever the master of deflection, he continues, “It seems I’ve been neglecting you as of late.”

So whatever is bugging him, he doesn’t want to talk about. Okay … well, then on the heels of the past twenty minutes, I will most definitely give him the unasked for space and not push. “Neglecting me?”

“Yes, not treating you properly,” he says as he slaps my butt; the sting it leaves has nothing on the shock waves that ripple through the hypersensitive flesh between my thighs. “You’ve been taking care of me—of everyone else but yourself as usual—and I haven’t properly taken care of you.”

“I do believe you did just take care of me … and quite properly,” I tease, wiggling my naked body up against his and earning the hum that comes from deep within his throat. “If that’s considered not taking care of me—neglecting me—Ace, then please...” I nip at the skin on the underside of his jaw “...neglect me some more.”

“My God, woman, you test a man’s restraint,” he groans as his hands run down my spine and clasp together against my lower back. “But, that was just a minor sidetrack to—”

“Minor is not what I’d call it,” I quip with a raise of my eyes and another wiggle of my hips that causes him to laugh out loud. “I’ll take one of your sidetracks any day.”

“Bet your ass you will,” he teases with a quick squeeze of my hips, “but as I was saying, it’s time I treated you to a proper night out rather than gross hospital food and keeping me occupied while I lie in bed.” When I just quirk a suggestive eyebrow at the occupy in bed part, he just shakes his head at me and that grin I love lights up his face. He leans in and kisses me softly, murmuring his next words against my own lips. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to occupy me in bed later because right now—tonight—I’m taking you to a movie premier.”

His words catch me by complete surprise. “Wh-what?” I look at him with incredulity on my face and lips parted in shock. He just grins at me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look because he’s surprised me.

A little thrill of excitement shoots through me at the thought of experiencing something new with Colton—making new memories—but at the same time that means I’ll have to share him with them. The paparazzi who sit outside the gate and will no doubt be at the event with their intrusive questions and in-your-face cameras. And it also means we have to step outside of this world, away from our cozy little realm where we can make sweet, lazy love whenever and wherever we want.

I know which one I prefer.

His sarcastic comment to Becks from days earlier chooses right now to hit my ears and take hold. The words are out of my mouth before I can filter them. “I thought once you got the okay, nothing was going to come between you and me but a change of sheets for a long, fucking time.” I repeat his own words back to him.

Colton’s eyes instantly darken with lust and spark with mischief as his mouth twists, his mind figuring out which option he’d prefer. “Well,” he says with a laugh, “I did in fact say that.” He traces a finger lazily down my cheek, to my neckline, and then down between my breasts. I can’t help the breath I suck in, the pebbling of my nipples, or the swelling of my heart. “And you know me, Ryles, always a man of my word … so how exactly am I going to keep you naked with the exception of a sheet and at the same time attend a premier I’ve already committed to? Hmm … decisions,” he whispers as he leans down and traces the curve of my neck with the tip of his tongue. “What shall we do?”

I open my mouth to answer but all I can do is try and breathe when his teeth tug playfully on my earlobe. “I guess the world’s about to learn how damn sexy you look wrapped in a sheet.”

My eyes snap open to meet his as shock kicks my libido down a notch. Within a second Colton and his devilish grin have picked my naked self up and placed me over his shoulder.

“No!” I shriek as he starts toward the stairs. “Put me down!”

“The media’s going to have a field day with this one,” he taunts as I swat his ass, but he carries on. “Well one way to look at it, it’s not going to take you long to pick out what to wear.”

“You’ve lost your marbles!” I shout, my comment earning me another smack on my bare ass perched so seamlessly over his shoulder.

“My loss is your gain, sweetheart!” He chuckles as he climbs the last step up the stairs.

“Gain, my ass!” I mutter under my breath, and he belts out another laugh.

“Oh really,” he says, angling his head to the side and placing a chaste kiss on my hip beside his face. “I didn’t know you liked to play that way, but I’m sure we could explore that avenue when the time’s right.”

My mouth gapes open and I sputter a nervous laugh as Colton stops and slowly slides my body down every firm inch of his until my feet touch the floor. The impish gleam in his eye causes me to wonder if that’s yet another something Colton might be into that’s never crossed my mind before. I’m so lost in my momentary thoughts and the quiet calculation in his eyes that I miss the fact he’s set me down on the private, second story terrace.

And when I realize it—when I notice my surroundings—I’m shocked once again … but this surprise is one that melts my heart.

“Oh, Colton!” The words fall out of my mouth as I take in all of the preparations around me. A portable movie screen has been set up on the far end of the patio and the chaise lounges have been arranged in theater style seating, draped in several layers of none other than sheets. A smile spreads over my face and warmth permeates my soul as I take in the little touches, little things that let me know he cares: a bowl of Hershey’s kisses, a bottle of wine, funnels of cotton candy, lighted candles sprinkled everywhere, and clouds of pillows to lie back on.

I can’t help the tears that well in my eyes nor do I care when one slips over and slides silently down my cheek. The thoughtfulness that went into everything that sits beautifully in front of me leaves me at a loss for words. I turn back to face him and just shake my head at what I see … because if what’s behind me robs my words, the beauty inside and out of the man before me steals my heart. He stands there naked— unshaven, hair mussed and, not including the shaved patch, in desperate need of a haircut, and a look in his eyes that reinforces the words he said to me downstairs.

“Thank you,” I tell him with a broken breath. “This is the sweetest thing …” My voice drifts off as he takes a step toward me and brings his hands up to cup my cheeks and angle my head up so I can meet his eyes. “The best kind of night out. A movie with my Ace and sheets … nothing between us but sheets.”

He smiles that shy smile that undoes me and leans in for a whisper of a kiss before pulling back. “That’s exactly right, Ry. Nothing between us but sheets. Nothing between us ever again but a set of sheets.”

His words stagger me, move me, complete me, and all I can do is step forward and press my lips to his—feel his heart against me, the scrape of his unshaven jaw against my chin, see the love in his eyes—and say, “Nothing but sheets.”