The Driven Series

by Bromberg, K.

  I wiggle underneath him. He laughs into my neck, the vibration of it seeping into my chest. “I take it you want your hands back?”

  “Hmm-hmmm.” I don’t think I can speak. My body is still processing what has just happened.

  He lifts up and I can feel his hands tugging at my bindings. When one hand is free, I reach down and pull off my blindfold, my eyes easily adjusting to the dimmed light in the kitchen. Colton’s face is above me, etched in concentration as he works the other knot free. I see the lines ease as my other hand releases from what appears to be a velvet braided rope.

  I reach up to run my hands over his cheeks as he looks down at me, an errant lock of hair falling over his forehead. A shy smile lights up his face. I lift my head and brush a soft kiss against his lips, the only way I can express how I feel, how much what just happened meant to me without having him run for the hills.

  I lay my head back down, yet Colton’s eyes remain closed, the corners of his mouth still smiling. He shakes his head subtly before opening his eyes and easing his weight off of me. “C’mon,” he says, pulling me up by my arms, “This can’t be all too comfortable for you.”

  I hop off of the counter, suddenly feeling modest about my nudity. I look around for my clothes as Colton pulls his jeans up over his naked hips. I put my arms through my bra straps as I watch him button up the first four buttons, leaving the top one undone. I have to stifle a sigh as I stare at him naked from the waist up in appreciation.

  I hook my bra together and drag my shirt over my head. I start to run my fingers through my disheveled hair but stop when I catch more than just a glimpse of the tattoos that line the side of his torso. I’ve never really been able to see the whole of them, so I take a moment to look. Four symbols run vertically down his side, all are similar in style. The first three images are solid, the ink filled in completely while the fourth is just an outline. I angle my head, trying to figure out what exactly they are of when Colton looks up and sees my questioning look.

  “WHAT ARE YOUR TATTOOS OF?”

  He turns his body and raises his arm so that I can see the markings. “They’re Celtic knots.”

  “What do they mean?”

  “Nothing really,” he says gruffly, busying himself by opening the refrigerator, which I notice is almost empty, and grabbing a beer.

  “C’mon,” I prod, curious about why he is suddenly avoiding the question when he’s been so forthcoming all evening. He holds a beer out to me and I shake my head no. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who marks himself permanently without having a reason.”

  I lean against the counter with my shirt and panties on as he takes a long tug on the beer, his eyes meet mine over the bottom of the bottle. He slides them down the length of my bare legs and back up to my eyes. “The knots mean different things.” He lifts his arm again to show me as I move near him. He points to the first one just below his armpit. “This one means to overcome some type of adversity in life.” He moves to the next one. “This is the symbol for acceptance. This one is for healing, and the bottom one’s for vengeance.” He looks up slowly, a darkness in his eyes as they hold mine, waiting for my reaction. Waiting for me to ask why he needs acceptance, healing, and vengeance. We stand silently until he sighs, shaking his head at me, disbelieving that he’s said so much.

  I step toward him, reach out tentatively, and run my fingers down the four symbols on his body, their meanings resonating in me, telling me somehow, someway they are a marker of his past and where he is in terms of dealing with it. His body shivers at my touch.

  “They suit you,” I whisper, trying to convey to him that I understand. “Did you get them all at once? Why are three colored in and not the fourth?”

  He shrugs away from me, taking another drink from his beer. “No.” That’s all he gives me, and his tone tells me that that’s the end of the conversation.

  “You’re Irish then?”

  “So my Dad tells me.”

  Mr. Forthcoming. I guess he is done talking about him for the night. The theoretical switch has been flipped, and I’m back trying to catch up to his mercurial mood swings. What now? Does he drive me home? Do I stay the night? Do I get a cab? Unsettled, I pick up my pants and tug them on, struggling to appear coordinated as my ankle gets caught in the cuff. I can feel the heat of his gaze as he watches me although I dare not look up.

  “So, Colton …” I look up as I finish buttoning my jeans to see him watching me as I’d thought, an amused smirk on his face and his eyebrows raised. He may be experienced in the protocol of this type of thing, but I sure am not. My cheeks flush. I search for something to talk about, something that will abate my anxiety until he gives me some kind of indication about what I do from here. “The boys are really looking forward to going to the track when you test the car.” He snorts, his head bobbing back and forth, before he stifles a laugh. “What?” I ask, confused by his reaction.

  “All business now, are we?” I eye him carefully as he walks toward me, wary of the predatory look in his eyes. “How is it that ten minutes ago you were naked and compliant beneath me and now you’re nervous and uncomfortable just being in the same space as me?” Probably because you dominate any space you occupy. He reaches out to tug one of my curls. His emerald eyes darken as he watches me. “Am I that scary of a guy, Rylee?”

  Shit. I have to work harder at not wearing my emotions on my sleeve. “I’m not nervous.” My over-emphatic answer a dead give away that I’m lying.

  “Oh, Rylee, it’s not exactly polite to lie when some of me is still in you.”

  My blush darkens. Well, when he puts it that way … “I’m not lying. I just wanted to—to—uh get the dates so that I can tell the boys.”

  He raises his eyebrows, a knowing smile on his lips. I’m a horrible liar, and I know he can see right through mine. “What an apropos time to ask.” He smirks. “Well...” he reaches out and cups my neck, laying a tender kiss on my lips “...my day planner’s at home. I’ll have to text you the dates.”

  I open my eyes from his kiss as I process his words. What? I feel his body tense once he’s realized what he said. Did I miss something? I snap my eyes up to his and he takes a cautious step back from me. The look on his face is indiscernible.

  “Is this not your house?” I shake my head. “What am I missing here?”

  Colton runs a hand through his hair, exhaling loudly. “It’s my place. I just don’t stay here that often.” His expression is guarded, tension in the lines around his mouth. His uneasiness unnerves me.

  “Oh. Okay. Where else do you …?” And it hits me. The wrong key in the door. The fumbling with the alarm code. The inability to find something in the kitchen cupboards. The empty refrigerator. Colton saying that he shouldn’t have brought me here. How could I be so naïve? I raise my eyes to meet Colton’s and he knows that I know. The look on his face says it all. I try to swallow the lump in my throat. “So, this is your place, but not exactly where you live.” I slowly annunciate every word. “It’s where you bring all your dates, escorts, whatever you call them, to fuck.” I choke on the last word. “Right?”

  “That’s not what this is.” His voice is reticent. Rueful.

  I snort at his response. “Then what the fuck is this, Colton? I think I need a little clarity here seeing as I still have some of you in me, as you so kindly pointed out. Are you referring to the house or as a definition of you and me?”

  He just stares at me, green eyes glistening like a hurt puppy dog. “You and me,” he breathes.

  I walk out of the kitchen, rolling my shoulders, needing some space from him. From that look in his eyes. Why the fuck am I feeling guilty about the look in his eyes when I’ve done nothing wrong? Ugh! This is bullshit. I walk out into the family room, not wanting him to see the tears of hurt that flood my eyes. I quickly wipe them away with the back of my hand as I focus on the painting, a wash of colors over his fireplace.

  “That’s not what this is? Then tell me what I’m suppos
ed to think. You tell me you don’t do girlfriends, you only do casual. Is this where you bring them for a no strings attached good time?”

  “Rylee.” My name is a one-word plea on his lips. And he is right behind me. I hadn’t heard him follow me, my thoughts too loud in my own head. “I keep screwing this up with you,” he mumbles to himself.

  “You’re damn right you do.” I turn around to face him. “What? You like me enough to fuck me but not enough to stick around or bring me to your real house? Unbelievable!” I huff at him, my confidence at an all time low. Does he really think that I’d be okay with this? Just when I think that I can move on from Max, he makes me jump back as if a rattlesnake has bitten me. Bastard! “Maybe you should explain to me a little bit more about your setup here. Make me understand the shit that’s in your head.” Why am I even asking? It’s not like I really want to know the details about his sordid affairs. To know about what else goes on here on the kitchen counter. “I mean if that’s all I am to you, then I at least deserve to know what’s expected of me. My protocol.” My words drip with anger laced sarcasm. I cross my arms over my chest, a useless form of protection from him.

  “Ry? I—uh …” I can see the regret in his eyes. He regards me silently for several moments, an internal struggle warring behind his façade. “Rylee, this is not what I’d planned for me. For us.” He pauses, his eyes flooding with emotion. “You. What you are? What we are? It scares the shit out of me.”

  Whoa! What? Haddie’s words come back to me in a rush. I want to melt at his words, at the knowledge that I affect him that much, but a part of me feels like I’m being played here. An easy out for him as an excuse for his actions. Tell me what I want to hear to get me back in his bed, crisis averted, and then drop me at the first chance he gets. He hates drama and I’ve just caused some. I’m not going to let myself be played by the master player.

  “I scare you? Shit, Colton, I just let you tie me up, blindfold me, and have your way with me on the kitchen counter. A man I’ve only known for two weeks when I’ve only been with one other person before! And. I. Scare. You?” His eyes widen, startled by my admission. I raise my hands up, exasperated, wanting to move on before I have to address that little fact about myself. “You told me at the beach that night that you set guidelines, mitigate promises for the future or some bullshit like that … tell me, Colton, do you do that before or after you bring them to this—to here?” I’m on a roll here, anger and humiliation fueling my fire. He just stares at me, eyes wide, arms hanging limply at his sides. “C’mon. Since you didn’t have the courtesy to let me know what I was getting in to, I think you should at least tell me now.”

  “Rylee, that’s not what this—”

  “I’m waiting, Colton.” I lower myself to the edge of the camel-colored leather couch, crossing my arms across my chest. I think I’m going to need to be seated for this one. “How do you set up your mutual, I’m-only-giving-you-sex-and-nothing-else-arrangements?”

  He sighs loudly, running his hand over his jaw, scrubbing it back and forth before looking back at me. He finally speaks, his voice is soft and hesitant as if he’s scared to tell me. “Usually, I hit it off with someone. We figure out we like each other.” He shrugs apologetically. “And then I tell her that I enjoy her company, that I would love to spend more time with her, but all I can give her is a few nights a week … to meet me here...” he gestures at the room we’re in “...and have some fun.”

  I’m not sure if I want to hear this answer. “Go on …”

  He cocks his head to the side and regards me intently, the timid person I’d seen moments before slowly morphing back into the confident man I expect him to be. “The first time we meet here ...” He eyes me cautiously, knowing that I’m thinking this is my first time here. Was this the imminent plan he had laid out for me after screwing me on the counter? I purse my lips, trying hard to keep my face enigmatic. I nod at him to continue, anger unfurling in my belly. “Well, I sit her down and explain that I want to spend time with her, but that there is no happily ever after. Never will be. And if she can accept my terms, my requirements, then I would love to spend time with her here, have her accompany me to functions if need be, and allow her the notoriety and perks of being with me, until our mutual agreement has run its course.”

  Wow. It takes me a minute to process his words. Talk about taking emotion out of the picture. It sounds more like a business transaction. He stares at me, unashamed.

  I look at him wide eyed. “This really works for you?” I sputter, taken aback. “Why not just hire an escort? I mean that’s what you’re really doing.” My head is reeling with this information and yet the masochistic part of me wants to know all the gory details. Wants to hear the words so I heed the warning and walk away unscathed. “Someone to look pretty on your arm and for you to use when it suits you.”

  “I beg to differ,” Colton says vehemently. “It’s not like that. I never exchange money for sex, Rylee. Never. I’ve already told you that once. I won’t tell you that again.”

  Like he has any room to be pissy. He just told me he expects me to be his compliant little woman, happy with any scraps he throws my way. Too many thoughts are running through my head to form a coherent, intelligent response. “What—” I finally ask, stumbling for the right words. “You say your arrangement has rules. Do you mind if I ask what exactly those are?”

  I’m curious. I’m horrified. I’m floored that this is the path he has chosen when he could obviously have anyone he wants.

  I can sense that he’s uncomfortable, embarrassed even to respond and this fact gives me a tiny bit of hope. Hope for what though, I’m not exactly sure.

  “I know it sounds cold, but I’ve found that if I lay it all out on the table beforehand, it minimizes complications and lessens expectations further down the line. That way they walk into this willingly after they know the stipulations.”

  “Not me!” I shout at him. “You didn’t tell me!” He starts to speak, and I raise my hand to shut him up. I need a moment to think. I need a minute to wrap my head around his screwy ideals. I lower my head, swallowing loudly. Is this what I am to him? A complication? God, too much information is sometimes a bad thing. I chew the inside of my lip in thought. “Why not just say friends with benefits or fuck buddies?”

  Irritation flashes through his eyes, and he shifts restlessly, running his fingers through his hair, blatantly ignoring my comment. “You really want to know this, Rylee? The stipulations?” he asks.

  I nod, biting down on my bottom lip, worrying it back and forth. “I’m curious,” I say, in the back of my head thinking that a psychiatrist would have a field day with this conversation. “I guess I’m just trying to understand this. Trying to understand you. Trying to understand what exactly you would have expected from me.” His eyebrows shoot up at my comment, and I know that he’s heard me. My statement in past tense. That now he knows in no way will I be accepting his self-serving arrangement.

  He sits down across from me, his eyes on mine. “What I would have expected from you?”

  “Yes, your requirements,” I say sarcastically.

  He sighs tentatively, and I nod my head for him to get on with it. “I require monogamy. I require confidentiality, as my reputation as well as my family’s is very important to me.” He pauses, looking deeply at me, gauging to see if he should continue. “What else?” He breathes in deeply. “I require good hygiene, that she is healthy, drug free, and STD free. Birth control is a deal breaker since as I’ve told you, children are not now, nor will they ever be an option for me or my future.”

  He stops and I’m not sure if he’s really done, or just thinking of more of his requirements. Ironically enough, I don’t think his demands are all that odd. I mean it seems a little much to hammer out on a first date, but if I were to be in a committed relationship with someone, these are things I’d want to know. But then again, to me a committed relationship has the promise of a future, give and take, and the potential for lo
ve.

  “So…wow!” I say, taking a moment, “that’s quite a laundry list of requirements. Are there any more?”

  “A few,” he admits, “but I think we’ve exhausted this topic, don’t you?”

  I silently agree, but I’ve already delved this far, I might as well get the answers I want from him so I continue. “Oh, you must want to bypass the part where you have your Pretty Woman moment and leave the money on the nightstand after you’ve had your way with her.” His eyes whip back up to mine, and I know that I’ve hit the nail on the head. “I mean, this is all on your terms. Let me guess, you don’t actually sleep with her because it’s too intimate? Or you buy her clothes and show her off in between bedding her and little do you know, she’s using you to further her fledgling modeling career? What exactly is she getting out of this, Ace, besides a quick fuck with a guaranteed prick? And I’m not talking about the one in your pants.” My stomach is a bit queasy all of the sudden, and I realize that I don’t want to know these details. I don’t want to hear what rules and regulations some floozy agrees to so that she can sleep with him and be seen on his arm.

  I’m flustered. I’m in way over my head and way out of my element here. I understand that with his usual arrangements, they both use each other. I get that. He gets a companion and she gets the media buzz that might further her career. What I think hurts the most is that I have no intention of using him. I’m not a model or struggling actress. I worry that he dangled the rhetorical carrot in my face with the money for Corporate Cares. That way he can justify using me if he thinks I am using him.

  I can feel the tears burn in the back of my throat. I’m so mad right now and oddly it’s not at Colton. I’m mad at myself for believing—despite my false bravado that I didn’t want anything to progress with Colton—deep down, I still had a touch of hope. Now I know way more than I want to and enough to know that what he’s offering is not enough.