Now that I’ve gotten his attention, I continue again, altering my grip and angle of stroke. Colton hisses out at the difference in sensation, his head falling back against the edge of the tub. I stop again and cup his balls in my hand.
“Look, I know you were upset, but if you ever treat me like you did this morning again...” I enunciate each word, the teasing humor in my tone gone as I gently squeeze my hand around him “…disrespect me, degrade, or push me away by humiliating me, understand now that I will not be coming back like I did today—regardless of your reasons, how I feel about you, or what’s between us.”
Colton meets my implacable stare and doesn’t flinch at my threat. His mouth slides into a ghost of a smile. “Well it seems you have me by the balls both literally and figuratively, don’t you now?” he taunts, mischief dancing in his eyes.
I squeeze him softly, fighting the smirk that wants to play at the corners of my mouth. “Is that understood? Non-negotiable.”
“Crystal clear, sweetheart,” he says to me, his eyes conveying the sincerity within his response. Satisfied he understands what I am telling him, I shift in the water and release my hold on his balls. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I slide my hands up to his rigid length and repeat the motion that rendered him agreeable moments before. Colton groans a long, drawn out, “Non-negotiable.” And I don’t respond to his answer because I am so turned on watching his reaction. “Christ, woman,” he grates out, grabbing my hips and pulling me toward him. “You like to play hardball, don’t you?”
I accept his nudging and position myself over the top of his shaft. I lean forward, tunneling my fingers in his hair and place my cheek against his. As I lower myself at an achingly slow pace despite his hands urging me faster, I whisper in his ear, his own words back to him. “Welcome to the big leagues, Ace.”
“Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Yes,” he drolly calls out from the kitchen.
“Because if you can’t, I can whip something up real quick.”
“The image you just brought to my mind of you with a whip, high heels, and nothing else on is exactly what is going to prevent me from getting breakfast done.” His laugh carries outside onto the deck where I sit.
“Okay, I’ll just sit here quietly, enjoy the sun, and leave you with those images while I wait for my food.”
I can hear the carefree note as he laughs again, and it lightens my heart. He seems to have tucked away the earlier nightmare and ensuing incident, but deep down, I know it’s lingering just beneath the surface, always waiting patiently to remind him again of whatever atrocities he endured as a child. Nightmares. Shame. The overriding need for physicality with women. Memories so horrid he vomits with the reappearance of them. I can only hope the causes that flicker through my mind from my past work with other little boys with similar post-traumatic stress symptoms does not hold true for Colton.
I force myself to sigh away the sadness and soak up the welcome warmth of the early morning sunlight, to enjoy the fact that we’ve turned this morning around from the disaster that it began with. I can only hope that maybe, in time, Colton will trust me enough to open up and feel comfortable talking to me. Then again, who am I to think that I’ll be the special one and make a difference in a man who’s emotionally isolated himself from everyone for so long?
The speakers on the terrace come to life around me, and Baxter lifts his head momentarily before plopping it back down. Stretched out on the chaise lounge, I watch the early bird exercisers on the beach. I guess it’s not that early now after our diversion in the bathtub. I swear I don’t know what came over me and prompted me to act that way. That is so not me, but it sure was fun making Colton putty in my hands. And when all was said and done, with the bathwater growing cold, he made sure that my whole body ended up just as boneless as his.
And then there’s the down side to our whole bathtub time. His admission that his average shelf life with a woman is four or five months. Shit. Tawny might be right. He’s going to get bored with me and my lack of bedroom prowess. I shrug away the notion time is running out for me. The thought causes my breath to catch and panic to fill my every nerve. I can’t lose him. I can’t lose how I feel when I’m with him. He means too much to me already, and that’s with me trying to be reserved in my emotions.
Jared Leto sings about being closer to the edge. I close my eyes thinking how I already have both feet over and beyond that edge that Colton has explicitly explained he does not want to teeter on. But how can I not plummet off it when he makes me feel so incredibly good. I try to rationalize that it’s just the incredible—and it’s mind-blowingly incredible—sex that’s making me feel these insane feelings after only knowing each other for three weeks. And I know that sex does not equate love.
I need to remind myself of this. Over and over and over to prevent the fall.
But his words, his actions, tell me that I’m just more than an arrangement to him. They all flicker through my head—different things over the past three weeks—and I just can’t see him not thinking that there are definite possibilities here. If not, then he has me fooled.
Matt Nathanson’s voice fills the air around me, and I hum along to Come on Get Higher, my thoughts scattered and disjointed, but oddly content.
“Voila!”
I open my eyes to see Colton lower a plate onto the table beside me, and when I see its contents, I laugh loudly. “It’s perfect, sir, and I so appreciate the depths of your fine culinary skills.” I reach over and take a bite of my toasted bagel and cream cheese and moan dramatically in appreciation. “Delicious!”