Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T ully

I must have shocked him.

Back when we were teens, I was always the one putting on the brakes when it came to sex. Colson was respectful of my wishes, while also making it known he’d be more than happy to take things further. Now that we were grown, the roles had seemingly reversed.

Colson strode over to me, his hot eyes dancing all along my body like he was committing every inch to memory. I braced for him to touch me, that first slide of calloused palms dancing over my skin. My whole body shivered in anticipation.

But he bent at the waist, snatching my shirt off the ground and jamming it over my head like I was a wayward toddler dancing naked in the cereal aisle. The damn thing was inside out and pretty sure I had an ant now crawling over my left breast.

“What the?—”

Strands of hair had escaped my ponytail and I had to brush them away from my eyes to see him clearly. He had both hands behind his neck, elbows flared out wide in irritation, biceps popping indecently. That clean-shaven jawline of his was clenched within an inch of its life. Those whiskey-brown eyes were hot alright. They were still trained on me like he wanted to devour me. The tent in his pants also told me he still wanted me. At least on some level. To say I was confused was an understatement.

Burying the hit to my pride deep down where I could ignore it for now, I tried to joke it off. “Can’t say I’ve ever had a man reject me quite like that.”

His arms flew to the side and he stepped right up in my face. “I’m not rejecting you, Tully. You’re just too damn distracting when you’re naked.”

I tilted my head back to hold his gaze. “I thought we agreed to get naked.”

Colson dipped his head in a quick nod, jaw still tense. “We did. But I think we need some rules first. Don’t want this to become twisted.”

“Fucking? What’s complicated about that?”

Colson slammed his hands down on my hips, pushing me back a step. His fierce expression wiped the teasing smile right off my face.

“Don’t fucking act like we don’t care about each other. This isn’t gonna be just fucking and we both know it. You either speak the truth or this is over before it’s begun. I won’t allow lies between us to stack up on all the other baggage we carry between us.”

I swallowed hard, incredibly touched that he had the maturity to speak so plainly when I’d tried to take the easy route with humor. I thought about the hurt I’d caused him before and knew I couldn’t go down that road again. “I won’t lie to you, Colson. Yes, we care about each other, but I’m not in a place to do anything with feelings. I just took a job with Em, so I’ll be staying in Blueball. You’re right, rules are a good idea to keep this from being complicated.”

His fingers dug into my skin, his voice even rougher. “Oh, it’s already complicated, princess. I just don’t want it twisted into something it’s not.”

“I don’t want to get married again. Ever,” I blurted out.

“Me neither,” was his instant reply.

All the tension left my body. “Then we agree this is just sex.”

Colson stared into my eyes, a reply never coming. Instead, he released my hips and clenched his hands into fists by his side. “I need you to explain why you left me before. All I took away from our fighting was that you didn’t want me any longer, so I’m a little confused why you want me now.”

I blew out a heavy breath, thankful he’d given me my shirt back for this conversation. I felt more stripped naked than I’d been a moment ago.

“You really want to rehash all that?”

Colson didn’t answer me, but his staredown told me everything I needed to know. His eyes still held that heat, but there was a hint of vulnerability in them that had me speaking more clearly than I ever had. He deserved the naked truth.

“All the reasons I gave you about not being ready for kids are still valid, but it took me awhile to see what I was really afraid of. You know my mama almost as well as I do.” At his nod, I continued. “Well, before Dad died, she wasn’t like how she is now. She got out, participated in things. But Daddy dying just wrecked her. She stopped living. Stopped participating in my life, like I wasn’t enough for her to pull out of her grief. She quit leaving the house to the point she missed most of my senior year of high school.” Tears were burning my eyes. “And you know she didn’t even come to the courthouse for our wedding!”

I began to pace, anger and grief swirling together. “I saw myself going down that same road, putting all my thoughts and dreams and future in the hands of one man. You wanted me barefoot and pregnant when I needed to live a little. I didn’t want to become my mother. I refused! I couldn’t breathe, Colson.” I spun and faced him, hoping like hell he understood me.

He hadn’t moved a muscle. “I like to think I would have listened. I would have given up my volunteering with the fire department to go with you. We could have seen the world and really lived, together .”

My ribs felt like they were cracking all over again. This was exactly why I feared coming back home. “I know you would have seriously thought about it. That’s just it though. I loved you so much, I knew I couldn’t let you give up your dream job for some vague idea of experiencing the world.” I used air quotes to show how pie in the sky my head had been at the time. “One of two things would have happened: either you’d have given up your dreams, or I would have given up mine. I didn’t want that for either one of us. So I left.” I reached out and slid my hand down his arm until I gripped his fist. With a little coaxing, he relaxed his fingers and I intertwined mine with his.

“I honestly thought leaving when I did would be the best gift I could give you. You still had time to remarry and have that family like you dreamed of.”

Colson snorted, looking all kinds of pissed off. “Lotta good that did me.”

I tilted my head. “You have Hayes at least.”

Colson’s lips tilted up in a hint of a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I guess I realized that having kids wasn’t actually that important to me. I just wanted you.”

The raw honesty did me in. The tears that had burned spilled over onto my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them away. “I’m sorry, Colson. So sorry I hurt you. Sorry I wrecked your dreams.”

He squeezed my fingers. “You didn’t wreck them. You just clarified what was important.”

We stood there staring at each other, our hands swinging back and forth between us. He looked so good, no shirt, no mustache, and those serious eyes looking into my soul. A simple apology couldn’t fix the nineteen years between us, but maybe it could pave the way to a different kind of future.

“Where does that leave us now?” I asked quietly.

Colson shrugged, bringing my hand up to his mouth to kiss my knuckles. “Two adults with a past who still care about each other?”

His lips skated over my skin, lighting little fires of desire in their wake. “Can we really have sex without having feelings?” It was the question circling in my brain. The one question I didn’t want to ask, but Colson deserved a mature Tully, asking the hard questions just like he had.

He slowly dropped my hand and disentangled his fingers. His palms landed on my hips again, tugging me into his chest. “I don’t plan to bottle up my feelings. I suggest you don’t either. What I will do is kick all ideas about the future out the window. I just want to focus on you and me setting the past aside and focusing on right now.”

I nodded, sliding my hands up his thick arms to wrap around the back of his neck. “I can do that too.” I tilted my head toward the river, feeling a renewed sense of playfulness now that we’d hashed everything out. “You know, we did a lot of making out by this river…”

Colson skimmed his hands down over my ass and then back up my spine, this time under the cotton T-shirt. I shivered at the feel of those calluses on my skin. “I don’t want to make out.”

I rubbed my belly against the steel rod in his pants that hadn’t gone away during our conversation. “No?”

“No.” He bent his head and skimmed his mouth along my neck before whispering in my ear. “I want to fuck you ’til you scare all the squirrels away screaming my name.”

My knees started to wobble. Colson took charge, whipping my shirt over my head again and picking me up. I held on to his neck for dear life. Before I could ask where he was taking me, he squatted down by the flat rock and laid me down on my back.

“Here?” I asked breathlessly.

He didn’t answer. He just spread my knees apart and crawled between my thighs. Thank God for flat rocks large enough for two people. Except that voice in my head that just couldn’t relax blared at me that I’d been sweaty, working all day at Mama’s house.

“Wait! I was just working…” I trailed off at the lecherous grin Colson gave me.

“You think I give a shit?”

And then I only saw the top of his head as he buried his face between my legs and used that wicked tongue like a master. Stars danced across my vision that had nothing to do with the darkening sky above me. I quickly realized that I wasn’t the only one who’d learned a thing or two since we’d been kids. The flat of his tongue transported me to another world. He brought me back with the rapid flick of just the tip of his tongue on my clit while he buried two fingers inside me. True to his word, he didn’t let up until I screamed his name and nearly tore his hair out grabbing the strands in my fists.