Driven(book one)(119)

Colton brushes a kiss on the tip of my nose before resting his forehead to mine, his hand still cupping the back of my head, fingers still knotted in my hair, his breath fluttering over my lips. “Rylee?”

“Hmm-hmm, Ace.”

He flexes the hand in my hair. “Stay the night with me,” he exhales quietly.

I still, holding my breath. Oh. My. I can feel the emotion behind his request and can sense the difference from the last time he said it to me. He’s not saying it out of obligation but rather because this is what he wants. Does this mean that maybe he feels an inkling of what is coursing through me? My silence belies the truth of how I feel and he mistakes it for hesitancy at his request.

“I’ve never said that before and truly meant it, Rylee.” His voice is a hushed plea that tugs at my heart and confirms my assumptions. He wraps his arms around me, cradling me in his lap, and pulls me with him as he leans back in the chaise, fingers playing in my hair. I remain silent, trying to clear the emotion from my voice before I speak.

“Hmmm, I don’t think I could move even if I tried,” I murmur.

“You’ll stay?” The eagerness in his voice surprises me.

“Yes.”

“In that case,” he muses, “I might have to take advantage of you again.”

“Again?” I laugh. His response is to grab my hips, lift me up and drag me astride him and his unmistakable readiness. He situates me on him so that our bodies fit together perfectly, each movement from him traveling through my thin panties and hitting me in just the right spot.

He sits up and kisses me forcefully, his tongue plunging between my parted lips, his hands pressing my body to him possessively. I grow dizzy wanting more of everything from him.

“I. Want. You. So. Much. Rylee.” He pants between kisses down my neck. I bring my hands to his face, fingers touching coarse whiskers, and draw his head up to meet my eyes. “You’re addictive.”

“I know,” I whisper, telling him with my eyes I understand the depth of that desire. That I feel it too. The muscle in his jaw tenses momentarily before he crushes his mouth to mine, the connection between us a necessity like air.

“Ride me,” he pants. Such a simple command really but it’s the way he says it—as if the sun won’t rise in the morning if I don’t—that has me pulling back. I stare into his eyes, so hypnotizing, so intense, and so full of desire I wouldn’t deny him even if I could.

So I begin to move, surrendering myself to him. Again.





[page]CHAPTER 25

The cool air that wisps over my skin is a stark contrast to the radiating heat pressing against me. My sleep-induced haze slowly clears from my mind as my eyes flutter open, startled and squinting at the natural light filtering in through the open windows. Awareness seeps into me of where I am—whom I’m with—when I hear the crash of surf below mixed with the cry of seagulls.

I start to shift in the sinfully comfortable bed, wanting to stretch my muscles that oddly I find sore, until I realize why. Sex, sex, and more sex. A smug smile crosses my lips at the thought of actually being sore from having too much sex. And it’s not a complaint.

The other obstacle preventing my movement is the source of heat keeping me warm despite the chilly morning breeze flowing in from outside. I am lying on my back and Colton is wrapped around me like a vine. He is on his side, one leg bent and slung over mine, and his hand splays possessively over my bare chest with his palm cupping my breast. I turn to find his head half on my pillow, half on his.

I study his face: the angles, the fan of thick, dark lashes against his golden skin, the curve adding character to the ridge of his nose. I reach over and brush an errant lock of hair off his forehead, careful not to disturb him. In sleep, Colton’s dark and dangerous aura is softened by his disheveled hair, the absence of the intensity he carries around like a badge of protection, and the lack of tension in his jaw. I enjoy seeing this rare glimpse of him vulnerable and relaxed, his kissable lips parted in tranquil sleep.

Staring at him, my mind drifts back to last night. I recall his complete and unyielding attentiveness to me and my every need. I think of the new experiences he introduced me to and the pleasure he’s induced in me. My thoughts stray to leather restraints, vibrating eggs, and ice cubes inserted to melt as we became one, evoking that walk down the fine line of pleasure edged by pain. I think of how he showed me slow and soft before pushing me to the brink of oblivion by hard and fast. How by the light of the moon, in this expanse of a bed, he hovered over me, eyes intense, voice beseeching, and asked me to submit to him. Asked that I trust him to know what my body can handle and which threshold to push it to. And in that moment I was so captivated with him, I handed myself over to him without question or second thought. I agreed, knowing he already dominated my mind, heart, and body.

Afterwards, as I drifted off to sleep, his warm body pressed against my back and his mouth pressing softly in my hair, I questioned my judgment. My last thoughts before drifting off to sleep wondering what the hell I was getting myself in to by accepting his seemingly innocent request, for what is simple under a blanket of moonlight never seems to be when the next morning dawns.

Colton shifts beside me, rolling over so that his back is now toward me, and pulls the covers with him and off me. I shiver at the chill now that my human heater is gone, but happy that I can now stretch out my overused muscles. I wince as I flex my feet and extend my legs. I definitely wasn’t treated like glass last night, and if the unconscious oblivion called sleep I collapsed into afterward is any indication, I think my body quite liked it too.