Dare to Resist (Wedding Dare, #0.5)(17)

…

Colton was going out of his mind.

The woman of his fantasies lay on a bed next to him wearing his clothing. Every one of her throaty laughs reverberated down his body and settled a growing ache into his balls. Every little thing she did drove him crazy, from the way she twirled loose strands of hair from that appealingly messy bun around her finger to the way the slit in the back of that tight little black skirt taunted him with what lay beneath to the shapely curve of her calves whenever she bent her legs and crossed her ankles behind her.

And now the skirt was off. Jesus, when he’d realized what she’d been doing, it had taken everything he had to keep his feet planted where they were and not yank back the covers to help.

He still wanted to yank back those damn covers. He’d slide the pencil out of her hair and watch the black silk fall around her shoulders. And then he’d cover her body with his.

Colton heaved a breath and forced his mind to focus on the movie. With limited success at best.

Because, beyond the way her proximity tormented his body, he felt so damn comfortable hanging out with her that it was becoming disconcerting. He’d always known she shared his interest in all things computers and his appreciation for sarcasm, but spending this night with her also made it clear they clicked in other ways, too.

First, she was totally low maintenance. This whole day, she’d just gone with the flow, never complaining, never sulking, never taking the frustration of their situation out on anyone else. After eight years in the army, Colton knew the value of those qualities, because there were plenty of guys who’d spent all their time grousing about the heat or the sand or last-minute changes in orders. And they became as big a pain in the ass as whatever irritant had set them off in the first place. As far as Colton was concerned, life was too damn short to let every little bump in the road throw you for a loop.

Second, Kady had a fantastic sense of humor. He’d always known that to an extent, but all through the first movie, she’d done impressions and laughed until she snorted and never once seemed the least self-conscious about any of it. And it was so f*cking sexy.

God, but every new revelation proved what an utter dickhead he’d been to her three years before. Because she’d been right. He hadn’t really seen her then, but he sure as hell did now.

And Colton liked what he saw. A lot.

What the hell he did with that, though, he didn’t have a clue. Liking and wanting Kady Dresco weren’t the problems.

Next to him, Kady was fighting the lure of sleep. Her eyelids drooped and lifted, drooped and lifted, each time staying down just a little longer before she tried to pull herself back into consciousness. And then she was out. “Kady?” he whispered.

No response.

Though the movie still played, Colton’s eyes remained on the woman lying next to him. They were both always so touchy around each other that he’d never before had a chance like this to just look at her. The way the waves of her hair curled around her face. The contrast between the shiny black and the pale porcelain of her skin. The pouty set of her lips and the little tilt of her nose.

She was cute and sweet and so damn gorgeous it was hard to take a deep breath.

But staring at her like this was absolutely pointless. He was just torturing himself with something he couldn’t have.

Trying not to rock the bed, Colton rolled off his side and grabbed his laptop. Kady remained sound asleep, her lips parted and her face relaxed. Pausing the movie as he crossed the room, Colton settled the machine on the table and debated what to do. His internal clock said it was on the early side for sleeping, but he didn’t want to disturb Kady, either. Might as well call it a night.

Rounding the table to double-check the door’s lock, Colton’s foot caught on something and he tripped. He bit back the curse sitting on the tip of his tongue and cut his gaze toward Kady. Still asleep. Turning, he found her laptop case lying flat on the floor, its contents half dumped out. He threw the dead bolt on the door, then knelt to put her things away.

Colton pushed a file folder, a notebook, and a few loose sheets of paper back into the bag, revealing a paperback with a dark-red cover. He flipped it over. And froze.

The image made him immediately hard. Or maybe it was that Kady owned a book with a cover that depicted a heavily muscled man holding a woman trapped against a wall, one hand binding both of hers above her head, the other resting on her collarbone this close from wrapping around the bottom of her throat. Only the placement of the man’s forearm kept her breasts from being visible to the camera, otherwise the couple appeared nude. The woman’s expression was part pain, part pleasure, and the man’s was harsh, unforgiving. The book was called Into the Dark.

What. The. Fuck.

Peering over his shoulder to make sure Kady remained asleep, Colton flipped the book around in his hands and turned back to skim the description. The story was about an underground fighter who introduces a woman to the gritty worlds of his boxing circuit and of role-playing nonconsensual sexual scenarios.

Colton’s heart was a pounding sledgehammer in his chest.

Why did Kady have this? Why was she reading this?

He turned the book over and over in his hands, taking in the curled cover, the bent corners of some of the pages, the cracked spine, an array of dings and scuffs and little tears. Signs of a well-read book.

And it was clear that certain pages were the most frequently read because of how the book was almost trained to open to them. Colton picked one toward the beginning and scanned his gaze over the words.