The beautiful Florida sunshine feels magnificent on my skin and elevates my spirits. Arriving a day earlier than needed in St. Petersburg, I have taken full advantage of the ever-present warm weather and lavish pool of the Vinoy Resort and Golf Club. The home base of CD Enterprises and Corporate Cares for the next few days. There’s nothing like relaxation and the touch of sun on my skin to rejuvenate me before my official duties and the whirlwind that will ensue tomorrow.
It’s not that I mind the crazy schedule—in fact, I look forward to meeting and thanking the people that have helped make the project a reality—it’s that I will have to stand side by side with Colton to show the unity between our two companies. There are photo ops and sponsorship appreciation events among other things before the actual race on Sunday.
I cringe at the thought of my schedule—my close proximity to Colton—seeing as how I was able to avoid him the rest of the night at Shane’s party and therefore didn’t follow through on my promise to talk with him. I’m sure my due will come tomorrow when I see him, but for now, my head swims of sun and relaxation.
Rihanna’s Stay plays in my earbuds, the lyrics hitting a little too close to home. Wanting to forgo getting sunburn on the first day here, I gather my belongings and head back toward the room.
I step into the empty elevator, and just as the door starts to close, “Hold the elevator!” echoes off of the marbled walls of the lobby. A hand sticks in the small space between the moving door and the wall, and it immediately retreats back open. I suck in a breath when a very sweaty, extremely delectable Colton jogs his way into the elevator. His momentum dies when his eyes meet mine.
A pair of sweat soaked gym shorts ride low on his hips while the top portion of his torso remains bare. His tan is darker, no doubt from his work out in the bright sun, and sweat glistens off every inch of his bared skin. My eyes wander helplessly over the well-defined ridges of his abdomen, the intricate markings of his tattoos, and to where rivulets of sweat drip down into the deep V that travels below his waistband. I swallow reactively at the memory of my hands mapping those lines and the feel of them bunching beneath my fingertips as he buries himself in me. I drag my eyes away and up to those magnificent pools of green that stare at me with a somber intensity.
Of all of the elevators in the entire frickin’ resort, he has to pick this one?
A cautious smile turns up the corners of his mouth as he steps farther into the elevator toward me. He knows I’m affected. “Glad to see you got in okay.”
“Yeah…” I clear my throat, finding it difficult to make my thoughts form into words when the temptation is so painstakingly clear in front of me. “Yes, I did. Thank you.”
“Good,” he says, eyes locked on mine.
The doors start to close again, and when a gentleman starts to walk in, Colton breaks our visual connection and steps in front of him, spreading his arms across the entrance. “Sorry, this elevator’s taken.” His voice that denotes that there is no arguing the matter.
I start to protest as the doors close and Colton whirls around to me, his predatory glare matching the posture of his body. “Don’t even start, Rylee…” He growls, silencing me as he takes a step toward me. His chest is heaving and I’m not sure if it’s a result of the exertion from his run or because of our close proximity. His dominance of this small space is all consuming. “This ends right now.”
He takes another step closer, his jaw clenched, his eyes unforgiving as they leave mine and roam over my bikini-clad torso. My swimsuit seemed to provide more than adequate coverage when I bought it, but standing here in an elevator with Colton’s eyes scraping over every single curve of my body, it feels indecently suggestive. And I know it’s because even though he’s not touching me—even though I’m hurt and want nothing to do with him—my body remembers all too well the havoc he can wreak on my system with the simple graze of his fingertips or caress of his tongue.
I tell myself to snap out of it. To remember what he did to me, but it’s so damn hard when his heady after-workout scent is dominating the small space. The ache resurfaces deep within my body at the sight of him, creating desires I know only he can satisfy. The man’s pull on me is relentless, even when he doesn’t even realize it. “Now’s not a good time, Colton.”
He chuckles a sliver of a laugh, but his face doesn’t depict a single trace of humor. He takes a final step toward me, my retreat leaving my back pressed against the wall. He leans forward and presses his hands on either side of me, boxing me in. “Well, you better make it one, Rylee, because I really don’t care. This ends right here, right now. Non-negotiable.”
My breath hitches, betraying my false façade as his body brushes against mine. The heat of his skin radiates off of him and into me. His lips are mere inches from mine. All I’d have to do is lean forward to feel them. To taste him again. And then I realize that this is exactly what he wants. He wants to remind me physically so I forgive and forget about what happened emotionally.
Wrong tactic to use with me.
I want him—God yes I want him—but not on these terms. Not with lies still hanging between us. Not with the hurt from his deception poisoning my heart.
We breathe each other in, our eyes unwavering, and I’m proud of myself for holding my own. “I think you’ve forgotten how good we are together,” he grates out in frustration when he realizes that I’m able to resist him.
I angle my head and look at him. “It’s easy to forget when Tawny opens the front door of your whorehouse with nothing but your T-shirt on, Ace.” I sneer, timing it perfectly so my last word coincides with the elevator’s ding to our destined floor. I take the sound as my cue and duck quickly beneath his hands, bolting into the hallway to the sounds of a cursing Colton. I should know better by now how fast he is, but my mind is jumbled with everything else.
I can hear his footsteps behind me as I fumble with the keycard into my room. I think I may be in the clear, but the minute I have the door open, his hand slams against the door forcing it open with a bang. I don’t even have a moment to yelp before he spins me around and crashes my back against the wall with the full force of his body.
“Then let me remind you,” he growls, and in my surprised state, I barely register his words, but they seep into my fuzzy conscience the moment before his lips claim mine. It’s amazing that regardless of how long it’s been—how hurt I am—when we connect, I feel like I’m home. A home currently set ablaze, but a home nonetheless. His mouth fervently possesses mine, and his hands map over every inch of my exposed flesh. Kneading. Stimulating. Possessing. I get lost in his taste; his touch; the low groan emanating in the back of his throat; the hard length of his body pressing into mine as one hand wraps around the waterfall of curls down my back and holds me captive to his mind-altering onslaught.
It takes a moment for my mind to work through the chaos and the bang of arousal he’s just created between my thighs. I struggle out of the desire-induced haze that renders my body boneless. Shit! Shit! Shit!
“No!” It’s a broken, strangled cry but a cry nonetheless. I push forcibly on his chest, tearing his mouth from mine. “I can’t. I just can’t! This doesn’t fix anything!”
I stand there staring at him with our chests heaving and pulses racing—a sure sign that our chemistry still remains—and his more than addictive taste still on my lips. His hands are wrapped around my wrists, holding my hands against his damp and alluring chest. “Rylee…”
“No!” I try again to push against his chest, but my strength is no match for his. “You don’t get to just take what you want, when you want it.”
“My God, woman, you are driving me insane!” he mutters into the air.
“Why? Because you got caught?”
“You have to do something wrong to get caught!” he shouts, releasing my wrists and pushing away from me, his face a mix of exasperation, frustration, and unsatisfied desire. “Nothing! F*cking! Happened!” His voice bellows around the empty room and echoes in the emptiness of my hurting heart.
“Tigers can’t change their stripes, Ace.”
“You and your f*ckin’ tigers and ducks,” he mutters before turning his back and walking farther into my room and away from me.
“Don’t forget jackasses!” I shout.
“Goddamn frustrating, pig-headed woman!” he says to himself before turning back around.
The man is infuriating, thinking he can just waltz in here and kiss me senseless so that I forget everything else. “C’mon, since when does the infamous ladies’ man, Colton Donavan, resist a half-naked woman?” I sneer, taking a step toward him, infusing sarcasm in my next comment. “And to think you were even generous enough to offer her the shirt off your back.” I snort. “With a track record like yours, I'm sure you offered what was in your pants as well. Oh, I’m sorry—we know you did because you made sure it was jacketed up. Nothing happened? Just a kiss? And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Yes!” he shouts loud enough to make me wince. “Just like I was supposed to believe your excuse at Shane’s party. It was bullshit and you know it.”
“Don’t you dare turn this on me!” I yell at him.
“You really believe that we were just sex?” He grates out, jaw clenched, voice challenging.
“Oh, were we something more?” Sarcasm drips from my words.
“Yes goddamnit!” He pounds his fist against the wall, “and you know it!”
I take a step toward him, anger overriding any intimidation I normally would have felt. “Well by you acknowledging it, it just makes what you did even worse?”
“What did I do, Rylee? Tell me exactly what I did!” He shouts at me, stepping well within the realm of personal space.
“Now you want to rub it in? You want to shove my face in it by making me say it out loud? F*ck you, Colton,” I shout at him, anger starting to snake through my body and permeate through the hurt.
“No. I want to hear you say it. I want you to look in my eyes and see my reaction for yourself. What did I do?” he commands, giving my shoulders a slight shake. “Say it!”
And I refuse to. I refuse to watch the little smirk that I know will play at the corners of his mouth if I obey him so instead I say the only thing that comes to mind. “Quack!”
“Now you’re just acting like a child!” Exasperated, he releases me and shoves his hand through his hair before taking a few steps from me to control his temper.
“A child?” I sputter, shock radiating through me. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. “A f*cking child? Look who’s talking!”
“You,” he says with a sneer and an arch of an eyebrow, “the child throwing the goddamn tantrum. The one so wrapped up in your own head, that you don’t realize your little fit is for all of the wrong f*cking reasons.”
I stare at him for a moment, our eyes locked on one another’s and I realize that we’re tearing each other apart and for what? We obviously can’t get past this. Me accusing. Him denying. “This is such a waste of time,” I say quietly, a single tear slipping down my cheek and resignation in my voice.
He takes another step toward me, and I just shake my head at him, unable to let go the tumultuous emotions inside of me. How can I love this beautiful man before me and despise him at the same time? How can I crave and desire him, all the while wanting to throttle him? I sag against the wall as I try to process everything that I was afraid of happening transpire.
“Why was she there, Colton?” I stare unflinchingly into his eyes, asking but not really wanting to know the answer. His eyes look down for a moment, and his hesitancy makes me miserable. I gather every ounce of hurt I have in my voice, and when I speak, it drips with it. “I told you that cheating was a deal breaker for me.”
“Nothing happened.” He throws his hands up as the image of Tawny legs, hard nipples pressed against his T-shirt, and her smug smile flickers through my head. "What is it going to take to make you believe me?” The sound in his voice takes me by surprise. As if he really can’t believe my doubt in him. Haddie’s comments flicker through my mind, but I push them away. She wasn’t there. She didn’t see what I saw. She didn’t see Tawny tousled from sleep with that victorious siren’s smile across her swollen lips. The condom wrapper fluttering to the ground like a nail sealing the coffin lid shut. “Rylee, Tawny came to the house. We were drunk. Things got out of control. It all happened so fast that—”
“Stop!” I shout, holding up my hand, not wanting to hear the gory details that I know for sure will break my heart even further. “All I know, Colton, is that you pushed me to open up—to feel again after everything that happened with Max—and I did exactly what you said. I trusted you, despite my head telling me not to. I allowed myself to feel again. I gave everything of myself to you. Was willing to give so much more…and the minute you got spooked, you ran into the arms of another woman. That’s not okay with me.”
He leans back against the wall opposite me, and we just stare at each other, sadness smothering the air between us. I can see him struggle with something but push it back. “I don’t know what else to say, Rylee…”
“Saying nothing and running away are two completely different things.” He pushes himself off of the wall and takes a step toward me. I shake my head at him. The fact that not once has he acknowledged that I told him I loved him slingshots into my head. He’s here trying to make things right, but he can’t acknowledge the words I spoke to him. This is so f*cked up. “I could’ve lived with you saying nothing. I could’ve accepted you running away. But you ran into the arms of another woman. I can’t bring myself to trust that it wouldn’t happen again. You made your choice when you slept with Tawny.”
His shoulders sag and his eyes flash with fire at my words before settling with defeat. “I need you.” The unhindered honesty behind his words strikes me and twists my heart.
“There’s a fine line between wanting me and needing me, Colton. I needed you too.” And I still do. “But you obviously needed her more. I just hope she was worth it.” I choke on the words and shake my head. Anything to try and erase the sound of his voice saying he needs me. Anything to prevent the doubt from creeping in.
Hurt propels my thoughts. Devastation controls my actions. “I think it’s best you go.” I whisper, forcing the words past my lips.
He just looks at me, pools of green silently pleading with me. “You’ve made your choice then…. ” His voice is broken. Silent. Resigned.
I can’t bring myself to agree with him. My body is a riot of conflicting answers, and saying it out loud will just add permanence to something half of me wants over and done with while the other half would kill to have a second chance at. There is nothing left for me to say. But I say it anyway.
“Yes, I have. But only because you did it for me.”
“Rylee...”
“And mine's no longer you.”
I break from his gaze and stare at the floor. Anything to get him to leave. He stands staring at me for a time, but I refuse to raise my head and look at him.
“This is f*cking bullshit, Rylee, and you know it,” he says evenly to me before turning to walk out. “I guess you don’t love the broken in me after all.”
The sob catches in my throat at his words and it takes everything I have to stay on my feet. And even standing proves to be too much because the minute I hear the door close, I slide down the wall until I hit the floor.
The tears come. Hard, jagged sobs that shudder through my body and steal little pieces of my soul with each one. His parting words echo over and over in my head until I know for sure that I’m the one that’s broken, not him.
Doubts creep through. Sorrow sets in. Devastation reigns.