Fueled (Driven, #2)(59)

No matter how much I know that they’re just jealous and trying to get under my skin, they’ve most definitely burrowed deep and are succeeding. They’ve gotten to me despite the knowledge in my head that I’m the one Colton’s with tonight. I decide the drink refill I want—that I currently feel like I most definitely could benefit from—isn’t worth the mental angst that these bitches are inflicting.

I opt out of line and take a deep breath in fortification, planning to ignore them as I walk by. But I can’t do it. I can’t let them know they’ve succeeded. Instead I stop just as I pass them and turn back. I don’t care how I feel on the inside. I’m not letting bimbos numbers three, four, and five know that they’ve gotten to me. I look up to meet their judgmental eyes, take in their condescending sneers, and shrug off their disapproving glares.

“Hey, ladies.” I smirk, leaning in closer. “Just so you know, the only road map I need is the little moan that Colton makes as I lick my way down his delicious happy trail that points straight to his obscenely large dick. Thanks for your concern though.” I flash a catty smile of my own before walking away without looking back.

My hands are shaking as I walk, veering towards the hallway near the restrooms for a moment to collect myself. Why did I let them get to me? If I’m with Colton, isn’t that the only answer I need? But am I really with Colton? I see it in his eyes, hear it in his unspoken words, and feel it in his skillful touch. In Vegas he told me that he chose me, but when I asked him to try and give me more than his stupid arrangement, he never answered me, never gave me any of the security a simple, “Yes, I’ll try,” would have given me.

Maybe it’s noticing all of, what I assume to be, his cast-offs here tonight—seeing them still want what they can no longer have and parading around in front of me. Couldn’t he have at least warned me?

And then the thought snakes into my psyche. Is that going to be me in a couple of months? One of the many women scorned by the notorious Colton Donavan. I’d like to think not, but after seeing them here tonight, why do I think that I even have a shot at taming the uncontrollable man? Why would he change for me when the myriad before didn’t even tempt him to?

I can think that I’m different all day long, but my thoughts mean nothing when his words could mean everything.

I sigh, my nerves calming and unsettled simultaneously as I look down into my empty glass. I let out a little shriek as hands slide around my waist from behind. “There you are,” Colton’s voice murmurs into my ear, his lips grazing the curve of my shoulder up to my neck. “I couldn’t find you.”

“Well hello there, Ace,” I say back to him, the whisper of his lips momentarily quieting my doubts.

“Ace, huh?” He chuckles and I try to turn into him, but he keeps his body ghosted to mine with his arms around my torso. He starts walking forward, my legs instinctively moving from the momentum of his. With each step, I can feel him hardening against my lower back. The ache that never really left roars back to life.

Colton’s resonating chuckle against my ear snaps me out of thoughts of what I want him—no need him—to do to me right now. It’s just too much for me to have our bodies connected from thigh to shoulder. Begging is within the realm of possibilities right now.

“A closet experience?” he asks, and it takes me a moment to get that he’s offering up another lame attempt for the meaning behind Ace.

“Nope,” I laugh at him, “Where’d that one—”

“God, it couldn’t be any more f*cking perfect if I’d planned it.”

And I see it the minute the words are out of his mouth. He’s walked us down toward the isolated end of the janitor’s alcove, and ironically we are standing in front of a door marked Storage.

I start to laugh but before it can even escape, he has me turned around and pinned against the wall, his body pressing into me, his steel into my softness. Colton props his hands on either side of my head and leans his face into mine, stopping a whisper from my lips. Our chests press together as our desperation to taste one another consumes our air, hijacks our ability to breathe, and steals the process of reason.

Despite our close proximity, our eyes remain open, the connection between us unwavering. Electric. Combustible. “Do you have any idea how desperate I am to f*ck you right now?” he murmurs, the movement of his lips brushing ever so slightly against mine.

I drown in the liquid heat his words evoke, begging him to pull me under and take me there, but all I can do is exhale an unsteady breath. He leans in and tastes me. My hands itch to fist in his jacket and rip open his shirt, buttons be damned.

Colton pulls back when he hears the click of heels but pulls open the closet door and presses me inside. The minute the door shuts to the darkened closet, Colton has my arms pinned above my head. The only illumination in the closet is the light seeping through the crack of the doorjamb. My mind never once registers my internal demons—the claustrophobia from the accident that usually smothers me at the first inkling of being confined. My only thought is Colton. Fear ceases to exist. I shudder, anticipating the moment his body will crash into mine, push me against the door, and take from me what we’ve both been so desperately needing.

Release. Connection. Intensity.

But it doesn’t happen. The only connection between us is his hands holding my wrists hostage above my head. The closet is too dark to decipher the outline of his body, but I can feel his breath feathering over my face. We stand here like this for a moment, so close that the hairs on my arms stand up, every nerve in my body itching to feel the touch he’s yet to give, suspended in this hazy state of need.