Love Me (WITSEC #3)(44)

Colt dropped his keys in the bowl by the door. “Hey,” he said in a sullen tone.

“Food will be here soon,” I said as I watched him head toward his and Creed’s side of the house.

“I’m going to go change,” was his response. With how detached his voice was, I could tell he was fighting to sound calm. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, either; the guys were eyeing their brother, too.

Colt didn’t utter another word as he disappeared down the hall toward his room. The sound of Colt’s door shutting was loud. Not like he slammed it in a fit of rage, but it sounded like there was a little bit of force behind it.

Creed and I stood at the same time.

“Let me go,” I insisted, and Creed sat back down.

When I came to Colt’s door, I tapped lightly, “Colt?”

“You can come in, babe.”

I went inside, shut the door behind me, and leaned against it.

Colt was in the middle of changing out of the clothes he’d worn to school. He was standing before his dresser in only his jeans. Without looking at me, he pulled out gray basketball shorts and a white shirt.

The temperature in the room rose very quickly as he unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down his legs. He caught me watching and a tiny smile softened his tight expression. In nothing but his briefs, he walked across the room and tossed his jeans in the laundry basket. “Did you come to watch me?”

I’d seen him naked, yet there was something about seeing him or any of my guys in their underwear. Maybe boxer briefs were to me as lingerie was to a man. I cleared my throat. I had a reason for being here. “I came to see if you wanted to talk.”

Instead of returning to where he’d left his clothes on top of the dresser, he moved for me with angry heat in his eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said tightly as he reached for the doorknob.

When I heard the click of the lock being turned, my stomach did a little dip. Grabbing me by my hips, he captured my mouth with his.

How did I get him to talk to me? He was barely containing his anger, as if the Hulk side was scratching just beneath the surface. I could tell by the way his tongue barreled its way into my mouth, dominating mine, and the rough touch of his hands that moved from my hips to my butt. He gave it a squeeze before he lifted me up.

I wrapped my legs around him as he carried me over to the bed. He fell to the mattress with me landing on my back and him on top of me. His mouth moved to my neck and his hips rocked, grinding his hard cock against my center.

Gone was my gentle, caring boyfriend. The person on top of me felt like a stranger, but still had the ability to set my body on fire. Before I melted, I put my hands on his shoulders. “Colt—” I tried to protest, not because I wanted him to stop, but because he was angry. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to destroy the reason that upset him. I wanted to make it all better.

He pulled my hands from his shoulders and pinned them to the bed. He lifted enough to stare down at me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The irritation behind his voice ignited my own. I easily got my hands free, not that he was using much strength to pin them, and with perfect technique I rolled us, putting him on his back with me straddling his waist. I pinned his hands to the mattress. Staring down in anger, I debated what to do.

Lying there with zero resistance, he grumbled, “It was a bad day at practice.”

Lies.

My first instinct was to rip him a new one. He had been trying to use sex to deflect.

Colt closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. “I’m sorry if I was rough. I—I shouldn’t treat you that way.”

After listening to Creed last night, I was beginning to think what he had said was right. I’d always thought Colt had two sides. One side of him was good, gentle, patient, selfless, and stood up for those he cared about. Honestly, he could be too perfect at times. Then there was his Hulk side. It was full of rage and defiance, itching to fight. Both sides were extreme. I wondered if one was who he strove to be and the other existed out of resentment.

Assuming that was all true, I got the feeling that I was wrong about the deflecting. Maybe Colt needed an outlet. Maybe he needed a moment to not be so perfect and really embrace that Hulk side.

“Do you want to be rough with me?” I asked.

His eyes shot open, and a panic took over him. “No, I—”

“More lies,” I cut him off. “If you don’t want to be gentle with me, then don’t. I’ll let you take me any way you want. You know why? Because I trust you. But if you tell me one more lie, you will ruin that trust. You suffer, I suffer, remember?”

As I threw his words back at him, his eyes widened a little.

“So I’m going to tell you what I’ve picked up on over the past couple of days and you’re not going to deny any of it.”

He clenched his jaw as if to physically stop himself from objecting.

“You hate being on the swim team.”

That statement brought his anger to the surface. It showed in the lowering of his brows.

“But you won’t quit, because like Creed, you don’t want to disappoint your dad. But it’s not just your dad, is it? You feel like you can’t quit because you have always been viewed as the reliable one—the good twin. You know others’ expectations of you are higher than they are for Creed.”