I turn quickly toward her, the look on my face stopping her words. “Oh, doll, I just did. Was it you he was fucking on the hood of Sex in the parking garage before dinner? I didn’t think so,” I patronize with a smirk, but my eyes tell her he’s mine and to back the fuck off.
The look on her face is priceless: eyes wide, lips parted as she digests what I’ve just said. “Colton would never...” she huffs getting herself worked up “...the Ferrari is his baby. He’d never risk scratching it.”
“Well I guess you don’t know him as well as you thought you did.” I give her the same catty smirk she’s graced me with several times. “Either that or you just didn’t mean more to him than his car.” I twist my lips and look at her while her ego tries to process what I’ve just said. “We’re done here then,” I say with a laugh as I walk away from her toward Colton.
God, that felt good! Serves her right.
When I reach Colton, he extends a hand to me and wraps it around my waist, pulling me into his side as he finishes his conversation with Vincent. They say their goodbyes and as he walks away, Colton leans down and kisses me gently. “What was all that about?” he asks warily.
I angle my head to the side as I look at him and run my fingers along the line of his jaw. “Nothing…it was inconsequential,” I tell him, scrunching up my nose at the word.
“Are you sure you’re not too cold?”
“Uh-uh,” I murmur as Colton rubs his hands up and down my arms, the ocean breeze a biting chill against my bare skin, but I don’t want to ruin the moment. This evening—post garden argument—has been one that I’ll never forget.
Something has changed in Colton with the evening’s progression. It’s not something I can put my finger on exactly but rather several things that are subtly different. The little looks he’s given me. The causal touches here and there for no specific reason other than to let me know he’s at my side. That shy smile of his that I noticed he’s reserved for only me tonight. Or maybe it’s always been there, and I’m looking at things through different lenses now that I know Colton is going to try for the possibility of an us. He’s willing to try to break a pattern that he swears is ingrained in him. For me.
The pitch-black night is lit solely by the sliver of moon hanging in the midnight sky. I close my eyes, hum softly to Kiss Me Slowly floating from the speakers, and lift my face as the salty breeze drifts up onto the terrace where we stand. Colton rests his chin on my shoulder as he wraps his arms around my waist from behind. I melt into his warmth, never wanting him to let me go. We stand there, lost in our separate thoughts, soaking in the dark night’s atmosphere, and completely aware of the underlying current of desire between us.
Baxter barks at the gate to go down to the beach, and Colton reluctantly releases me to take him out. “Do you want a drink?” I ask, my body chilled the minute his warmth leaves mine.
“Beer, please?”
I wander into the kitchen and get our drinks. When I walk back out, Colton is standing, hands propped on the railing, looking out toward the empty night, completely lost in thought. His broad shoulders are silhouetted against the dark sky—the white of his untucked dress shirt a stark visual contrast—and once again I’m reminded of my angel fighting to break through the darkness.
I place my wine glass down on a patio table and walk up behind him, the crash of the waves drowning out the sound of my footsteps on the deck. I slip my hands through his arms and torso, my front to his back, and wrap my arms around him. A second after my body touches his, Colton spins around violently, a harsh yelp echoing in the night air, his beer flying from my hands, and shattering on the deck. As a consequence of his actions, I am shoved to the side, my hip smarting against the railing. When I clear the hair out of my face and look up, Colton is facing me. His hands are fisted tight at his sides, his teeth are gritted in rage, his eyes are wild with anger—or is it fear—and his chest is heaving in shallow, rapid breaths.
His eyes lock with mine, and I freeze mid-movement with my hip angled out, hand pressing on it where it hurts. A myriad of emotions flash through his eyes as he stares at me, finally breaking through the glaze of fear that masks his face. I’ve seen this look before. The utter and consuming fear of someone traumatized when they have a flashback. I purposely keep my eyes on Colton’s, my silence the only way I know how to let him breach through the fog that’s holding him.
My mind filters back to the last morning I spent in this house and what happened when I curled up behind him. And now I know, deep down, that whatever happened to him, whatever lives within the blackness in his soul, has to do with this. That the action—the feeling of being hugged, taken, held from behind—triggers a flashback and brings him momentarily back to the horror.
Colton breathes in deeply—a ragged, soul cleansing drag of air— before breaking eye contact with me. He looks down at the deck momentarily before shouting a drawn out, “Goddamnit!” at the top of his lungs.
I startle at his voice as it echoes into the abyss of night around us. That one word is filled with so much frustration and angst all I want to do is gather him in my arms and comfort him, but instead of turning to me, he faces the railing, bracing himself against it once again. The shoulders I admired moments before are now filled with a burden I can’t even begin to fathom.
“Colton?” He doesn’t respond but rather keeps his face straight ahead. “Colton? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”