Page 38 of Hero's Prize

He shrugged again. “I thought we were friends. Even if youweren’t interested in pursuing anything beyond that night, it felt pretty shitty for you to just sneak out while I was sleeping.”

She blinked up at him. “Do you really not remember what you said to me right before you drifted off for your nap?”

“I remember that you’d blown my mind and saying I couldn’t wait for a round two.”

Was he telling the truth? Was that really all he remembered? Nothing about Lincoln revealing that she was basically a sure thing?

Colton eased just the slightest bit closer, a predatory look coming into his brown eyes. “Was it not as good for you? Hell, I’m nowhere near God’s gift to women, but I don’t usually have complaints. If it wasn’t good, we could’ve tried again—or triedsomething else—right away. You didn’t have to sneak out.”

Without a doubt, he’d already thought about what thesomething elsecould be. Her throat went dry. “I— No. It’s not that it wasn’t good. It was amazing. But I…”

She let the sentence fade off. She didn’t want to bring up what she’d thought that night. There was no way she could force the wordspity fuckout of her mouth in front of him.

“Explain it to me, Butterscotch. Explain why you left when I wanted you again so badly.”

“I…”

He was going to kiss her. And she wanted it. Even as she knew it was the biggest possible mistake she could make, she still wanted it.

She would never not want to kiss Colton.

He eased in, lips skimming against her temple. “At least give me the chance to show you round two now.”

She felt his breath against her cheekbone then down her jaw. This was a bad idea. She’d been depressed for weeks after what happened last time. Letting it happen again would just lead her back to that. She’d lose the ground she’d fought so hard to gain.

But she knew she wasn’t going to stop Colton. She’d never been able to make herself keep distance from him.

He circled her hips with his hands and drew her closer. She tried to block out the fact that she’d gained five pounds since he’d last seen her—feeding her depression, even though she knew better.

“Colton, I?—”

“Let me kiss you, Butterscotch.”

As if she was going to say no to kisses or anything else from him. “Yes.”

But his lips didn’t even make it to her before the door opened, startling them both.

Two men walked in, giving Colton a friendly wave.

“Hey, boss,” one of them said. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

The next morning, Colton sat at the Frontier Diner across from Tony and Rick. He’d gotten over the urge to strangle them both after they’d walked in on him and Ella at the most inopportune moment the night before.

“You shouldn’t have left without telling us where you’d be.” Tony took a bite of his pancakes. “You know we’ll work with you and help with whatever you need, but we lost two days thinking you were just hiding out in your townhouse.”

“Which would definitely be better than here,” Rick interjected. “I looked up one-horse town, and lo and behold, it was a picture of Oak Creek. What can there possibly be to do around here besides watch the grass grow?”

“Shut up, Rick.” Tony shot a look at the other man. “This is his hometown.”

Rick rolled his eyes. “What? I’m just saying it’s small and in the middle of nowhere.”

Tony gritted his teeth, obviously about to lay into Rick, but Colton held out a hand to stop him and then took a sip of his coffee. He was well aware that to people outside of Oak Creek, the charm and appeal could be lost.

“You guys know me,” he said. “Sometimes I need space. We didn’t have anything on the schedule, so I just took off.”

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