Real (Real, #1)(34)

And now that I’ve done it—now that I’ve pushed her away and hurt her with my callous comments—all I want is her back in my arms, my life, at my side. Because done with her? Does she really think that?

As if a single taste of her will ever be enough.

“I’ll never have my fill of you.” I say the words but see the disbelief still warring in her eyes so I give into the ache. Show her the only way that I know how. Search for the balm to soothe my aching soul and the bleach to purify my blackened heart.

My mouth slants over hers. Takes and tastes and demands. I accept her struggle, accept the fact that she hates me because I hate myself too, but I can feel the need vibrate between us. Can sense that this hunger will never be satisfied. That I’ll never want it to.

She keeps struggling, keeps wanting to hurt me. And I want to tell her to do just that. Hurt me like I deserve. Hurt and love are equivalent to me. The only way I know that love is supposed to be.

But I see it in her eyes. The pain I’ve caused. And yet I still feel the love from her. Still feel like she wants this. Wants me. And even despite all of this … all of the hurt and confusion and spiteful words we spit at each other, I want her desperately. Have to have her desperately.

And I plan to take. I have to get us back to where we were. Where we need to be. To the only place my soul has felt at peace over the past twenty-odd years.

Back to Rylee.

“You want rough, Rylee?” And despite the contempt in her eyes, I do the only thing I know how to reclaim her. “I’ll give you rough!”

My lips connect with hers and I do the only thing I can: I take what I want so desperately. What’s mine.

To save myself.





This chapter was originally written completely in Colton’s point of view (the scene below), but after some discussion with my beta readers, I decided that using Colton’s voice here took away from the impact in the next chapter. I rewrote the scene through Rylee’s eyes and published that instead.

I explain this scene to people as the little boy inside the damaged man chapter. Colton breaks my heart here. He’s recovering from the accident but knows no matter how extreme that pain was, it won’t hold a candle to the hurt he’ll feel when he pushes Rylee away. He gets it now, gets that he not only wants her, but needs her too, and yet he’s trying to protect her.

You may have read this one before in the Crash D.A.S.H. posts.



The turbulence jars me awake. Scares the f*ck out of me really, seeing as I was having that damn dream again about the crash—the dream where I can’t remember shit except for the dizzying, sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and the out of control feeling in my head. Add to that the jolt of the plane, and my mile-high wake up is a hell of a lot more stressful that the one I’d really like to have with Ry.

God, how badly do I want to take that for a ride. I’m f*cking hard as a rock as I’ve been for the past three days when I wake up but one, doctor’s f*cking orders. Two, we’re constantly surrounded by other people, and three, after overhearing her conversation with Haddie the other night when she thought I was asleep, how can I touch her when all I’m going to do is end up hurting her.

I don’t want to do that to her. Don’t want her to live life always waiting for the worst to happen. I don’t mind the car, don’t mind what a crash could possibly do to me because the shit I lived through was much more painful than hitting a concrete barrier.

Impact can kill your body.

What my mom did to me killed my soul.

I shake the shit from my head and lift it up from the chair Ry insisted I adjust to recline. I look around to see Nurse Ratchet, the hospital approved medic sent to monitor my flight home, sit up at attention when she notices that I’m awake.

Leave me the f*ck alone.

I’ve had enough prodding fingers and concerned eyes looking at me to last a f*cking lifetime. Oh and then there were the f*cking ludicrous sponge baths. Grown men sure as f*ck are not supposed to have someone wash their nuts unless it’s to be followed by a blowjob in the shower. On a bed with a sponge? Fucking ridiculous.

Good riddance to the hospital and its torturous type of solitary confinement.

Nurse Ratchet starts to unbuckle her seatbelt, and I just shake my head to tell her that I’m fine. I lie back down, angling my head to the right so I can stare at the sight across the aisle from me. Rylee’s sound asleep, curled up on her side so she’s facing me, no doubt so that she can watch and make sure that I’m okay.

The f*cking self-sacrificing saint.

And I know she’s exhausted. She misses the boys desperately despite being on the phone with them every chance she gets. Add to that the nightmares she’s been having every night that wake me, allowing me to be the silent witness to the f*cking agony I’m inflicting upon her. She shouts out Max’s name. My name. Begs for us to live. Begs to take our place so she can die instead. Begs for me not to race again. Screams for a car to stop and let me out. And I know this because I lie awake holding her while she trembles in her sleep. Holding her—holding on to her as I breathe in everything I can—so that I can live with the ghost of her when I finally bring myself to do what I need to do.

Be selfless for the first time in my life.

And the time has come.

Way too soon—forever would be too f*cking soon—but it has come.