Page 58 of Chasing the Wild
Though I can’t seem to rationalize what I should do, with what my feet actually do. Which is carry me closer to where he’s sitting.
Colt is over by the giant bay window of the lounge. He’s seated on a dining chair, looking out over the endless blackness outside. The blinds hang open, and the inky starless sky filled with a million swirling snowflakes consumes the entire vantage point.
He doesn’t flinch as I step toward him. Gaze remaining trained on that window with his broad shoulders that seem to fill half the room. I see he’s still wearing his hat, with a coat slung over the back of the chair, but that’s when my eyes tick down and catch on the glint of metal. There’s a shotgun laid across his lap.
Jesus.
“Planning on sneaking out in the middle of the night?” He’s not even bothering to look my way, just tilts the glass clenched in his hand up against his lips. Staring out into the night like there’s something he’s expecting to see at any moment. Something he’s lying in wait for. “Might be unwise, considering it’s well below freezing by now.”
I shuffle on my feet and realize that I really did just roll out of bed without thinking. Beneath this blanket, I’m only wearing what I had fallen asleep in: a thin oversized t-shirt, knee-high socks, and underwear.
When my brain is completely sober and not so strung out, she has got a heck of a lot of explaining to do in the morning.
“I heard a noise.” Darting my tongue out to wet my lips, I try to get a read on his energy. It’s challenging with him at the best of times, and we still haven’t properly cleared the air after last night. “I was—”
“Sure you did.” Cutting me off, he drawls those words, lifting the whiskey to take another sip, while his other hand rests over the long barrel.
Heat prickles across my chest. The insinuations are thick in the air tonight, and I’m done with Colton Wilder’s bullshit. Why this man keeps circling back to this same old tune is beyond me.Even if all this is just an act and his way of trying to convince himself he shouldn’t want me, the thinly veiled accusations still sting. It doesn’t matter that none of it is true. He doesn’t need to push his own crap and whatever skeletons might lurk in his past onto me.
“That’s honestly what you believe? You really think I wanted to be with any of them?” Rounding on him, I step in between his spot on the chair and the windows. Inserting myself directly in his line of sight.
It might be the middle of the night, and there’s almost nothing illuminating this room except for the embers glowing in the fireplace, but I see the way his eyes sharpen on mine.
I don’t wait for his answer.
“Oh, of course. Because I’m just a slut who will open her knees for anyone, right?”
My nostrils flare. The words I’ve been biting back ever since he first accused me of wanting to take off down the mountain, to chase after his son, start flowing.
“Because I’m just some stupid girl who wants it wherever I can get it, and I don’t care who gets me off?”
I step right up to his spread knees. Heat and liquid courage courses through my veins giving me the freedom to unleash all the thoughts I’ve had bottled up and am now ready to hurl his way.
Yes, I want to be good for him and listen to him and please him, but I also have a fucking spine, and he should know after what happened last night that I’m just as tangled up in this thing between us as he seems to be.
“I’ll tell you right now, all the nights I had guys offering to buy me drinks at the bars I worked in, and who begged to come home with me, and offered to be my Daddy… I never once said yes to any of them. Even the ones who got handsy. Even the ones who threatened me if I didn’t say yes.”
His gaze is thunderous, tension pulses in his jaw.
“Especially not assholes who corner me in the dark and refuse to let go of my arm like that jerk earlier.” I’m aware of how close we are, with me standing between his knees, but this is the dance we do, and I can’t seem to want to hold myself back from being drawn to him.
There’s a force that is Colton Wilder, and I’m completely at his mercy.
“You want to know why I’m sitting here?” His voice rumbles through the air. Gravelly and heavy with the late hour and touch of alcohol.
I nod. Clenching my fists tight on the edges of the blanket. “Yes.”
“The thought of one of them sneaking back up here, after liking what they saw a little too much, is more than I can handle.” He pokes his tongue against the side of his cheek, moving the weight of his focus up and down my body. “The pretty young thing who they only see as a notch in their belt and an opportunity to steal.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Colt makes a warning noise. “There’s shit from the past that you don’t know about, Layla. So, believe me when I say, there are men who would absolutely try and take the most valuable thing up here. By force if necessary.”
I suck in a breath. “I’m not valuable.”
The man in front of me shifts and knocks back the last of his drink before setting the glass down on the floor beside his chair. With his big paw, he reaches out to rub the hem of the blanket, keeping his darkened gaze on mine.
“You don’t get it, do you? Every single fucking asshole with a pulse around here wants you.”
