Real (Real, #1)(46)

… I gave her the power to destroy me …

His words stagger me. Open me. Urge me. Seal a fate I never had control of until now.

He has no idea I call Rylee my checkered flag—no f*cking clue—so I’m knocked back a pit stop second, pulse pounding, mind thinking of possibilities that were never mine to think.

I’m so focused on my thoughts and the bottle of beer in my hand, I jump when he cuffs me on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Colton. You’ll make the right decision when or if you want to.” He rises from the chair and stands there looking outside for a moment. “You’re a good man. She’d be lucky to have you, just like your mom and I have been.”

He starts to walk away, his unending confidence in me still staggering after all this time, after all the shit I’ve put him through.

Even at my darkest.

“Dad.” I don’t know why I stop him when the conversation itself has made me uncomfortable, but I do.

He stops but doesn’t turn around, his back to me.

Words tumble. Thoughts scramble. But for some reason the ones that never stuck before are the only ones that do now.

“I love you.” The words are out without thought, my hands shaking, the little boy in me hoping he hears them.

I immediately hear the hitch of his breath as his whole body freezes. He slowly hangs his head forward, his shoulders shuddering momentarily. He raises his head and nods a couple of times. “And that is my unexpected reward for my scavenger hunt.” His voice is thick with emotion. “I love you too, Son.” He says it so softly before waiting a beat and walking into the kitchen area.

I exhale the breath I was holding, thankful he didn’t make a big deal and embarrass me when he heard the words it’s taken me a lifetime to say. Grateful we’re so close that he knows what I needed.

I shake my head. Shit, that was intense. All of it. Revelations and confessions I never expected to make all of a sudden fall like rain around me.

Fuckin’ A.

I look up and Rylee’s eyes lock with mine. The smile comes so naturally to her lips that my body—head and heart—react immediately to her.

And I know.

Just like that.

Something I’ve spent a lifetime fighting is all of a sudden knocked out by this defiant as f*ck woman who owns the heart she showed me could beat again.

Fuck me. I just keep knocking ’em down one right after the other. Might as well tackle this bad boy while I’m on a roll.

My mind starts churning, ideas forming. The scavenger hunt of my life continues. I smile back at her as I stand and just stare.

My future.

My salvation.

The woman I want to marry.

Fuck. That grain of sand just became comfortable.

I guess the plus side is if marriage is sand, at least I know my dick is going to be covered in it.





The number one most requested scene of all the books. What a wedding looks like through Colton’s eyes.



I look at myself in the mirror, my thoughts a jumble of shit but my pulse steady, body calm. I shake my head.

Life is such a mindf*ck sometimes.

The man I see looking back at me is not the same one I would have found a year or even six months ago.

It’s like each f*cking day with her makes me a better person. A better man. Erases some of the demons bit by bit, moment by moment.

I splash some water on my face, the disbelief still riding high that I’m about to get f*cking married. Me? Colton f*cking Donavan. The self-proclaimed bachelor for life. The man who thought no * is good enough to want for a lifetime.

Fuck! I laugh into the empty bathroom. Talk about underestimating the power of voodoo.

How na?ve I was. Always needing to mask the pain and hide the scars on my soul by burying myself in the next willing piece of ass. Never—never—did I think this day would come. That I’d wake up wanting a woman in bed with me and not just beneath me.

Fucking Rylee.

The woman knocked me on my ass like a three hundred pound linebacker. Talk about blindsiding my way of f*cking life filled with tits, ass, Jack and Jim, and thinking only about myself.

Because now all I can think about is her.

Even now.

Right f*cking now I should be hung over, puking my guts out with nerves over the ball and chain about to get shackled to my ankle. But f*ck if I feel any of that. All I want is to see her. Kiss her. Make her mine in every way.

Ride off into the proverbial motherf*cking sunset.

And all of this because I got schooled by Becks into understanding why the alphabet is so damn important. A to f*cking Z of it.

“Dude, you gonna finish getting ready or what?”

Becks’s voice startles me. I glance down to my phone where Ry’s last text is on the screen still—I’ll be the one in white—to check the time and realize shit’s about to get real.

“Hold your horses, Daniels.” I lift my chin in acknowledgement to him through my reflection as I bring the tumbler of aged Macallan he bought for the occasion to my lips. “I’m just zipping up now.”

“Don’t pinch your dick. You just might need that tonight since she’s been holding out on you.” He chuckles as he pours himself a glass.

“No shit.” I tuck my shirt in, my mind wandering to just what’s going to be beneath her dress besides my voodoo *. Because f*ck if it’s not torture to sleep beside the woman you want more than the air you breathe when she won’t let you touch her. “A month is a long f*cking time, dude.” I groan the words out, my dick already stirring for the action it’s been missing.