18. Ella

18

ELLA

M y body trembles, crushed against the bathroom counter by the Seattle Saint’s number forty-two as we come down from our highs.

The look in his eyes, the expression on his face when I first barged in here was something I’d never seen before, and something I never, ever want to see again. Playful Colt was gone and in his place was a version of him that made my heart race, but not in a good way. He looked broken. Broken in a way I wholeheartedly understand.

It makes my chest ache that he could hurt like I have, that he could suffer in a similar way. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

But what I said, my confession about where my scars came from, the pivotal point in which my life turned to utter shit affected him way more than I ever expected.

Back then, I didn’t want him to know. What good could have come of it? At worst, he wouldn’t have cared. At best—and only in my dreams—he rushed to my side, swept me out of my hospital bed, and told me everything I’d spent the last few years fantasizing about hearing from his lips.

I knew the latter wasn’t realistic. I also knew that Colt deserved to embark on the life he’d always dreamed of. And anyway, it wasn’t like he ever promised me anything.

From day one, he was honest about what he wanted and how his future was going to look. I agreed back then, and I had to stand by that decision. No matter how much it hurt.

After long, blissful minutes, he finally lifts his weight off me.

He gazes down at me with so much awe and adoration in his eyes—at least that’s what I want to believe it is—that it makes my heart race and my stomach knot up.

“Goddamn, Ella,” he groans as if he’s in physical pain. His gaze drops lower as he stands tall, finally slipping from my body.

I cry out, mourning the loss of him, which only makes the growl that rumbles in his throat rougher, deeper.

With his hands on my knees, he spreads me wide, his eyes focused on my pussy.

Everything down there tingles and pulsates in the best possible way. It hurts, but it feels so so good.

He licks his lips, and it makes my core clench.

“Please,” rips from my mouth in a desperate whimper.

He chuckles, his eyes still right there.

Finally, he looks up, and when his eyes find mine, my breath catches in my throat.

“I can honestly say you’ve never looked better than you do right now. Your ex was a stupid fucking piece of shit to ever let you go, Bombshell. But,” he quickly adds, “his stupidity is my gain, because look at you.”

My chest heaves and my skin burns. My insecurities over my body rumble right under the surface. Desperately, I try to ignore the fact that with the way my legs are hooked up, I’ve got belly rolls, or how my thighs and ass are dimpled with cellulite.

The fire that’s raging in Colt’s eyes as he takes me in sure does help me push it all aside.

He doesn’t want me to hide anything. It’s such a freeing feeling after being told for so long that my body is ugly and should be kept covered.

“Oh god,” I gasp when he releases one of my knees in favor of running two fingers through my sensitive folds. “Colt,” I cry when he pushes both of them deep inside me.

“I’ve worn you out, haven’t I, Bombshell?”

“Something like that,” I agree. “Pretty sure I was on the verge of becoming a born-again virgin.”

He growls as if me even suggesting that pisses him off.

“Stupid fucking cunt,” he mutters under his breath before announcing, “We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen, El. This pussy, this body, deserves to sing. And it’s going to be singing my fucking name.”

My breath catches when he suddenly pulls his fingers free.

“Taste us,” he demands, lifting his hand to my mouth and tracing my lips with our combined juices.

My stomach tumbles and my core tightens.

Shit. That shouldn’t be so hot, should it?

Without hesitation, my chin drops and Colt plunges both digits into my mouth. I almost instantly wrap my tongue around them, licking them clean.

Once I’m done, he pulls them free and then helps me sit up.

“Stay,” he commands when I attempt to jump down.

“Uh…” I stutter, totally out of my depth with where we go from here. “I should probably go. Letty will?—”

“You’re cute. But you’re not going anywhere,” he says before leaning over the massive bathtub and turning on the faucet.

“Oh,” I breathe, watching as he grabs a bottle of bubble bath and squeezes a generous amount in.

He comes back, takes my face in his giant hands and brushes his lips over mine.

“I’m going to go and make us coffee. I’ll message Kane so they know not to send out a search party, and then, we’re taking a bath,” he tells me.

“T-together?” I stutter.

“Together,” he confirms. “You think I’d let you sit in there wet and naked and willingly be somewhere else?”

I shrug, still totally off balance with this whole new thing going on between us.

"This isn’t…we don’t…” I stutter like an idiot.

He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip as he stares into my eyes.

“We never used to, no. But I think we’ve already established that we’re not the same people we used to be. I might still be a selfish asshole because I’m not letting you escape, but I promise, I have good intentions of taking care of you.”

My eyes burn red hot with tears.

“A marathon sex session after how long of nothing?” he teases. “I know you must be hurting.”

Now that’s something I can’t exactly argue with.

“Don’t you have training or?—”

“Nope. I’m all yours to do whatever you want with me.”

I’m all yours. How freaking long have I wanted to hear those words?

“If you’re sure,” I squeak, sounding nothing like the confident girl he used to hook up with back in the day.

“Oh, baby, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

I sit there shocked to my core as his words repeat over and over in my head while he shamelessly takes a pee in front of me and then disappears from the room.

I don’t move for the longest time as the sound of him crashing around in the kitchen makes its way down to me. I can’t help but smile.

I’ve spent the night with Colt a few times over the years, but it’s usually been because we passed out the second we finished having sex. It was never because he wrapped me in his arms and refused to let me go, or because he wanted to look after me the next morning.

Lifting my hand, I brush my finger over my bottom lip, just like he did with his thumb while butterflies flutter wildly in my stomach.

This can’t be real. It just can’t be.

Nothing this good happens to me. Ever.

It has to be a joke, a dream…something.

I don’t just turn up out of the blue and the only guy I’ve ever truly cared about welcomes me back into his life with open arms. It just doesn’t happen.

Finally, I manage to peel my ass from the countertop and jump to my feet. Every single muscle in my body pulls, but mostly the ones I forgot even existed. And nothing aches as beautifully as my core. My little kitty has been used and abused, and it has never been happier about it.

Stepping up to the large, almost full-length mirror on the wall opposite the tub, I stare myself right in the eyes.

There’s something different. Something lighter. Something that makes my heart sing and my shoulders relax.

Taking a deep breath, I allow my eyes to drop lower, taking in my swollen lips, the hickeys on my neck and chest, and the bite mark on my right breast. I don’t even remember him doing that, but damn, it looks good.

I find the stretch marks and the scar on my stomach before I get to the swell of my hips, and the scars on my thigh.

A lump crawls up my throat as I remember him kissing each one last night. Tracing the reddened, puckered skin with his tongue.

Tears burn my eyes as I trace those marks with my fingers, pretending it’s him again.

He didn’t care.

He didn’t care about my size, about my scars, about any of the things I’ve been driving myself crazy with over the past few years.

I suffered badly as a teenager with my weight and an eating disorder. But by the time I started at Maddison Kings, I had managed to overcome it, and with the help of yoga and a good psychologist, I had a much better relationship with food. For the first time in years, I could look at myself in a mirror and not be disgusted by what stared back at me.

All of that hard work was ruined when I woke up in the hospital with a cannula in the back of my hand, and my mom sobbing into my brother’s chest.

From the moment I saw them, I knew that my life was never going to be the same again.

And I was right.

That accident was just the first in a series of events that would ensure my life continued on a downward spiral.

A pained sigh falls from my lips as I cover the scar on my stomach with my hand, my eyes still searching to see what Colt sees.

I can’t lie, I do feel better standing here right now staring at myself than I did in Letty’s bathroom only yesterday. But I’m still a long way from liking what I see.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice Colt slip into the room, but I sure as hell do when he steps up behind me and covers my hands with his bigger ones that are now both resting on my belly.

My breath catches, my eyes shooting up to his as the warmth of his equally naked body burns down my back.

With his eyes locked on mine, his lips brush the shell of my ear. “You’re beautiful, Ella,” he whispers.

Taking my hands, he pulls them away from my body until he plants them on his rock-hard ass, totally exposing me to both of us.

His fingertips trail up my arms, making me shudder, and goosebumps erupt over every inch of me.

His lips find my neck, leaving a trail of scorching kisses until he’s at my shoulder, his eyes still on mine.

I gasp when one of his big hands wraps around my throat in an incredibly possessive move. His other hand continues to trace lines over my skin.

Both of my nipples pebble as he circles my breasts, desperate for more attention. But he doesn’t give it to me. Instead, he moves down my belly, over my scar, and to my thighs.

Finally, his eyes drop, and mine quickly follow as he kicks my legs apart.

“Look at your thighs, Bombshell,” he demands, giving me little choice but to stare at the result of what we did not so long ago glistening on my skin under the bright spotlights above us. “That’s all the evidence you need for how incredible this body is. Well, that and maybe this,” he says, rubbing his hard dick against my ass.

Heat pools between my thighs, and despite the soreness, my need for more is almost unignorable.

“I could spend all day worshipping you and it wouldn’t be enough, Ella. You’re magnificent. Even more beautiful than you were the first time I saw you.”

Dropping my head, my gaze lowers to the floor in shame.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, hating that my insecurities bleed into this, into us.

I startle when his fingers grip my jaw, forcing me to look up.

His eyes are dark and burning with determination when I meet them.

“You have nothing to apologize for, okay?” His voice is so firm, so demanding that I have no choice but to nod in agreement.

“Good girl,” he praises, making me shudder. Those words are like my kryptonite. But only if they’re said by him. I’m pretty sure if Chad said them, I’d have wanted to punch him in the face. “You’re going to find her again, I promise.”

There’s another apology right on the tip of my tongue—he can see it, too—but I manage to swallow it down.

He shouldn’t have to be dealing with my bullshit. His life is already busy and stressful enough without adding my baggage to it.

“Now, I’m going to clean you up because you, Miss Myers, are fucking filthy.”

I yelp when he suddenly sweeps me off my feet, carrying me over to the bathtub like a groom would his bride before he steps into the water and lowers us down.

“Never used this tub,” he confesses once we’ve both been swallowed by bubbles. “Never really got the appeal.” His hands wander beneath the surface, caressing my body as we settle into position with his thighs around my hips and my back resting against his front.

“You mean the mighty Colton Rogers doesn’t take a daily bubble bath?” I mock. “You’ve just ruined all my fantasies.”

He groans. His big body vibrates behind me as the noise erupts from his throat. “You fantasize about me, Bombshell?”

My cheeks blaze red hot, but I force that shy girl down and instead, harness the old me. The one who wasn’t ashamed of her sexuality or taking life by the balls.

“It’s been known to happen once or twice, yeah,” I confess.

“Tell me about it. Where were you? What was I doing? And what were you doing while you were thinking about all this?”