Letting Him In

by Izzy Sweet

  I hate this, I hate hurting because I need him. I almost hate needing him. I wish things were back to the way they were before when I only had to rely on myself. I could rely on myself, and it didn’t hurt that much if I let myself down.

  You can only rely on others if you’re willing to get hurt, and the last thing I want is to get hurt. I’ve been hurt by my mother all my life. I’m so tired of it. So tired of love being used against me.

  I thought perhaps I could enjoy Colt if I didn’t let myself get too attached to him. That I’d enjoy his attention as long as he is willing to give it. But I’m just not able to do that. He won’t let me just live in the moment. This isn’t just some fling to him, and I can’t keep minimalizing it. He wants so much from me, demands so much from me…

  And I keep giving in.

  We’ve been together for a few months now, what will it feel like a year from now? Two years from now?

  Oh, god, the pain would be unbearable. It’s already almost unbearable.

  Do I really want to find out the end of this fucked up fairytale?

  I’m not sure. Fuck, I don’t know anything anymore.

  I’m not even sure if he’s going to pick me up this morning. Still, I get dressed and ready, as if nothing is wrong. Luther and James wake up. They’re dressed, fed, and out the door before Colt shows.

  We ride to the office in uncomfortable silence. There are so many words, where do I even start?

  I half expect him to pounce on me as soon as he closes his office door.

  But he doesn’t.

  To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. I need to touch him; I need to feel connected with him. It’s the only thing in the world right now that makes sense.

  He unpacks his briefcase and gets to working. I sit down in front of my computer and just stare.

  And stare.

  Colt slaps a paper down on the desk in front of me, snapping me out of my reverie.

  “Please have these flights booked by the end of the day.”

  I blink up at him but he doesn’t stick around. I pick up the paper, my eyes scanning over a list of dates and locations.

  “What is this?” I ask as he sits back down in his chair.

  “Our itinerary for next week,” he answers before bending over his smart phone.

  “Our itinerary?” What the hell? There are like fifteen different cities all across the country listed here.

  “Yes, every few weeks I travel to visit my clients, and to prospect up-and-comers.”

  “And you expect me to go with you?”

  Finally, he looks up from his phone to scowl deeply at me. “You’re my assistant, and I will need you to assist me.”

  Is he serious? He knows I don’t even want to spend the night at his place because I want to keep an eye on my brothers, and now he just expects me to jot across the country with him, leaving them unsupervised for an entire week?

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Colt. I can’t do it. I can’t leave my brothers alone for that long.”

  He nods his head as if he was expecting that answer and looks back down to his phone. “I’ve already taken care of it. Elizabeth will be keeping an eye on them for you.”

  I must have heard him wrong. I replay his words in my head, slowly, letting them sink in, but still they don’t make any sense. I must have misheard. He wouldn’t be… couldn’t be so damn presumptuous.

  “Did you just say you’re going to have Elizabeth supervising my brothers?”

  “Yes? Why?” he responds, still not looking up at me. “Do you have a problem with her?”

  “Problem with her?” I repeat, my voice hitting a particularly shrill note. “No.”

  He smiles. “Good.”

  “My problem is you. Where do you get off making decisions about my brothers?”

  Colt sighs heavily and drops his phone to his lap. He leans back in his chair, giving me his full attention. “Are we really going to do this right now?”

  The nerve, the freakin’ audacity. I have the strongest urge to scream but thankfully it passes.

  “You knew travel was involved when you accepted this position,” he explains, lacing his fingers together as he regards me from under lowered lids.

  “Yes,” I agree, not denying it. “But my situation has recently changed—”

  He cuts me off, “What I need of you hasn’t.”

  “Be that as it may—“

  “Either you come with me or I have to take Elizabeth. This trip cannot be put off for another week.”

  That just takes all the air right out of me.

  I open and shut my mouth a few times. Part of me wants to tell him to just go, but my heart breaks just thinking of saying it. I want to go with him, I do, but an entire week away from my brothers? That’s more than enough time for them to get into some serious mischief.

  But then I have to wonder, does he want to take Elizabeth? Is this all a ruse? Is he doing this intentionally because he knows I won’t agree to go and I’ll have to accept her substitution? I’ve been pushing him away and he’s made no bones about the fact that I’m leaving him sexually frustrated.

  He interrupts my inner struggle by admitting softly, “I rather take you.”

  Well, I guess that answers that.

  “Colt, I want to go with you…”

  “But?” he growls, unlacing his fingers and standing.

  I just shake my head. Is this what he meant when he told me I can push him but he’ll just push me back? He’s putting me on the spot, forcing me to make a decision I’m not ready to make yet.

  He stalks towards me, and I’m so intimate with his body, so familiar with it, I can just picture his muscles rippling beneath his suit. I feel myself rolling back, my heart racing, because the fierce way he’s looking at me I’m afraid of what he intends to do when he reaches me.

  Bending over, he grabs the arms of my swivel chair and pulls me into him. His face gets all up in my face and his eyes grab my eyes, holding them.

  “You worry too much,” are so not the words I expect to come out of his mouth.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You worry too damn much,” he growls now, his eyes flashing with frustration. “Just let me take care of you.”

  “Why? Why do you want to take care of me?”

  Why do you want me as a burden?

  He let’s go of the arms on my chair, both hands grabbing me by the face. “Why is it so hard for you to understand that I want you?”

  I lean back in my chair, trying to push away from him. This only seems to anger him because his grip tightens. “Why, Whitney? Why?”

  “Because no one has ever wanted me before!” I snap, breaking beneath the question. “My father didn’t want me. My own mother sure as hell didn’t want me. I must not be worthy or something.”

  “God dammit,” Colt curses and then he’s kissing me as if his life depends upon it. He kisses me as if he’s trying to push his love into me.

  When he finally gives me moment to breathe, I realize I’ve been crying.

  “You’re worth it,” he says, tenderly wiping my tears away. “You’re worth everything to me. I’d give it all up for you in a heartbeat.”

  “You’re too good for me,” I sniffle and hope I don’t have snot running down my face.

  “I disagree.”

  “You’re handsome, and smart, and rich. We come from two different worlds.”

  “We’re more alike than you think.”

  “Saying it doesn’t make it true…”

  Grabbing me by the hand, Colt straightens and pulls me to my feet. “Come with me. I have something I want to show you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We hop into Colt’s car and he won’t tell me where we’re going. As we pull into Ashley Grove though, I get this sick sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Is he driving me home? Is he going to fire me and drop me off?

  Did I finally ruin us?

  What is it with me and self-sabotage, dammit?
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  We pass my building and he doesn’t even slow down, he just keeps driving. He’s taking us deeper and deeper into the neighborhood. Even I rarely, if ever, go this far.

  We pass groups of guys just hanging out on the corners, or just walking the crumbling sidewalks. I swear we pass one guy like five different times. Don’t they have anything better to do than just walk around? Couldn’t they at least stop and pick up some of the trash?

  Finally, we pull up in front of building that looks a lot like mine—if it was left to rot for twenty years. Colt throws the car into park and then he hops out.

  As soon as he pulls open my door for me, I ask him nervously, “What are we doing here?”

  “There’s something I want to show you.”

  I glance around nervously as he takes me by the arm, leading us up the front walk. I just can’t understand why we’re here. Is this some kind of setup? How does he even know about his place? Just looking around, at all the deterioration, at all the filth, it’s obvious the world let this place go a long time ago. There’s nothing good left here.

  The place is so eerie, so abandoned, I hope with all my heart he doesn’t have a stash of bodies hidden in the basement and I’m about to join the pile.

  “Colt,” I protest as he opens the front door. It’s pitch dark in there. There’s no way in hell…

  “What? You don’t want to go in?” he asks, though he doesn’t sound the least bit surprised by my reluctance.

  I bite my lip and slowly shake my head.

  He drops my hand and steps back. “You don’t want to see where I grew up? I could show you my old room.”

  “You grew up here?!” I gasp.

  “Yes.” He lets go of the door and it creaks to a slow shut. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Yes,” it surprises me. I assumed by all that he has, by all that he is, that he grew up if not privileged then very well-to-do.

  “I lived here all of my childhood with my father, up until I shipped off to college.”

  I’m speechless. Literally. I have no words.

  “I haven’t been back here, either… it’s been about ten years now.” He turns away from the building, giving it his back. “There’s too many bad memories, but I wanted to show you.”

  I take a step forward, reaching for him. There’s such a forlorn look on his face that it breaks my fucking heart. He lets me grab him, he lets me wrap my arms around him.

  Whatever happened here must have been bad. He’s never spoken of it, never hinted of it. Sure, he’s talked about playing football in high school and then college, but he’s had plenty of chances to tell me he grew up here—and he didn’t.

  “Colt,” I choke up, feeling overwhelmed with emotion. He lived here? Did he grow up worse than me? Is he ashamed of it? I never would have guessed; I never would have known—I just assumed. All this time I’ve thought we were so different.

  “Fuck,” he rasps, leaning forward and burying his face into my hair. “I was hoping it wouldn’t affect me after all these damn years. But I’ve never come back, until now.”

  I can feel his heart racing, he’s pressed against me so hard.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur into his ear. I still don’t know what his story is but, “I’m here for you.”

  * * *

  After we hear a loud bang in the distance, we decide it’s best to head back to the car. We haven’t eaten lunch yet, but I don’t think either of us has the stomach for food at the moment. When Colt asks me what I want to do, I tell him I want to know his story.

  So he drives us up to his apartment.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I ask as his front door shuts behind us. “You knew where Ashley Grove was because you grew up there.”

  “It’s not something I like to talk about,” he answers while grabbing me by the hips and pulling me into him. He reaches up, brushing my hair back and tipping my chin up.

  “So why now?”

  His knuckles brush tenderly across my cheek. “Because I want to prove to you that you and I are not so different.”

  “Colt…”

  “And it’s not just about being poor, dammit. We’ve both been abandoned; both been left to sink or swim. And just like me, you’ve learned to swim the fucking hard way, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but…”

  He takes a step forward, forcing me to take a step back. “You never knew your father, well I knew mine and he was a mean asshole.”

  I press my lips together, feeling the heat of his glare upon them. “My father was a drunk who beat me nightly after my mom walked out when I was five years old. According to him, it was my fault she left. It couldn’t have possibly been because he was a drunk, worthless piece of shit who couldn’t hold a job.”

  “I’m sorry,” I gasp and reach for him, trying to pull his face down to mine for a kiss but he shakes me off.

  “During the day, he was gone, doing God only knows what, and I was left to fend for myself. I avoided stealing for my supper by relying mostly on the kindness of my neighbors. But when that kindness wasn’t there, I pretty much starved.”

  Fucking hell.

  “I can’t even count how many nights I just wished he would never come home. That the cops would show up telling me that they found him in a ditch somewhere. But the man was resilient—the mean ones always are. He always made it home. He beat me until I was bigger and stronger, and then the fucker was suddenly proud of me when I became the big football star. He was at every fucking game, sober, and cheering me on.”

  His eyes close and his jaw clenches. “Then I got hurt during my third year of college, and in his eyes I was worthless again. That worthless fucker disowned me. Me. So fuck football. I became an agent.”

  Colt’s eyes snap open, and I just want to tell him how sorry I am, over and over again. But it’s not enough, and I can tell that’s not what he wants, what he needs. He just needs me to listen, to understand. To relate to him. So I ask, “It hurt you even though you hated him?”

  His lips pull back in a snarl and his hands grab at my blouse, tearing it open.

  Maybe that was the wrong question to ask.

  “Yes, it fucking hurt,” he growls as his hands paw at my breasts. “He was the only family I had left, and he walked away from me.”

  “I feel the same way about my mother.”

  “I know, baby,” he sighs. “I know.” His hands gentle and then he just picks me up, as if I weigh nothing, and throws me over his shoulder.

  “Colt,” I screech, and he gives me a slap on the butt.

  Why does he always have to do this?

  He carries me, caveman style, into his bedroom, and then drops me down to the bed. I try to sit up but he comes down on top of me, using his weight to pin me flat.

  “Do you remember that in this bed there are no secrets?” he asks, rising above me. “That nothing comes between us? This is our safe place.”

  Tentatively, I nod my head.

  “Good, because I want you to be honest with me. I’m being honest with you. Can you do that?”

  My voice comes out breathless, “Yes.”

  Colt pulls back until he’s kneeling with me still stuck underneath him, trapped between his thighs. He begins to unbutton the cuffs of his sleeves as he tells me, “The moment I first laid eyes on you in that strip club I knew you were mine.”

  His fingers lift to unbutton the buttons at his throat. “I know it sounds corny as fuck, but I just knew you were the one. The only thing is I couldn’t figure the fuck out what you were even doing there.”

  The crisp fabric of his white shirt parts as his fingers quickly and deftly push through the buttons. I feel my heart racing in my chest, filled with excitement and confusion as he reveals his true feelings for me. “You know as well that you didn’t belong there, and once I got more of your story out of you it made much more sense. Just like me you were working hard to survive, but unlike me, you had two brothers to take care of on your own.”

  I’m
panting now as he undoes the last button, filled with this incredibly intense emotion that steals my breath. What is he telling me? Does Colt Jackson love me? He couldn’t…he shouldn’t…

  I’m not worthy of this magnificent man.

  Rolling his shoulders, he tugs the sleeves off of his arms until he’s shirtless. “Yet you still don’t realize you were mine the moment I laid eyes upon you, and I’d do anything to have you, even if I had to pay for you.”

  His hands grab the front of my bra, latching on to the thin strip of fabric that holds my cups together. “To you, falling in love is a weakness.” He yanks hard, popping my bra open. “To me it’s my strength. You make me stronger, wiser, and better.”

  I don’t even try to fight him as he grabs both of my hands, trapping them in one of his. I’m mesmerized by his actions, by his declarations.

  Is this really happening?

  “It’s cliché as hell, but you make me a better man.”

  His knees slide back as he lowers his torso back down. He begins to kiss a hot, wet trail down my chest, nudging his way into the space between my breasts. “Everything I have is yours. You don’t even have to marry me for it, you can have all of it. I want to take care of you. I need you with me. I need you near me. We’re not only soul mates, we’re kindred spirits.”

  “Colt,” I protest, arching my back and struggling against his grip on my wrists. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you for your things, or for your money.”

  His kisses pause and he huffs out hotly, “But you want me?”

  I have to swallow before answering honestly. “Yes, I want you.”

  How could I not want him?

  “But you don’t trust me,” he growls, his teeth scraping down my stomach.

  I wish I could argue that point but I can’t because he’s right. I still don’t trust him. I’m still afraid he’s going to hurt me.

  “Why? Why won’t you trust me? Have I not given you enough time? Enough security? What do you need from me, Whitney? What is holding you back?”

  “I don’t know,” I grumble, squirming beneath the questions. Why can’t he just let it go? Why does he keep forcing me to give more of myself to him?