by Alexis Anne
It always made me angry when she said stuff like that. Elizabeth was hands down the strongest person I’d ever met. She wasn’t weak for walking away from our family, she was smart. She set her boundary and she stood behind it.
If that wasn’t strength I didn’t know what was.
“I think I’m most afraid of him thinking I had anything to do with The Hope Foundation fiasco. Everyone assumes I did. Fuck, if it weren’t for Ted I don’t think I’d be able to get a job in this town. If Colt thinks—”
“If Colt thinks you could ever knowingly swindle good people out of their money then he doesn’t know or love you, Lily. And he most certainly doesn’t deserve your love in return.” She growled a little when she said that.
“Wow.”
“What?”
I smiled. “Sometimes you go into Big Sister Mode and it catches me off guard.”
“Yeah, well, I love you.” I could hear her smile and wished we were on the same side of the world so I could hug her.
“I should probably let you get some sleep. I have to go learn how to ride a horse.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “Good night sister dear. Don’t worry so much.”
I ended the call and dropped my phone back into my bag with a sigh. Worrying was what I did and apparently no amount of vacation could stop me.
CHAPTER 13
After three long hours of learning everything about horses I was tired, hot, and dirty. So I took a long shower and ordered dinner in my room. I had zero plans of doing anything other than writing and passing out.
Until I couldn’t sleep.
My mind wouldn’t stop. If it wasn’t horses it was lines I needed to get right. And of course I kept drifting off into a hundred different ways to talk to Colt. The man had been completely absent for the last three days. I assumed it was work. His sister, on the other hand, had temporarily moved in for part of the summer with her husband and their son.
Her husband was delightful. David was smart, funny, easy on the eyes, and kind of like a big brother. I enjoyed two delicious dinners with them. No one mentioned the missing man in question, which I thought was odd, but since they didn’t bring up his absence, I didn’t either.
Which was stupid because now I was sitting up wondering where the hell he was. Did I mention the man had zero social media presence? None. The company was all over the place but Colt Landry was a ghost.
So I couldn’t even stalk him through the power of the internet.
Which was when I had a brilliant, terrible idea.
I grabbed my computer, called up my email and began to write.
Colt,
* * *
I went six months without seeing you and now three days hurts. I miss you. I miss your grumpy frown. I miss your lips. I miss the way I feel when you’re near.
* * *
I know you’re angry and hurt. I know you’re busy and stressed. I don’t want to push into your world when you weren’t expecting to see me, but maybe we can use this opportunity to get to know each other. I’d like to be friends.
I held my breath as I stared at the blinking cursor. How did I end this? “Sincerely” was entirely too formal. “Yours” was too . . . something. “Thanks” was all wrong.
But would “xoxo” be too much?
I stared and stared. “Fuck it.” I typed in the four letters and hit send.
It was in Cowboy Colt’s hands now.
* * *
Annie,
I can still call you that, right? That’s how I think of you. It’s how I addressed the ten unsent messages in my inbox. If you want to be Lily instead I understand. That’s your real name.
But don’t you think there’s something to staying Annie and Cowboy a little longer?
I’d like to be friends. Can we start here?
x
Colt
I STARED at the email for a good five minutes. I’m pretty sure I didn’t breathe more than twice that whole time. Just enough to stay alive.
I hit reply.
Cowboy,
I’d like to stay Annie. When I was her I was happy. She saw you smile. You don’t do that here. I know we really don’t know each other, but I swear you know me better than most. I’d like to think I know you better, too.
So yes. I think there is something to staying Annie and Cowboy. I think we need them.
Yours,
Annie
What would the turn around time be on emails with Colt? He was a busy man and I imagined his days were flooded with work. He probably wouldn’t even see my messages until late at night, like this.
That didn’t mean he’d keep replying to me all night like a couple of high schoolers.
Ding!
A new email appeared in my inbox, and just like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush, I hit open on that email with all the hope in the world.
Annie,
I like it when it rains because it reminds me of being at the waterfall with you. It doesn’t rain nearly enough.
Don’t listen to anything my sister tells you. It’s all lies. I promise.
x
I grabbed onto these little snippets of information.
He thought of the waterfall. He thought of us.
Cowboy,
I miss your hat.
Your sister has told me nothing but how much she loves and adores you. I like David. Jonas insists you are the best uncle who ever lived. All good things in my book, but not stories of how you pulled her hair. I expect she’s waiting for you to tell me on your own.
Speaking of sisters, mine is named Elizabeth. She’s married to a man named Adam. They live in England and I miss her all the time. She left the country to get away from our parents. Please don’t Google me. I’d like to tell you my story on my own.
I swallowed hard, my finger hesitating over the mouse. If I hit send I was starting it—beginning the process of making Lily real. I didn’t know if I was ready for that. But then again, if I waited any longer he’d learn all on his own.
I hit the damn send button, only slightly regretful I didn’t sign off at the end. His reply came almost immediately.
Annie,
Too late.
* * *
I RUSHED through the dark house and slid across the kitchen floor, slamming right into a shirtless Colt. Luckily he caught me because in my rush I was going down hard and fast.
Panic did that to a person.
“What did you read?” There was no time for formalities. After he sent that email he immediately sent another. He had just gotten home and was in the kitchen getting ice cream. He told me to join him so we could talk in person.
He righted me and let me go—something I really hated. I liked his hands on my hips, his body close. “I saw the headlines at the top of the search. I only scanned those since they seemed to be more about your parents than you.” Thank god. “And then I clicked on your website and read your official bio.”
“That’s it?”
He half-shrugged. “That’s it.”
“But . . . why?” Most people grabbed a pint of ice cream and dug in for the mountains of gossip, stories, and sordid details. It was the kind of gossip that kept people coming back over and over again.
“Why not?” He paced over to the open ice cream container and finished spooning out the second bowl before putting the carton back in the freezer. “I was clearly one of the few people who knew next to nothing about you. I was curious about you. I don’t give a fuck about the tabloids.” He shook his head, his brow furrowed up in a strangely sexy way. Apparently he could pull off frustrated just as well as he could a smile. “I just wanted to get an idea of who you were. That’s it. That’s what I got.”
I wracked my brain. What the heck was on my website? I knew I had read and approved it but it had been a while. “Okay then.”
He shoved the bowl at me. “Eat.” Then he shot me a grin. “Friend.”
Friend. How was this going to work? I slowly devoured the sinful chocolate treat, watchi
ng Colt do the same. Fuck, he was sexy. All shirtless, his pajama pants hanging off his hips so that I had no choice but to stare at that V as it dipped below his waistband, forcing back memories of tracing my fingers over it as I knelt in front of him.
“Stop,” he said, his voice hoarse.
My eyes shot up to lock with his. “Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
I froze, taking stock of myself. “Like what?”
He swallowed his spoonful of ice cream and pushed the bowl away, his whole body suddenly tense when only a minute before he’d been so relaxed. “Don’t play dumb. Your thoughts were written all over your face and when you look at me like that all I want to do is lift you onto this countertop and fuck you.”
That was so much more than friends. “God, Colt.”
He was in front of me in a flash, his arms surrounding me as he boxed me in. “Is that what you want, babe? Me? Gone during the day? Absent for days at a time? That’s what you want?”
It was really hard to think when my body had turned into a giant ball of fire. Every time he got close something happened. My mind went blank, my skin tingled, my belly flipped. I wanted him any which way I could get him.
“The last time I checked a girl was allowed to fantasize.”
He pressed closer so that I could feel his erection through his thin pajamas. “Well your fantasies turn me on and it’s confusing the fuck out of me.”
My hands somehow wound up on his hips, pulling him closer. “Confused?” What was confusing? Our bodies responded like a nuclear reaction to being close. It was pretty cut and dry.
“Are we enemies? Friends? Lovers? I don’t know what to do with you.”
I ground against him, totally lost to the fog. “Do whatever you want. Hate me during the day, send me emails all night.”
He nipped at my earlobe and growled. “And fuck you in the kitchen late at night.”
I whimpered. “Yes.” Every night. Here. On this hard, cold counter.
He lifted me and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he set me down. “I can’t think when I’m around you.” His hands were in my hair, stroking, gripping. “I just . . . want.” They slid down my chest and to the loop on my bathrobe, hooking his finger and pulling it free. “Oh god.”
I was naked under my robe. Too tired to throw on a nightie or yoga pants, I wrapped myself up in a fuzzy robe, piled my hair up in a bun, and was ready to call it a night.
What a sweet reward for exhaustion.
I took his face in my hands. “I want you, Colt. Right now. However I can have you.”
“What about tomorrow? This will change things.”
“No,” I said quickly, reaching down to free his cock from his waistband. “Tomorrow you can still be angry at me. You’ll go to work. I’ll go to work. But right now? I need you.”
That snapped whatever resolve he’d been holding onto. He pushed my hand away and laid his large, masculine hand against my already swollen flesh, his size and strength in contrast to my more delicate features. He pressed and rubbed, stimulating my pleasure until my head fell back because I was so lost to him.
And then he was there, pushing against me, begging for permission to be let in. “Tell me you want this.” His voice cracked. With emotion? Desperation?
“Get your cock inside me, Colt.”
He thrust hard. I gasped as he stretched me open and paused, waiting for me to welcome him home. That’s what it felt like—together we had a peace we couldn’t find anywhere else. “Yes,” I hissed. “More.”
He groaned and pulled back before thrusting again, diving deeper. This time it was his moan that echoed through the cold, dark kitchen. “Why did you say need?” he asked as he buried his face in the space between my shoulder and neck, sucking and nipping. “Right now? I need you.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held on. “Because when I’m with you nothing else matters. I need that escape or I’ll go mad.” I got another nip for that answer, followed by a deep, slow thrust home. I cried out, scoring my nails into his shoulders. “And it’s been months since I’ve gotten to forget it all.”
Another nip. Another thrust. Another moan.
“More,” he said this time. “Tell me more.” I swear he was feeding off this. Feeding on the information, the energy, his desire growing as he learned how deep my needs went.
He laid me back, spread me out on the counter, taking me in like he’d just sat down at the greatest buffet known to man. His hands roamed and explored my flesh. “Just as I remembered.” He bent forward and sucked my nipple.
I arched up, begging for more.
He complied with enthusiasm, his slow, lazy strokes ever so slowly bringing me closer and closer to orgasm. He drew it out, giving us both space to get lost. “This. I missed this.” He ran his hand over my stomach, around my hips, and up my thigh, hooking it behind my knee, before he reared back and thrust hard. “Do you still like it hard or has that changed?”
I cried out, tingles shooting out over my skin and out my scalp. “There’s been no one but you, so what do you think?”
He pounded into me several times. Hard. Marking me, if I wasn’t mistaken. “No one?” He set back and seared me with a stare that warned me lying would be severely punished.
I shivered under the fierceness of that gaze. It was angry, possessive, and . . . hot. “No one. You’re all I’ve thought about.” And to prove just how much I could blow his mind, I ran my hands over my breasts, my left latching around my left nipple while my right descended between us to my clit. “At night, when I touch myself, it’s to memories of you.” His jaw ticked, his eyes watching with hunger. “In the morning in the shower when I pull down the shower head, it’s your mouth I’m imagining on me.”
Colt was half-mad with lust when he leaned down to kiss me once on the lips, his cock buried deep inside me. “And when I jerk off in the shower it’s your eyes looking up at me that I picture just before I come.”
I whimpered because yes. I wanted him filled with memories of my mouth on his cock.
He pulled out and rammed deep inside me. “And at night when I can’t fucking sleep, I take myself in my hand and remember how hard I made you come in that hotel bed.”
I arched to accommodate his invasion. “You like that, don’t you? Making me come?”
His eyes sparked. “I like knowing that I can make the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen fall apart. I get off on it, babe. It’s a power trip to know I do this to you.” And to drive his point home, he drove his cock into me over and over until I came apart in his arms.
The whole world exploded like fireworks, but the light in my eyes was nothing compared to the ecstasy I felt flooding my bloodstream.
“Oh god, yes,” Colt moaned, pounding just as hard as ever. His hand gripped my knee and then he threw his head back, letting out an animalistic grunt as he came hard, slamming into me one last time.
This was the Colt I craved most of all. The man who left all his responsibilities at the door and did whatever he wanted to me. He was so much more natural and calm when we were together. This, the moment right after he came, was the only time he ever seemed peaceful.
He kissed my neck and collarbone, nipped at my throat and earlobe as he held me firm against his cock, still twitching deep inside me. “Annie?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
And the peace was gone. In a blink he was back to worrying. “I’m amazing, Colt. That was . . . well, it was pretty spectacular.”
He lifted his head and met my gaze. “Not too hard?”
Always so worried. “Never. I like that you don’t hold back with me. Don’t ever stop.”
He froze above me, the hesitation clear. “What would you say if I suggested we act like this never happened in the morning?” I must have looked pissed because he rushed on. “Don’t freak out.” He cocked his hips and pressed into me. “I have a deal I want to make.”
Wel
l this was exciting. I thought it was going to take a lot longer to get Colt to warm up to the idea of anything more than being angry at me. “Go ahead.”
He thrust into me again, igniting a whole new round of little flutters from my inner muscles. “We go on about our days as we have. We’re both busy and we need to focus. Plus I’m still not sure how I feel about your name.” That was fair. I waited for him to finish. “But this? Annie, we need this. And . . . god, how I want to give you what you need.”
CHAPTER 14
“Oh god, Colt!” I moaned into his pillow. It was the third night this week I’d wound up screaming his name into the next day and I couldn’t say I was regretting my decision to have secret sex with Colt in the least.
In fact right then I was pretty okay with everything he was doing to me. I was on my knees, face down in his pillow to muffle the sound as he knelt on the ground, his tongue inside me, his fingers . . . everywhere. My nipples, my clit, my folds . . . if it was sensitive and pleasurable, Colt was there. All at once, then one at a time, then all at once again, drawing out my orgasm for nearly an hour. I was shaking and my skin was on fire.
“How are you doing?”
I’m dying and living all at once. “I don’t think I can take much more.”
He grunted and left me again. I almost cried just like I had when he’d made me watch him stroke himself earlier.
The bastard was good.
Too good.
You see we had a great talk about what we each wanted out of our sexual relationship. It was actually very adult and technical, and not at all sexy. We both craved escape and agreed that at least one night a week we’d draw out sex for as long as we could stand it. Tonight was that night.