The Driven Series Boxed Set - Limited Edition (Driven #1-4)

by K. Bromberg

  “But you could, Colton,” I reply, confusion in my voice. “You ran from me…not the other way around. I was the one sitting and waiting for you to call. How could you think otherwise?”

  “I know,” he says softly. “I know…but what you said to me—those three words—they turn me into someone I won’t ever let myself be again. It triggers things—memories, demons, so fucking much—and no matter how much time has passed, I just…” he fades off, unable to verbalize what the words I love you do to him.

  “What? Why?” What in the hell is he talking about? I want to scream at him, but I know that I have to have patience. Look where my obstinance has gotten us thus far. Verbalization is not his strong point. I have to just sit back and be quiet.

  “Ry, the explanation—when, as a kid, those words are used as a manipulation…as a means to hurt you…” He struggles and I so desperately want to reach out and hug him. Hold him and help him through it, so maybe I can understand him better—comprehend the poison he says sears his soul—but I refrain. He looks at me and tries to smile but fails miserably, and I hate that this conversation has robbed him of that brilliant smile of his. “…it’s too much to go in to right now and probably more than I’ll ever be able to explain.” He exhales on a long, shaky breath. “This, talking right now, is more than I ever have…so I’m trying here, okay?” His eyes plead with me through the shadow of darkness, and I just nod at him to continue. “You said those words to me…and I was immediately a little boy, dying—wishing I was dead—hurting inside all over again. And when I hurt like that, I usually turn to women. Pleasure to bury the pain…” My free hand grips the sheet beside me for the little boy that was in so much pain he’d rather die and for the man I love beside me that’s still so haunted by it and for what I fear is going to spill from his lips next. His confession. “Usually,” he whispers, “but this time, after you, there was no appeal in it. When the thought crossed my mind, it was your face I saw. Your laugh I missed. It was your taste I craved. No one else’s.” He shifts onto his back, keeping his fingers still laced with mine as my heart squeezes at his words. “Instead, I drank. A lot.” He chuckles softly. “The day before…everything happened…Q came by my place and read me the riot act. She told me to clean myself up. Told me to find some friends other than Jim and Jack to hang out with. Becks showed up an hour later. I know she called him. He didn’t ask what was wrong—he’s good like that—but knew I needed some company.

  “He took me out surfing for a couple of hours. Told me I needed to clear my head from whatever was fucking it up. He had to assume it had something to do with you, but he never pried. After we surfed for a while, I told him we needed to go out, hit a couple of bars, something to make me numb.” He rubs his thumb softly back and forth over our clasped hands, and I turn onto my side so now it’s me watching him staring at the ceiling. “We did and in the process, Tawny called and had some documents she needed me to sign since I hadn’t been in the office for several days. I told her where we were and she showed up. I signed the documents and the next thing I knew, a couple of hours had passed and all three of us were shitfaced. Lit like you wouldn’t believe. We were closer to the Palisades house, so I had Sammy drive us there and figured we’d pick up their cars in the morning.

  “We walked through the front door, and I realized that I hadn’t been there since that night with you. Grace had been there of course—the shirt I’d thrown on the couch before we…” He fades off remembering. “It was folded neatly on the back of the couch for me to see the minute I entered the house. My first reminder. When I walked into the kitchen, she’d taken the cotton candy and it was sitting in a container on the counter. I couldn’t escape you—even drunk, I couldn’t escape you. So I drank some more. Tawny and Beckett followed suit. Tawny was uncomfortable in the clothes she had so I grabbed a shirt for her so she could be more comfortable. We were all sitting in the family room. Drinking more. I was trying anything to numb how much I needed you. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but at some point I reached for my beer and Tawny kissed me…”

  Those words hang in the darkened room like a weight on my chest. I grit my teeth at the thought even though I’m appreciative of his honesty. I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t need to hear all of the story. That in this case truth might not be the best policy. “Did you kiss her back?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. I feel his fingers tighten momentarily around mine, and I know my answer. I worry my bottom lip between my teeth as I dread hearing the confirmation come from his lips.

  He sighs again and I can hear him swallow loudly in the quiet of the room. “Yes…” he clears his throat “...at first.” Then he falls silent for a few moments. “Yes, I kissed Tawny back, Rylee. I was hurting so much and drinking wasn’t helping to numb it anymore…so when she kissed me, I tried my old fallback method.” I audibly suck in my breath and try to pull my hand from his but his grip remains firm. He doesn’t allow me to pull away from him. “But for the first time ever, I couldn’t.” He turns on his side again so that although the darkness of the room doesn’t allow us to completely see each other, I know that he is staring into my eyes. He reaches his free hand up to run the backside of his fingers over my cheek. “She wasn’t you,” he says softly. “You ruined casual for me, Rylee.”

  I sniffle at the tears burning the back of my throat, and I’m unsure of whether they’re a result of the fact that he did try to start something with her or if they’re because of his reasons why he couldn’t. “I told you I loved you, Colton, and you ran away. Basically into the arms of another woman,” I accuse. “A woman who has harassed and threatened me no less in regards to you.”

  “I know…”

  “What’s to say you won’t do that again, Colton? What’s to say that the next time you get spooked you won’t do the same damn thing?” Silence falls around and between us, wiggling its way into the doubts in my head. “I can’t…” I whisper as if talking normally is too much for the words I’m about to utter. “I don’t think that I can do this, Colton. I don’t think I can let myself believe again…”

  Colton shifts suddenly in the bed and sits up, grabbing both of my hands in his as I fall onto my back. “Please, Rylee…don’t decide yet…just hear the rest of it out, okay?” I can hear the desperation in his voice, and it undoes me for I know exactly how it feels when that tone is in your voice.

  That was the same one I had right after I told him I loved him.

  We sit there and his hands hold mine—our only connection despite feeling as if he is the only air that my body can breathe. I feel the tension radiate off of him as he tries to put the thoughts swarming in his head into words.

  “How do I explain this?” he asks the room as he blows out a loud breath before beginning. “When you race, you’re going so fast that everything outside of your car—the sidelines, the crowd, the sky—everything becomes a big, stretched out blur. Nothing specific can be identified. It’s me in the car, alone, and everything outside of my little bubble is part of the blur.” He stops momentarily, squeezing my hands to stop the nerves trembling through his as he regroups to try and explain better. “Kind of like when you’re a kid and you spin in circles…everything in your line of sight becomes one big continuous image all blurred together. Does that make sense?”

  I’m unable to find my voice to answer him. His anxiety seeping into me. “Yes,” I manage.

  “I’ve lived my life for so long in that state of blur, Rylee. Nothing is clear. I never stop long enough to pay attention to the details because if I do then everything—my past, my mistakes, my emotions, my demons—will catch up to me. Will cripple me. It is always easier to live in that blur than to actually stop, because if I stop, then I might actually have to feel something. I might have to open up to the things I’ve always protected myself against. Things ingrained in me from the shit that happened to me as a kid. Shit that I don’t ever want to remember but that I constantly do.” He releases one of
my hands and scrubs it over his face. The chafe of the stubble against his hand is a welcome sound to me, a comforting one.

  “My past is always there, just on the edge of my memory. Always threatening to overwhelm me. To drag me back and pull me under.” I can hear the emotion thickening in his voice, and on impulse, reach out and grab his hand again. I squeeze it—a silent sign of support for the hell inside of his head. “Living inside of that blur is like living in a bubble. It allows me to control the speed I’m going…to slow down if I need a breather, but to never really stop. I’ve always been in the driver’s seat…always in control. Always able to speed up, push the limits, when things get too close…

  “And then I met you…” The astonishment in his voice is raw and honest and tugs so deep within me that it causes me to sit up, so I’m now cross-legged with my knees pressing against his. His hands find mine again and squeeze them tightly. “The night I met you it was like a firecracker shot out of that blur of color and exploded above me. So bright and so beautiful…and so hostile...” he chuckles “...that I couldn’t look away even if I tried. It was like life slammed the brakes on me and I’d never touched the pedal. I was immediately drawn to you, to your attitude, to your refusal of me, to your wit…to your incredible body.” I can feel him shrug unapologetically at the last comment, and I can’t help the smile that curls up my lips or the hope that begins to bloom in my soul. “…to everything about you. That first night you were a spark of solid color to me in a world that’s always been one big mixed blur of it.”

  Words escape me as I try and process what he’s telling me. Just when I’ve made up my mind one way, he says something so poignant and achingly beautiful that I can’t help but feel my heart swell with love for him. Colton accepts my silence and reaches out to cradle my head in his hands before he continues. The tenderness in his touch brings tears to my eyes. “That first night you created a spark, Rylee, and every day since then, you’ve allowed me the strength to slow down long enough to see into the blur I’ve always feared. Even when I don’t want to do it, your quiet strength—knowing that you are there—pushes me to be a better person. A better man. Since you’ve come into my life, things finally have definition, specific colors assigned to them…I don’t know…” I can hear his struggle, and I turn my face into the palm of his hand and kiss it there softly as he sighs. “I don’t know how else to explain it, but I know that I can’t go back to how I existed before. I need you in my life, Rylee. I need you to help me continue to see the color. To slow things down. To allow me to feel. I need you to be my spark …”

  He leans in and brushes his lips so softly, so tenderly against mine. “Please be my spark, Ry…” he pleads as the words cause his lips to brush against mine.

  I lean in and press my lips against his, instigating the kiss to go deeper by slipping my tongue into his mouth because the words and thoughts in my head and heart are so jumbled that I’m afraid to speak. Afraid that in this moment of his revelation—that if I pour out what’s spilling over in my heart—I will overwhelm him. So instead, I pour it all into my kiss. He gathers me to him, cradling me in his lap while he worships my mouth in the way that only he knows how. The reverence in which he breathes my name between kisses causes a tear to slide down my cheek.

  “I might not be able to tell you the things you need to hear with the traditional words you need to hear them in, but I swear to God, Rylee, I will try. And if I can’t, then I’ll show you. I’ll show you with everything I have—anything it takes—where your place is in my life,” he murmurs to me, shattering every last form of protection I have guarding my heart.

  He just stole it completely.

  And I just more than willingly handed it over.

  He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my neck, holding me tightly for a long while, his vulnerability palpable. My mind thinks in sensations and emotions and shuts all sensibility out so that I can just enjoy this unguarded side of Colton that is such a rarity. I breathe in the scent of us mixed together. I feel the beat of his heart against my chest. The warmth of his breath against my neck. The strength of his arms as they hold me tight. The scrape of his scruff against my bare skin. The comfort his presence brings to me by just being near. So many things to absorb—to pack away for another day—so I can remember them when I need them the most.

  Because I know that being with Colton—staying with Colton—loving Colton—guarantees that I will need these memories at the most random of times to help me get by in the trying ones I know will inevitably come.

  “I’m drowning here. Your silence is killing me. Can you say something? Throw me a lifeline please?” he says and the comment has me immediately thinking of Beckett’s words on the way to Vegas and earlier to me.

  “C’mon,” I whisper to him as I run my hands up and down his back. He pulls me tighter and nuzzles deeper into the underside of my neck. “You have a long day tomorrow. It’s late. You need to get some sleep.”

  His head startles back and in our close proximity I can see the crystalline green of his eyes—their clarity, their utter shock, their acceptance—of my unspoken words. “You’re not leaving?” he asks so brokenly. “You’re staying?”

  I catch the sob that almost escapes my throat with his words. That I think he’s worth it. His hands run over my face and down the curve of my shoulder and back up. Touching to make sure that I really am before him—flesh and blood and accepting of him. Accepting the journey that he wants to try and take with me.

  “Yes, Colton. I’m not going anywhere,” I’m finally able to say once the burn in my throat dissipates.

  He holds my head with both hands and leans in to press a sigh of a kiss against my lips before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tightly into him. “I don’t want to let you go just yet,” he murmurs against my temple. “I don’t think I ever will.”

  “You don’t have to,” I tell him softly as I lay down on the bed and pull him down with me. He shifts so that we are both on our sides, bodies pressed together, arms wrapped around each other, and my face nuzzled in his neck now.

  We’ve been quiet for some time, the silence around us not so lonely anymore, when Colton sighs out a soft sound of contentment and then murmurs, “A chance encounter.” He plants a kiss on the top of my head and clears his throat. “I don’t know what it meant before me, but to me, now, it means a chance encounter. One that’s changed my life.”

  I snuggle in closer to him, planting a soft kiss at my favorite spot beneath his jaw, my heart overflowing with love and my soul brimming with happiness.

  After some time of just absorbing each other and our new found balance, his breathing slows and evens out. I lie there for some time, just breathing him in, feeling his warmth, and my heart lodges in my throat when I realize that my decision was never really mine to make. It was made the minute I fell out of that damn storage closet and into his life.

  I turn onto my side so I can watch him. My chest physically hurts as I stare at the beautiful man he is inside and out. He looks so peaceful in sleep. Like he can finally rest from the demons that chase him so frequently while he’s awake. So much like the dark angel I think of him as that’s breaking through the inescapable darkness to grasp and hold on to the light. His spark of light.

  FOR THE FIRST TIME IN a month, the riot in my head is quiet as I sleep. Nightmares are non-existent. The events of last night flicker through my head as the morning hour pulls me from slumber.

  That and the feel of Rylee’s weight settling over me.

  I groan involuntarily as she sinks down, sitting astride me. The heat of her pussy has me straining to be released from the sheets she’s now pinned against my body. Talk about sweet godamn torture.

  Fuck me if this isn’t the best wake-up call ever.

  Fingertips feather up my abdomen, circle around my nipples, and then trail back down to my hipbone. “Good morning,” she whispers in that rasp of hers before pressing a soft kiss against my lips. Her fingers continui
ng to tease my skin. To taunt me with the drug to my addiction.

  I grunt a response and squint open my eyes to find one of the most terrific sights I have ever seen. Tits—Rylee’s tits to be exact—full and pert with pink nipples hardened in arousal dominating my line of sight. I take a moment to admire God’s greatest creation ever before I drag my eyes away and scrape them over the rest of her sun-kissed skin to meet her eyes.

  Those eyes.

  The ones that have held me captive and owned parts of me I never even knew existed since that first moment they looked up at me amidst a mass of fallen curls.

  “Good morning,” she says again, her sleepy eyes hold mine and a sluggish smile tugs up the corners of her mouth.

  I feel like my heart beats for the first time. She’s real and she’s here. Relief floods me. Today may be the first race of the season, but waking up with her, here with me after all the shit from the past couple of weeks? I’ve already fucking won.

  I cock an eyebrow up at her as her fingers tickle further south, my cock pulsing up in response to her touch. “It is good indeed,” I grumble needing my mind to catch up with my body that’s already revved and raring to go. “Any time I can wake up with a sight like this, is indeed a good fucking morning.” I can’t help the smile that curls up my lips. God, she’s gorgeous.

  And mine.

  Seriously? What the fuck did I do to deserve her? Hell has most definitely frozen over.

  “Well,” she says drawing the word out into a purr. “We seem to have a dilemma here?”

  “A dilemma?”

  “Yes, I seemed to be underdressed and you Mr. Donavan, you seem to be very overdressed.”

  I quirk an eyebrow up at her, all systems fully awake now, and more than ready to go. “I think you look fucking perfect.” I shift some and prop the pillow further under my head so that I most definitely do not miss a single thing from the vision in front of me. “But you think I’m overdressed, huh?”