Real (Real, #1)(18)
She thought I was done with her. Leave it be, Donavan. Shut your f*cking mouth and leave. Apologize for being an ass and walk away.
“Do you have any idea … you made me … I just want to protect you from—” I can’t even finish my thought my head’s such a mess. Yeah, the get up and leave idea worked real well there. Fuck me. I shove up out of the chair and head toward the window, toward an escape.
How do I explain that the way she made me feel caused the demons I’d buried deep down to start to whisper that I don’t deserve anything from her? That I saw myself using her—hurting her—like those before her and for the first time ever, I couldn’t do it. Knew she didn’t deserve it.
Shit just got real—fast. Real when all I want is to go back to our bantering foreplay. I need to get this back on ground I can walk on because right now I’m starting to freak the f*ck out.
“I asked you to stay. That’s all I can give you right now, Rylee. All I’m good for.” I know I sound like an *, know that she just said I hurt her and my response was anything but an apology, but at the same time she doesn’t have a f*cking clue how normally I’d say “my way or the highway” and instead I’m trying to explain a bit of myself when I never have before.
“C’mon, Colton, we both know you didn’t mean it. Let’s just say I left last night for reasons you don’t want to know about,” she finally says, eyes lifting to meet mine, and f*ck if I can tell what they are trying to say to me that her words aren’t. I wonder if these reasons are the cause of her sudden change in demeanor from last night to this morning. “I’ve got lots of excess baggage, Ace.”
A part of me sighs in relief at the out she’s giving me without another word. The funny thing is that even though my feet itch to walk, I can’t bring myself to move because my head has other thoughts.
“Oh, Rylee, I know all about baggage, sweetheart. I have enough of it to fill up a 747 and then some.” I say the words without thinking. My immediate instinct is to jump back when I realize the little bit of myself I just gave her. That I’m the pilot of a plane so weighed down with f*cking baggage that I might crash at any time. It’s not f*cking much, but it’s a shitload of a confession for me.
I see the shock flicker through her eyes followed by the curiosity. How that comment doesn’t scare the hell out of her, I have no clue. She’s fearless and I love it. Love that we’re standing here in this goddamn minefield of shit and yet she continues to hold my gaze and tempt me, dare me, when the minute the words clear my mouth most would run the other way without so much as a see-ya.
Of course with the exception of those that want something out of being with me. And the way she keeps fighting me, I sure as f*ck know she falls into the one percent that doesn’t.
“This could be interesting,” I say, taking a step toward her, my eyes scraping over her curves and my mind trying to find my footing in this foreign f*cking territory. How is it I want to keep this on my terms—keep her at arms’ length—and yet at the same time want to figure out why I felt how I felt last night, how I feel right now?
Want my cake and eat her too.
The thought staggers me, f*cks with my head, because I don’t know how that’s going to be possible when all I’ve thought about since she left the hotel last night was seeing her again. So I do what I came here for, the one thing I know that will settle the war of shit inside of me, quiet my head for just a second, so I can think this through. I reach out to touch her.
I tug her hair out of the bun and fist my hands in the curls as they fall. Her eyes shock open as I pull her head back and parted lips distract my thoughts as I’d hoped.
And just when I’m about to break our stare because she’s looking at me again in that way that says she sees more than I intend to give her, she throws out a challenge to my comment.
“How so?” Her voice may be soft, might even reflect a hint of nerves, but she’s still asking.
“Well, it seems that your baggage makes you so scared to feel you constantly pull away. Run from me.” I trace my finger down her bare arm, the need to touch her consuming me like an addiction. “Whereas mine? My baggage? It makes me crave the sensory overload of physicality—the stimulating indulgence of skin on skin. Of you beneath me.”
I mean it as a kind of warning, a simple you’re going to fall for me while I just want to f*ck you. What a woman wants versus what a man wants. Simple, uncomplicated, right up until she sighs that soft sigh she did last night when I pushed into her for the first time and f*ck if I can hold back any longer. I lean in and kiss her, tell myself to slow the f*ck down when all I want to do is own her lips.
Her lips, Donavan, not her heart, because I’m trying to keep this on my simple terms.
Because that’s all I want.
And f*ck if I’ve not kissed a woman like this before—slow and relentless—but something happens with Rylee. Each taste, every sound I coax that hums in her throat begins to seep into parts of me that have been dead for so long. I deepen the kiss. I have no intention of doing this, feeling this way, and I’m sure if my lips weren’t drugged by her taste, I’d be pulling away, wanting the end game and not enjoy the f*cking journey to get there.
But when she slides her hands up my torso, skin to skin, something happens. It’s like the whip of desire snaps and imprints everything about her inside of me.