Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 39
“Colson,” I breathe into his thick, feathered hair, “you’re not dead, either. You’re real, and you’re alive, and I want to feel you inside me.”
When he lifts his head, his lips are tinted with ruby and his chest is smeared with rusty streaks of blood, “Can I have you bare?” he asks while he massages the small of my back.
I take a breath and open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first, “Um,” I swallow, “are you clean?”
He nods.
“How do you know?”
“Because I got tested.”
I don’t miss a beat, “When?”
And neither does he, “The first day of class in January,” he nods to the bedside table, “it’s in the drawer.”
Eyeing him, I turn and slowly crawl to the edge of the bed. When I open the drawer, there’s a folded piece of white paper inside, just like he said. When I look at, it is in fact a report from the student clinic. I stifle a laugh when I see the date—the first day of classes.
“I am, too,” I volunteer, folding the paper back up, “clean, I mean.”
Colson leans back against the headboard, “I know you are.”
I still my hands, “How?”
“Because you called to reschedule your gyno exam before class started one day. They test you while you’re there, right?”
My brow shoots up, so much for confidentiality.
“Yeah, um,” I toss the folded paper back onto the bedside table and crawl back to Colson’s lap, “I’m also on the pill.”
“You know those mess with your head, right?” he asks as I settle onto his thighs.
I barely suppress an eyeroll, “Oh?”
Colson cups my face and pulls me close, “They change your brain chemistry,” he says between soft kisses, “and can cause depression and anxiety.” I reach for his pants and pop the button as he speaks, “They can even change who you’re attracted to.” He sucks in a breath as I slowly tug his pants off his hips, “It’s very irresponsible of you.”
The arrogance—the audacity—of him trying to educate me on the pitfalls of hormonal birth control while I’m literally undressing him, as if my life as a woman isn’t one cost-benefit analysis after another.
“Are you afraid if I stop taking them, I’ll be repulsed by you?” I reply sarcastically, “On the contrary, my hormones seem to be benefiting you right now.”
“It’s all the same to me,” Colson grabs my waist and pulls me back onto his lap, “but I hope for your sake that you’re still this much of a slut for me when I decide to put my kids in you.”
I lean down and tease his tongue with mine, “I haven’t decided if I want you putting your kids in me.” But the metallic bite of my own blood on his lips says otherwise.
“You will,” he nods, digging his fingers into my hips as I start grinding on his cock, already dripping and rigid against his naval. “Fuck, baby,” he groans through his teeth, “just put me inside you.”
I reach down and fist his cock, then raise up to notch him inside me. But when I try to sink down around him, I hesitate, digging my nails into his shoulders as a sharp pain radiates down my thighs. Half-suspended over his lap, I try again, but all it does is push the air out of my lungs. Colson just watches me with a ravenous grin that gets wider each time I fail.
“I…can’t…” I pause, because I can’t believe I’m about to say this shit—the one thing you never say to a man because it’s never true…
“You won’t fit.”
Colson chews his bottom lip, the corners of his mouth curling as he looks me up and down, “Give me your hands.”
I sink down onto his thighs as he reaches for his belt on the mattress. He waits for me to raise my hand and then loops the strap around my wrists, pulling it tight through the metal clasp. When I wince, he looks up at me with a slight smile and slowly raises my arms over his head until they’re resting on his shoulders and my bound hands are clasped behind his neck.
“I need to tell you something,” Colson reaches behind his head for the slack hanging from my wrists and loops the belt over the railing at the top of the headboard, “the first time I saw you wasn’t in class. It was at the Sig house,” he says while knotting the strap, muscle memory guiding his hands behind his head.
“When?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the knot getting tighter by the second.
“Right before winter break,” he replies, “you were there with Barrett. You were wearing these leather leggings and this white sweater that hung off your shoulders. You looked incredible, and that’s when I decided you’d never go home with anyone but me—ever. I was about to come over and talk to you, but then you—” Colson pauses and his blue eyes go dark, “disappeared.”
He gives the strap a sharp jerk and the headboard shudders like a punch to my chest.
Oh, shit.
“You were there?” I croak.
“I was there,” he nods, “so, imagine my disappointment when I didn’t get to talk to you.” He loops the strap around itself again and gives it, and the headboard, another sharp jerk, “Did you have fun with Trey that night?”
“No,” I mumble, my arms trembling as I shake my head, “not at all.”
“Why not?” Colson gives the knot another tug for good measure and then drops the slack, letting it fall behind his back.
My eyes fall to Colson’s chest. I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t want to talk about Trey and his disappointing lack of prowess right now. But Colson tips my chin up with his index finger so I’m forced to look him in the eye.
“It’s because he could never measure up. He just takes. He’s not fit to walk through the same dirt as you. But don’t worry,” Colson’s mouth twitches with amusement, “that was the last bit of fun he had for a while.”
“Why—” I knit my brow in confusion, “what do you mean?”
Colson stares into my eyes, a devious look spreading over his face, “It was a shame he shattered his knee the next day…”
I long blink, thinking back to the beginning of the spring semester. The next time I saw Trey, he had a brace on his leg and was telling everyone he busted his knee snowboarding.
“Up on your knees, baby,” Colson taps my hip twice, “and stay wherever I put you.”
I do as he says and rock forward. He wraps one arm around my waist and lifts me slightly, positioning my hips right above his cock. Then he gently lowers me down so his tip is just inside me. He feels both amazing and excruciating.
“But if you—” my breath catches as gravity pulls me down, “how are you not in prison?” I still manage to sound incredulous.
“I know things about Trey,” Colson’s jaw drops and then he snaps it shut with a groan, “illegal things.”
Fine, he has an answer for everything. But there’s no guarantee any of it’s true…
I return to facts I can recall, “But I didn’t even see you at that house,” I whimper as my breaths gets shallower.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t have,” Colson hisses through his teeth as he slides another inch inside me, “but it’s why I decided to fuck with you at Cade and Anderson’s. You didn’t leave before I could talk to you, I wasn’t planning on speaking to you at all that night.”
When he says it, everything falls away around me and I just stare at him in shock. I haven’t forgotten that feeling, when Colson’s eyes glossed over me like I was invisible—like I didn’t exist. Then I had to tell my closest friends about it. And now I want to smack him upside the head.
I give the straps around my wrists a violent jerk, but the headboard is solid and might as well be made of iron. This makes Colson laugh, but only for a moment. As soon as it comes out, he snaps his mouth shut as though he realizes he’s being rude.
“I’m not proud of it,” he shakes his head, “you didn’t deserve that. I promise I’ll never do it again, make you feel like you’re less than. But I made it up to you—” the corners of his mouth curl, “I came to visit you.”
“You came to my apartment?” I ask as I tug at the strap again, but it’s hopelessly knotted.
The knot looks very specific. It probably has a name and Colson’s probably tied it thousands of times around things like trees and boats and posts and pickup trucks out in the middle of the woods.
“No,” he slowly shakes his head, his eyes locked on mine, “I took a trip to the lake.”
My stomach drops when Colson says this last unsettling word. He lets me slide down further and I let out a gasp as I feel him stretching me past what I thought was possible.
He stills and presses his forehead against mine, “Eyes on me.”
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with air as he slides his hand between my thighs. I can’t concentrate on anything else. What was he talking about? Did he say he went to a lake? Which lake? I grew up on a lake…
Colson settles on my clit and starts rubbing slick circles around it, “You were made for me, sweet girl,” he murmurs against my cheek, “breathe for me and make me fit.”
I do what he says, feeling my own moisture seep onto my thigh as I rock back and forth and sink down further.
“Which—mmm…” I want him to fill me completely and fuck me within an inch of my life, “w-which lake?”
I know perfectly well which lake. But I want him to give me another reason—a logical one—why he went there. I want him to say that he and his friends decided, for some inexplicable reason, to drive up to tiny North Bay in December. But it’s dumb, and I know it. The ferries don’t run. The islands shut down. No one likes the wind and you need four-wheel drive to traverse the lake effect snow. It’s not even close enough to Cleveland for a weekend of bar-hopping.
“The one you can see from your bedroom window,” Colson whispers.
I gasp through the pain cut with electricity, “You watched me through my window?”
Colson shakes his head no, “I was on your balcony,” he grins and stills his hand as soon as he feels my muscles tense and my breaths grow short.
More games…
He waits a few seconds before he touches me again, “I sat on your railing, and you had no idea, even while you walked around naked after your shower. It was cold as hell, but I waited ‘til you were asleep to come inside. Thank God you went to bed at a decent hour…”
“I keep that door locked,” I snap, deciding he’s at least lying about that.
“Popping a sliding glass door isn’t difficult, sweetheart,” he drawls as he works my clit.
I lean into him, brushing my lips over his, “Do you do that a lot—break into people’s houses?”
“I’ve never had a reason to go inside any but yours,” he murmurs into my mouth. “When I saw you asleep in your bed, do you know how much restraint it took not to pull back your covers, climb between your legs, and give you the best dream of your life? You would’ve asked me to put you in a coma just so you wouldn’t have to wake up. But I didn’t, I just sat on the floor at the edge of your bed, right next to you, for hours.”
My chest tightens and it feels like a thousand spiders are crawling up my back.
“If you’re good, I’ll mark you as mine…then I’ll bind your hands, so you won’t run when I start telling scary stories…”
The voice of reason screams in my ear, assaulting my brain, bombarding me with logic, trying to pull me out of his grip.
This is bad. He is dangerous. There’s something wrong with him.
Even though my heart is racing and my arms are shaking as I tug at his belt in panic, Colson’s still nothing but pure euphoria. And he knows it.
“Am I scaring you, Brett?” he grins as my breaths get shorter, “Keep shaking for me. The more scared you are, the tighter you get.”
He senses the orgasm building and as soon as I’m at the edge, he stills his hand again and waits for it to dissipate.
“You just sat there?” I clench my teeth in irritation, “For hours?”
“Well, I didn’t just sit there,” Colson starts moving his fingers again, “you’re a sound sleeper, so I looked around your room to learn more about you. But after that,” he cocks his head with a diabolical grin, “I was pretty turned on.”
Oh, God…
I should be horrified, but I’m not. Not when my eyes are rolling back as he’s trying to fit his giant cock inside me, detonating every single one of my nerve endings as he goes. Instead, the thought of Colson kneeling next to my bed, jerking off to me sleeping feels like the sweetest compliment I’ve ever received. So much so that I let myself collapse the rest of the way onto him, sending a dizzying rush all the way up to my head. When my ass hits his thighs, my jaw drops and I let out a long crackling moan like I’m about to split in two.
“Fuck, Brett,” Colson grits his teeth, “look at you, taking me like such a good girl. I knew you’d like that...”
And I do. I’ve fallen through a black hole into some alternate universe where I’m overcome with a sick sense of flattery. There’s nothing but fuzzy tunnel vision and all I can hear is Colson’s deep voice murmuring in my ear.
“You woke up once,” he continues, “and you looked right at me. I know you saw me. I even touched you. I ran my fingers over your forehead into your hair and, after a few seconds, your eyes rolled back and closed again.”
This time, when I pull back and look into his aquamarine eyes—the same ones etched in my mind that shouldn’t exist—I’m struck with a frenzied and chaotic mess of horror and relief.
“I know your face,” I crackle out in a whisper.
“Yes, Honeybee,” Colson brushes his lips against mine, “you met me in your dreams. Except you get what no one else does, you get to keep me even after you wake up.”
I’m afraid—terrified—but the rush of adrenaline only feeds the carnal hunger that blinds me. This time, when I move with him, he doesn’t stop. His fingers move faster as he drags my soul out of my body with agonizing intensity. Now that I have all of him, I raise up on my knees and grab the edge of his headboard. Maybe if I ride him hard enough, I’ll tear myself apart before he does.
“Is that what you like hearing—how obsessed I am with you?” Colson’s tone turns harsh and condescending, “How you made me love you even while you fucked another man?”
His words hit like a freight train and the anger in his voice scratches an itch I never knew I had.
“Then where were you? What were you waiting for?” My voice cracks as the words tumble from my mouth, “Some fucking stalker!”
We press our foreheads together, baring our teeth at one another like wolves fighting over a carcass. Even now, I want to fight him, drive him mad, make him lose control, and it only makes me want him more.
“Are you going to tell everyone you begged your stalker to fuck you like a little slut after I told you what I did?” he snarls, grabbing my ass with both hands and slamming me down on his cock over and over.
His angle hits its mark deep inside me and shoots the most amazing sensation through my core.
“Oh my god, Colsss…I’m gonna…” I tug against the headboard, howling into his ear while I fuck him as hard as I can.
Colson grabs the back of my neck, “How sick are you?” he growls into my cheek as I cry out.
When the orgasm hits, I bring myself down hard, cursing and screaming his name, taking all of him while I gasp for air like I’m drowning.
As soon as I still, Colson grabs my hips and lifts me off of him, pulling out so fast that I let out a shriek. Then he ducks under my arms and rolls out from under me, leaving me a crumpled and bound mess on his pillows. I bury my head in the crooks of my elbows, out of breath as the aftershocks ravage me.
Colson grabs my hips from behind and jerks my ass up, “You’re a sick girl, Brett Ashley,” my eyes fly open when he says my name, “almost as sick as me.”
I wince in pain, “How do you know my middle name?” The slash he gave me still stings, and when I glance down, I realize I’m bleeding onto his white pillows.
“I told you I learned a lot about you while you were sleeping,” Colson holds my hip with one hand, my legs still shaking, and notches himself at my entrance with the other, “plus, your name is from the only book I remember reading in high school.” Colson runs his hand down my waist and over the curve of my ass, “Lady Brett Ashley, she was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht. And you missed none of it with that wool jersey…”
Is he seriously reciting Hemingway while I’m tied to his bed and he’s about to rail me from behind?
Before I can respond, Colson rams his cock so far inside me, for a moment I think he’s penetrated my damn cervix. I let out another shriek, gripping the edge of the headboard with white knuckles as he jerks my hips back and forth, thrusting as deep as he can. I can’t breathe, my lungs are frozen, petrified in shock while I take his beating. He keeps going, not letting up until my staccato breaths morph into high-pitched moans. All I can hear are the curses under his breath and the sound of his hips smacking against my ass like the crack of a whip.
“Some fucking stalker, huh?” Colson gives a cruel chuckle as he slows enough for me to catch my breath, “I promise I won’t disappoint you again, Honeybee. I’ll use you up and take what I want, whenever I want.”
He switches his rhythm and gives me three short pumps followed by two long, hard ones, making my muscles contract and my eyes roll back each time I think he can’t get any deeper.
“Is it still stalking if I want you to find me,” I whimper between breaths, “and do this to me every day?”
“Do what to you, baby?” he starts fucking me faster, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Touch me,” I say in a high-pitched moan, “touch me so I can come again with you.”
Colson slides a hand between the crease of my thigh and starts rubbing quick circles around my clit, “I’ll always find you, Brett, whether you want me to or not. You’re my home now, the one I’ll always come back to.”
“Maybe I want you to find me,” his belt digs into my wrists while I roll my hips and pull him deeper, “maybe I don’t want to run.”
“Then tell me what I am to you,” he growls, “say it.”
