Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 40
“You’re—” I feel the wave cresting as he thrusts harder and faster, until I cry out the last words, “you’re my only.”
My hips convulse at his touch and I scream into the crook of my elbows as the second orgasm rocks through me. His belt digs into my wrists, but I hardly feel it. My shrieks send Colson over the edge and he buries his cock in me so violently, my spine cracks and my ribs jolt with every thrust. The headboard shudders under my hands as Colson pitches forward and grabs onto the edge.
He grabs my throat and jerks my face up to the ceiling, “Fuck, baby,” he grinds out, gripping the wood with white knuckles as he comes, Slam “You’re—” Slam “So—” Slam “Fucking—” Slam “Perfect.”
Stars flash like fireworks the harder Colson squeezes my throat, but I’m not sure whether they’re in his windows or in my head. I shudder when he pulls out, only for him to grab my ankles and jerk my legs out from under me. He grabs my hips and flips me over, twisting my wrists tighter in the belt.
My hands still affixed above my head, Colson wrenches open my knees and buries his face between my legs. I pull at the belt with a gasp when I feel his tongue sweep my pussy from top to bottom. Then he pins my knees to the mattress while he licks and sucks every inch of me with agonizing precision.
Finally, Colson releases my legs and crawls over my writhing body until he’s hovering over my face. Planting one hand on the mattress next to my chest, he squeezes my jaw with the other to open my mouth. As soon as our lips touch, he opens his mouth and I feel a gush of hot liquid flow off his tongue onto mine. He holds my mouth to his as I swallow the salty fluid cut with his spit and the tangy bite of my own cum.
When he’s done, he lifts his head with a smirk, “See how good we taste together?”
Rising to his knees, he scans my body, splayed, bound, and bloody beneath him. Then he reaches across the bed, grabs his knife, and flips it open.
“I would keep you like this,” Colson covers my knuckles with his hand and jerks the blade up, slicing through the belt, “but I don’t think you’re going anywhere.” Then he reaches down and loosens the strap, making my wrists and fingers tingle as the blood rushes back through them.
And I don’t go anywhere. Not yet, anyway. Colson disappears into the dark hallway and strolls back into the room a minute later with a first aid kit. For the next five minutes, he kneels between my legs in silence and I watch him gently clean the smeared blood off my skin and patch up my six-inch knife wound with Neosporin and extra-large bandages. But it’s anything but silent; our eyes bounce glances off one another with subtle movements of the mouth, carrying on a conversation only we can hear.
Only once I’m lying on his chest, beneath his arm, listening to his heart beat, do I open my mouth to speak.
I crane my head against Colson’s chest as he swipes and taps his phone, “What are you doing?”
“Ordering some Thai,” he finishes what he’s doing and tosses his phone onto the sheets next to him.
I draw in an excited breath, “That’s my favorite!” I whisper with a grin.
“I know it is,” he reaches up with his free arm and stretches, arching his back, “Pad See Ew with tofu. But it’s not because you’re vegetarian, you just like the texture.”
How the hell does he know that?
I don’t even bother asking. I just slowly sink back down and settle my cheek against his chest again.
After a few moments in silence, I glance up at him, “I’m going to tell my parents what you did, Colson,” I say while tracing random curves over his stomach with my fingertip.
I don’t even have to look at him, but I know he’s smiling.
“Are you really, baby?” his baritone voice vibrates against my cheek.
I nod, “Yes. That way, they’ll know from the start how fucked up you are.”
He glances down at me, “By default, you’ll be admitting to them how fucked up you are, too.”
“They can’t say anything,” I shrug, “they got engaged after two weeks. They’re hardly responsible.”
“Two weeks, huh? What’ll they say when you tell them you said yes to me before I even took you on a proper date?”
I scoff at his arrogance, “You’re crazy…”
“You want to know crazy?” Colson chuckles, “I saw your mom the next morning when I came out of your house. She’ll probably recognize me when you take me home with you.”
My eyes round and I jerk my head up.
He nods, “I left from that walking path next to your house. Your mom was coming out of the garage to go on a run. She’s pretty hardcore. But she’s Canadian, right? She’s used to jogging in six feet of snow. Anyway, she said hi to me and I thought about stopping.” He looks down at me with a salacious grin, “Do you think she had any idea I climbed down from your bedroom a few minutes earlier, after I watched her baby sleep all night?”
It still makes my skin crawl, knowing Colson was watching me, in my bedroom, for an entire night. But I still can’t shake the idiotic feeling that goes along with it—the one where I secretly enjoy how deranged he is and can’t even begin to explain it.
“You’re nuts,” I murmur, furrowing my brow at him as he strokes my jawline, “You’re fucking nuts.”
He is wholly unfazed, “Is that why you love fighting with me while I fuck you? It makes you feel like you’re not complicit in my behavior?” His mouth twitches into a smirk, “If you act a little angry at first, then you don’t feel guilty when you’re riding my dick like your life depends on it?”
“How did you end up in my class this semester?” I ask abruptly, refusing to answer him.
But he’s willing to answer any question I throw at him, “The first day back, I followed you to class and just went in. Then I changed my schedule while I was sitting next to you.”
He also has an answer for everything.
“What if I didn’t like you?” I press, “Or what if I hadn’t given you another chance?”
Colson gives me a slow kiss on the forehead, “You would have.”
“What if I didn’t?” I don’t know what kind of answer I’m looking for, but I’m sure I’ll know it when I hear it.
Colson looks down his shoulder at me, “You probably think I’m your worst nightmare,” he states with nonchalance, “but I don’t need to be. Get over your weak, socially constructed hangups about how love should be expressed and let me be the rock you stand on to do all the great things you’re meant to do. That’s all that matters, anyway.”
That’s all that matters.
“But how do you know?” I ask, “How could you know that?”
“Brett,” Colson takes a deep breath and slowly exhales, “everything I believe comes from the natural world—the dirt, the trees, the water...and if you ever just stop and listen, away from distractions, and feel the connection you have with it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Maybe that’s what people think God is, but it’s like you’re sharing a pulse and a heartbeat with the earth and all the elements around you. And when you feel it, you know it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be.” He pauses for a moment, “And the only human I’ve ever felt that with is you. When I saw you, you were all these great moments in my life somehow stitched together to create a whole person. I knew you were supposed to stay with me from that moment on, because I was exactly where I was supposed to be—with you. And, now, I can’t see anyone but you.”
I sit in silence for a minute, marinating on his words—on him.
“Colson,” I take a breath, “you are a nightmare. You can be scary as hell and you hide it perfectly. But, for some reason, I still like being with you. I still like sitting with you in your darkness.”
“If you like being with me, then stay with me.”
I nod with a smile, “Well, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to drive home in the middle of the night, so yes.”
“No,” he shakes his head, “I mean longer than that—forever. When I leave here in a couple months, come with me and write your books and do whatever you want to do. And if you decide you want to go somewhere else, I’ll take you there, too.”
People don’t do that—not really. No sane person just decides on a whim to run off to the mountains with some guy they barely know.
I push away from his chest and straighten up, “I shouldn’t still like you after everything you’ve done, and I definitely don’t know you well enough to say whether I love you. What I do know should be enough to get a restraining order and go into hiding.”
Colson grins, “Is that how you treat your one and only?” He intertwines his fingers in mine and kisses the inside of my wrist, “It doesn’t matter whether you say you love me in the next three minutes or the next three years. If you’re here, that’s all that matters.”
“You wouldn’t care if I never said I love you?” I press him.
“Baby, you’re such a terrible liar,” Colson scoffs, “you’re too curious. It’s why you let me drive you to Cincy tonight. It’s why you came home with me. You want to see what happens when you say yes to me. You want to see how it feels.” He grabs my leg and pulls me onto his lap, facing away from him. Then he pulls his knees up to spread my legs apart, “Just like you’re dying to know what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t been such a gentleman at mommy and daddy’s house.”
He reaches between my legs into his boxer briefs and takes out his cock, solid and at attention, then he raises two fingers and taps them on my bottom lip, “Open,” when I do, he slides them over my tongue, “get them wet for me, baby.”
I do what he says and close my lips around his fingers, sucking and swirling my tongue around them. After he takes them out, he reaches between my legs and strokes my clit, sending a full body shiver through me. Then he dips down and slides them in and out of my pussy until his fingers are soaked.
“You don’t—” I can barely speak, “You can’t just—”
And then I forget what I’m saying altogether as I watch Colson stroke his entire length in front of me, lubing it up with my arousal before he loosens his grip around my waist and lets me slide onto him. I throw my head back onto his shoulder and clench against him, making him groan into my neck.
“Close your eyes, Brett,” a moment later, I feel his hand clamp over my mouth and he murmurs into my ear, “Now be really quiet, so Jo doesn’t wake up next door and find little sis in such a precarious position.” My eyes fly open in shock as he plants his heels on the mattress and starts thrusting up into me, sending me into a tailspin.
“Listen closely, Honeybee,” Colson groans into my ear as my chest heaves, “mine is the only touch that will make you feel anything ever again, and my touch is the one you’ll long for, no matter how far you try to run. After being dead for so long, your voice is what brought me back to life, and your pulse is what keeps my heart beating. You have all of me, forever, no matter what. And whether or not you know it yet, I’m the one you’ll always come back to. Because I’m your home now, and you are mine.”
I sink into the warm darkness of Colson’s arms and imagine what it might’ve been like if he hadn’t stayed put at the edge of my bed. And I love it, shaking and screaming muted sobs into his hand while he turns me inside out. Maybe it’s because now I know it’s him and not some grotesque creep in the shadows.
The devil you know, right?
Was I in love with Colson that night? No. But did I want to stay with him and find out if I could be? Yes.
I never told him because I never got the chance, but I was going to go with him to Colorado. He was going to be the one impulsive and irrational thing I did just because I could. And that was my last thought before I fell asleep, wrapped in his embrace while I listened to his steady breaths at my neck and felt his chest rising and falling against my back.
The first time I saw Colson was in a dream at my childhood home on the lake. But, hours later, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, staring at my battered body with drenched hair, it felt like he no longer exists, like he never left that dream. But the marks are real; they’re still here even after I woke up, and they came from him.
Colson was right, I got what no one else does—to wake up from a nightmare with the monster still here.
I can’t even get dressed before sinking down onto the floor, crouching on the lemon-yellow rug, clutching my head through silent screams and sobs.
Barrett’s right, too…
It makes sense why you do the weird shit you do.
Compulsively looking in rearview mirrors, checking backseats, double-checking window locks, triple-checking door locks, memorizing escape plans, avoiding sliding glass doors, living with the fear that I will see Colson’s formidable silhouette on the other side of the glass. It’s no way to live, but I adapted because that’s what humans do in order to function.
And, even after all that, I realize survival is relative.
And if Colson wants to find me, he’s going to find me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Brett
One Year Ago
Barrett chews her lip, staring at me with her hands folded neatly on the wrought iron table. I glance at my phone sitting next to my glass and check the time.
8:16.
To the untrained eye, she would appear calm, but I know she’s trying not to explode.
I finally break the silence, “Say something.”
She leans back in her chair and looks away with a devious smile. Her poker face might be stellar with her clients at work, but she’s never been good at holding one with me.
“Fuuuuck, dude!” she exclaims, tugging at the collar of her cream blouse like she’s burning up, “I’m having palpitations over here.”
I let my head collapse into my palms with a groan, but a tiny laugh sneaks out.
“I’m sorry, that was inappropriate—best friend response,” Barrett thrusts her arm into the air, waving at the closest server on the patio, “I need another glass of wine, please!”
Now I think I might need another drink, “Yeah, so that’s the story,” I exhale, dragging my hands down my face,
“The whole story?”
“The whole story.”
“How could you not tell me any of this? Holy shit!”
I shoot her a look.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Gun to the head, I know,” Barrett nods, “you’ve just never been the controversial one, you know? It’s usually me coming to you with stuff only seen on Bravo TV.” After a moment, she looks away, grinning to herself, “Colson fucking Lutz,” she sneers.
“So, I guess wherever I go, he goes. Even after all this time, even after what he did…”
“You talk about this with such pragmatism,” she eyes me from across the table, “like it’s just the way it is.”
I shrug, “That’s what Bowen said when I told him what Colson did with the gun.”
“Can you tell Bowen what happened,” she asks, “I mean, what happened today?”
“No.” It’s such a small but loaded word, and what trails behind it is a litany of reasons I never can. “Bowen warned me about him from the start. He told me I’d see him again, and he was right. Then, after Colson showed up at work, Bowen told me I needed to be careful and not get too close to him. But I blew it off because Colson seemed so mellow, like he grew up. He was nice. And now look...”
“You’re worried Bowen’s going to blame you,” Barrett says.
“Of course, he will! And what would I say to him?” I scrunch up my face and hitch my voice up an octave, “I have this really complicated and fucked up relationship with my stalker who I haven’t seen in three years because he put a gun to my head, but it’s OK because he didn’t really mean it. And today, he came into my office, acted like a psychopath, and his dick accidentally ended up in my mouth.” I furrow my brow at Barrett, who can’t even hide her laughter now, “I can’t tell him.”
“Well, we can debate who decided to do what and under how much duress later,” Barrett rolls her eyes.
Both of us abruptly pause when the server approaches and sets down another glass of wine in front of Barrett.
Once he leaves, Barrett takes a deep breath to compose herself, “Are you afraid Bowen will end the relationship or that he’ll do something else?”
We both know what something else is, that underlying meaning that dwells between the lines that no one wants to admit. But Barrett doesn’t have a problem asking about it. She’s seen people choose violence too often and she’s not naïve enough to believe anyone is an exception. And Bowen is far from an exception.
I see Hildy on the front porch of the country club, telling me about how much Bowen used to fight anyone and everyone. And then I see Hannah and her suspicious bruises, and all of a sudden, I’m not sure what to think. If he chose violence, I’m not sure who would be on the receiving end. And then I realize that in itself should also be concerning.
But still, I’ve never seen him say or do anything hostile except for giving Hannah nasty looks…
Barrett leans across the table, “I want to preface this by saying I’m not going to judge you, but I need to ask you this to get a better idea of where you’re at.”
“You don’t have to preface anything. I know why you’re asking the things you’re asking, so just say it.”
Barrett glances down at the table and then lowers her voice, “Did you like what Colson did today?”
I knew she was bound to ask something like this, it was inevitable. I know the answer, but saying it out loud is a different story. However, if I can’t say it to Barrett—someone who’s trained to respond to the most fucked up shit in the world—who can I say it to?
“Some of it,” I mumble, crinkling a shred of napkin in my fingers.
“I’m not here to kink-shame you, you know that. But it would help me understand why you’re talking about Colson the same way you talk about a flat tire making you late for work instead of curled up in a corner, crying hysterically.”
She’s got a point. Colson Lutz—a pothole in brand-new pavement—here to wreck shit.
“I liked what he did,” I speak slowly and carefully, “But I don’t like that he picked now to do it. And I’m sorry for what happened to his sister, or whatever, but…” I trail off, forgetting where I’m going with this.
