Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(12)

His brown eyes gleamed with awareness, dammit, penetrating my psyche as if he knew my saying that to ward him off meant I was down to my last bag of resistance…which I think I was.

“Thank God I’m not seventeen, then.” His voice was so low and sensual a full-body shiver seized me.

Not sure how to respond without popping out of my chair and racing out the door to escape the capsizing way he affected me, I clutched my cup and accidentally drained the contents in one guzzle.

“Shit,” I croaked when I realized it was empty. Now what was I going to do? I needed something to drink, something to hold in my hand and sip from to help distract myself from thinking things I knew I shouldn’t think.

“I can get you more.” Colton snagged the cup from my hand as he stood. With a wink, he said, “Be right back.”

With a crazy, stirring hitch bubbling in my stomach, I watched him walk away, my gaze unable to tear itself from the back of his slacks and the way they molded oh so perfectly to his ass. When he disappeared out of sight, I kept sitting there, waiting for him to return.

I should’ve left, escaped while I had the chance. But the second he swept back into view, carrying two refilled cups, my blood raced, my breasts tingled, and my breathing went shallow.

This time, I didn’t hate the messy effect his presence had on me. I embraced the awareness and excitement, eager to see where it’d lead. I actually anticipated the next suggestive comment he made. Maybe I wouldn’t act so offended this time. Maybe I’d just be real and appreciate it for once, like I wanted to.

“Here you go, baby doll.” He sat and extended my cup toward me.

“Thank you.” I reached for it just as he pulled it right back out of my reach.

I frowned.

He grinned. “First you have to tell me what you used to have nightmares about.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Really?” He was going to play it that way, huh? Well, I didn’t have to play at all. “I could go get my own drink, you know.”

“You could,” he allowed with a nod. Then he shrugged. “Okay, we’ll take baby steps. How old were you when your night terrors began?”

I blinked, startled to hear him call them that specific term. It was as if he knew what I’d experienced had been far more traumatic than a couple harmless nightmares as if he understood personally. Which made no sense.

Or did it?

Had he experienced night terrors too?

My mind caught on that little idea, I ended up saying, “Six,” without meaning to.

Colton nodded, taking my answer seriously, which I appreciated. He hadn’t shrugged off my bad dreams as merely a silly little girl frightened of harmless shadows on the wall.

“How old were you when they stopped?”

I tipped my head curiously to the side. “What makes you think they ever stopped?”

With a secretive smile, he reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers over one of my dream catcher earrings. He barely grazed the lobe of my ear in the process, which made my breasts tingle. “These wouldn’t be so important to you if they hadn’t been effective, now would they?”

Damn, he was an insightful shit.

I felt as if he deserved an answer for paying such close attention to me as to pick up on that. “I was nine when they stopped.”

He smiled as if relieved to hear it. “And what were they about again?”

He asked it slyly as if trying to trick the answer out of me without me being aware of what I was revealing.

It made me grin and shake my head. I’d never be able to say Colton Gamble wasn’t wily. “Why is it so important for you to know?”

“Because I have to,” he said as if it was really some kind of necessity, like food or air.

“But why?” I persisted, growing more curious by the second.

“Because...” He shook his head, looking a little lost before his gaze focused on mine, and those brown eyes went über intense. “What if you had night terrors about the same thing I did?”

Well, shit. I caught my breath.

I guess he did understand.

I guess he had suffered from his own nightmares.

I guess... God, I don’t even know what I guessed anymore. I felt kind of shaky to learn I shared such a connection with him. My brain went all jumbled and woozy.

“So?” Colton asked, leaning in as his stare took in every feature of my face. “Were we haunted by the same kind of dreams?”

“I...” I opened my mouth, but only a dry croak emerged. After clearing my throat and licking my parched lips, I managed to say, “I guess that depends. Did your mom die when you were six too?”

He shook his head, and I swear his shoulders fell as if he were relieved. Then he said, “If she had, I doubt I ever would’ve had a problem with nightmares in the first place.”

“That’s terrible,” I blurted, my mind already racing with curiosity, wondering what his mom had done to haunt his dreams.

He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Yeah, well…so was she.” His gaze focused on my earrings, and his eyes softened with sympathy. “Was your mom a good mom?”

I pulled back, a little shocked he would even ask such a question. “Of course.”

Seriously, what the hell had his mother done to build that kind of distrust for all mothers?