“What?” Confusion flickers over her face. “You lost me. I thought commitment wasn’t your thing.”
I lost me too, sweetheart.
“It isn’t.” I shrug. Time to turn the subject back to you. Make you explain because fuck if I’m going to delve into my closet of nightmares to explain myself. “I don’t believe you.”
“What?” She’s confused. Good, because that makes two of us. Thank fuck, though, I’m the one with the reins now.
“Your excuse for running last night. I don’t buy it. Why’d you leave, Rylee?” Give me a real reason. Tell me you got spooked the fuck out too. That it just wasn’t me. Tell me you hate me. That you want me. Tell me anything to ease the fucking schizophrenic thoughts owning my head right now because you’ve turned this man who never needs anything to one who needed to see you. And fuck if I can figure out why.
I need to get this—us—back to where I’m comfortable. A good time with no future.
“I just—” She sighs, fiddling with her ponytail thing, and I can now see her nerves. Can sense her unease. And when she meets my eyes again, she knocks the gas from my tank because they are so full of conflicting emotion. “You made it clear that you were done with me. With us, cursing adamantly to demonstrate why my presence was no longer needed.”
No longer needed? That’s what she thought? “Sweet Jesus, Rylee!” Why is it with any other woman I’d be ecstatic that she thought that. Would make it easier to have the talk with her that I need to have and lay down the law about the only things I can give her, but hearing the words from Rylee causes a tightness in my chest.
She thought I was done with her. Leave it be, Donavan. Shut your fucking 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 fuck 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 asshole, 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 fucking 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 fuck 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 fucking baggage that I might crash at any time. It’s not fucking 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 fuck 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 fucking 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, fucks 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.