10. Colton

10

COLTON

I’ve taken Ella with me.

I promise I’ll take good care of her.

Colt.

P lacing the note against the coffee machine while Ella goes to the bathroom and grabs her purse, I meet her in the hallway and lace my fingers through hers.

I can’t help myself. Now that I’ve felt how soft and warm her skin is, I want more. I’m like a junkie craving their next hit, and I need it like I need to fucking breathe.

I half expect her to fight me on it. To pull her hand from mine and keep some distance between us. But she doesn’t. Instead, she squeezes my hand back as if she needs the connection just as much as I do.

A laugh tumbles from her lips the second she sees my truck. The happiness in that one laugh is completely at odds with the expression on her face as she stared back at me on Kane and Letty’s deck. It’s a sound I remember, one that used to light me up inside in a way I’ve never felt with anyone else.

“Don’t tell me, you bought it the day you signed with the Saints,” she says, walking over to my electric blue Ford F-150.

My heart swells as my smile grows.

“You remember,” I whisper.

“I—” She looks away, cutting herself off.

Giving a gentle tug on her hand, I back her up against the side of my truck. She stares up at me with wide, glittering golden eyes as I close in on her.

She’s so tiny compared to my hulking frame. I always used to worry that I’d break her. But she soon proved that she could more than handle me.

While having my hand in hers might be nice, my need to touch her gets the better of me and I wrap my hand around the side of her neck, tucking my thumb under her chin and tilting her head back farther.

Shaking my head, my eyes alternate between hers and her lips.

Fuck, I want to taste her so fucking bad. I want to know if she’s as sweet as back then or if she’s changed. Knowing my luck, like her curves, it’s probably only gotten better. More addictive.

“I didn’t get it the day I signed,” I confess, blown away that she remembers a random comment I made one day about how I’d celebrate my first big step into the NFL.“But it was the first thing I did when I got here. Picked it up about two weeks later. I figured it was big enough to live in for a while if I couldn’t find a place to live.”

“For me, maybe,” she teases. “It suits you.”

I know something that suits me more , I think, but by some miracle, I manage to swallow those words.

“Ready for what lies ahead?” I ask teasingly.

She studies me, her eyes bouncing between mine as if she’s trying to find any changes in me since the last time we were face to face.

Good fucking luck with that, Bombshell. I have no idea what’s going on right now. The only thing that makes any kind of sense is touching you.

“Show me what you’ve got, playboy. Make my night in Seattle one I’ll never forget.”

“You’ve never been to Seattle before?” I ask in disbelief.

I know she didn’t have a reason to visit me; the way we ended at her graduation more than sealed our fate. But Letty has been here for over a year now, and Luca and Peyton, for three. I’d have thought?—

“I’ve visited before, yeah. But something tells me that this time is going to be very different.”

“They didn’t tell me,” I whisper, stepping closer until the heat of her body burns into mine.

“I told them not to,” she says flatly.

I nod, swallowing roughly.

“I can understand that. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for how things ended at your graduation.”

Holding her eyes, I let her see everything I usually hold back from the outside world.

This girl…this woman is the only one who’s seen me, the real me since I was a kid. It’s just a shame that she deserves so much more than a fucked-up playboy.

“I blamed you for a long time,” she says, her voice rough with emotion. “But it wasn’t just you who agreed that day. I also said things that I regret.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathe, finally closing the last inch between us. I barely manage to tamp down the groan of delight that wants to rumble from the depths of my throat, feeling her soft curves against me.

“I’m sorry too,” she says honestly. “Maybe we can…I don’t know. Start over?” Hope shines bright in her eyes. “Forget all that and just, I don’t know…it’s stupid.”

“Hey,” I say, capturing her cheek and forcing her to look up at me. “It’s not stupid. But it’s also not something I think I can do.”

A deep line forms between her brows as sadness darkens her eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Okay, sure. Maybe this was a bad idea,” she says, pressing her hands against my chest as if she has any chance of pushing me away.

“Ella,” I growl, making her stop in an instant. “I don’t want to forget. I can’t forget.”

She sucks in a sharp breath as my thumb brushes over her full bottom lip, my mind conjuring up images of all the times I’ve kissed this mouth, got lost in these lips and this girl.

Closing my eyes, I lean in, only I don’t take what I want. Instead, for once, I do the right thing. Resting my brow against hers, I say some of the truest words I think I’ve ever spoken. "Even if I tried, really really hard, I’d never be able to forget a second with you, Ella.”

She whimpers, and my eyes immediately pop open.

“Oh, shit. No. I don’t want to make you cry,” I say, quickly wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, I just…you don’t know how much I needed to hear that.”

A smile twitches at one side of my mouth. Did I…did I just do something right?

'“Shall we go? I didn’t really plan to spend the rest of our time together on Kane’s driveway.”

The most amazing smile spreads across her face. I’m pretty sure it makes my heart race and stops me from breathing at the same time. I’ve got no idea how it’s possible, but it happens.

“Yeah, I want to see what Colt the NFL player does to impress the ladies these days.”

Something I don’t like flickers through her eyes, but it’s gone before I can latch onto it.

“Trust me, Bombshell. No other woman will ever come close to ever experiencing this side of me.”

I pull the passenger door open before she has a chance to respond.

“Need a boost?”

She looks back over her shoulder at me after turning to climb inside. “This car wasn’t made for five-foot girls, was it?”

“I dunno what you mean,” I confess, stepping up behind her and taking two handfuls of her ass. “I think it’s perfect,” I whisper in her ear before boosting her up.

“Oh,” she breathes, her cheeks burning bright as she looks back at me.

As I jog around the hood to join her, I realize that she was right. She’s not the same girl I used to know. And I’m quickly discovering that I’m not the same guy, either.

And I think that’s a really fucking good thing.

“Ready?” I ask, putting the truck into reverse and looking over at her.

“For you?” she asks with a smile. “Never.”

In seconds, I’m out on the road, and with nothing more to do with my right hand, I make a risky move and wrap it around Ella’s thigh.

She startles as I squeeze slightly, and I expect her to push me away. But to my surprise—my joy—she doesn’t. Instead, she covers my hand with hers and watches out of the window as I fly through the streets of Seattle.

“Is it nice being home?” she asks, once again proving that she remembers the things I used to tell her.

“Yes and no,” I say honestly. “There’s comfort in the places you remember from being a kid. But it’s also missing the excitement of somewhere new.”

“You get to travel for that,” she says, her eyes still on the outside. “It’s an incredible city,” she muses.

“It is. It’s got a few hidden treasures, too.”

“If you say the Saints’ star running back, I’m going to demand you pull this ridiculous truck over right now.”

My laughter fills the air. It’s a sound I haven’t been all that familiar with over the past few months. Hell, if I’m really being honest with myself, the last few years.

I always dreamed of being a Saint, of following in my father's footsteps. And while I might love being back here, getting to do what I love day in, day out with two of my best friends at my sides, I can also admit that there’s something missing.

To start with, I convinced myself that I was just missing the college life, but that was bullshit. Then it was that the team was new, I was finding my feet as a rookie, and I missed the camaraderie of a well-connected team. Again, total bull.

I don’t think I really put my finger on what it was. Not until I stood on the sideline earlier and found those honey-colored eyes and that sinful body wrapped in my jersey.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I finally say, remembering the reason I was laughing in the first place.

“Your reputation might proceed you, Playboy. But I’m not sure that even this truck is big enough for that ego you have.”

“It’s plenty big enough, just like my?—”

“Please,” she begs. “Don’t.”

“I missed you, Bombshell.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve even thought them and I still, my grip on both the wheel and her thigh tightening.

“Colt,” she whispers. “I?—”

“Don’t. I know I don’t deserve to say those kinds of things to you. But…it’s the truth. And, well…the words just kinda fell out.”

Finally, she rips her eyes away from nighttime Seattle outside the window and focuses on my profile instead.

“What is it?” I ask after long, agonizing seconds of silence. I have no idea what she can see on my face. The fact she can see anything at all makes me hella uncomfortable, but I remind myself that it’s Ella. There might have been a time when I tried to be just as much as a closed-off playboy with her as I was with every other female on the planet, but those times are long gone.

“I…” Lifting her hand, she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she battles with what she wants to say. “I missed you too.”

The breath I didn’t know I was holding rushes past my lips, and I can’t help but laugh as I take the next turn, heading to one of my favorite places in the city.

Ella’s eyes return to the window as she soaks up my hometown by night, and every few minutes, I find myself studying her way more closely than I should while I’m driving.

I just…I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s here, and…she’s beautiful, and…she’s turned me into a massive fucking pussy, but I don’t care all that much.

I take the final turn, allowing her to see where we’re going.

“A park?” she asks in confusion.

“It’ll be worth it.”

“And here I was thinking I was about to get a trip up the Space Needle or something.”

“Maybe we can save that for our next date.”

“Date?” Ella blurts. “This is…you think this is a date?”

“I don’t know, Bombshell. I’ve never actually been on one before. But from what I’ve heard, it sounds like it could be.”

She melts in the seat, and I mentally give myself a little high five.