BUFF (24 page)

He’s all in black: shirt, pants, shoes, even his watch is black. Something about the monotony of the one-color attire dramatizes the edge of Colt's already lethal appeal. He looks like he belongs next to a cracked bank vault with a ski mask in his hand, not inside a cozy country cabin aiding a dumb, clumsy fool.

“What happened?” he asks.

She tries to remember. “There… I thought I heard something in the woods…”

His eyes darken. “Was someone there?”

Her head aches as she tries to think back. “I… I remember hearing something… boots coming toward me then… nothing.”

“Boots? Like those?” he asks, looking over to a pair of black boots by the door. She follows his line of vision and closes her eyes feeling like a complete idiot. Everything from before is a blur and all she remembers is being paranoid because she heard something shuffle. In the woods. At night. Of course there’d be noises in the woods at night and the boots traipsing after her were probably Colt’s. Coming to save her. Again.

Her skin peeks in temperature. She can’t even run ten feet without being paranoid that the world is out to get her; running for no reason and falling over.

“Here," he says, sitting next to her. He is so close she involuntarily inhales his essence. His large body casts a shadow over and gives him an ominous presence she isn’t quite comfortable with in her weakened position.

Suddenly she wonders how long she’s been out and for how much time he’s been sitting there, looking over her while she’s been sleeping, completely unaware of his trained eyes on her.

The two small pills lay flat and tiny in the palm of his hand. The glass of water stretches out in his other waiting palm. Ignoring the thundering pain that shoots out in her head Becky gulps, sits up off balance and skitters a bit away from his huge form. She doesn’t know why but he seems so much bigger then she remembers. Like there is so much of him her brain can't take it all in at once; his mere presence starkly overwhelming.

“Thank you... I'm okay.” She swallows the pills easily, handing him back the glass and making sure her skin doesn’t touch his.

When he doesn’t oblige the space she is seeking she forces a strained smile to form over her lips. Even that hurt. “I'm fine, Colt. Really."

“You don't look good."

“Thanks a lot.” She presses her finger into the sore spot on her cheek. He continues staring, his eyes eclipsing black when he sees her flinch at her own touch.

“I'm being serious," he says.

Her head falls forward as her fingers travel up, finding and rubbing the sore spot just above the crown of her forehead. Her reply is muffled and dry, “Well if you fell down a hill and was knocked unconscious maybe you wouldn't look so good either."

“You're in pain, Becky.”

“I'm okay," she chuckles, weakly. "Just give me twenty minutes and a nice long bath."

“Okay."

She darts him a look through the small opening of her fallen hair. “I was kidding… about the bath that is."

He shrugs, his eyes root to some place on her face. “I wasn't. The bath will do you good."

“Maybe later.” She shifts under his caging watch, licking her lips and wincing at the small sting. “I'm too tired to do anything else but sleep right now."

When he remains bent over her, his stare still pervasive, her frustration gets the better of her pain. “What?"

The veil lifts from his eyes. “What?” He shakes his head.

“Why are you looking at me?” He doesn't say anything. “I'm fine. I don't need you coddling me. I have a headache not an aneurysm, okay. Give me some space."

“Why were you out there?” he questions, as if he hasn’t heard a word she’d said.

“I like running at night. Didn't Jenson tell you?"

His breathing grows lethargic, his glare beating down on her. "Why?"

She eyes him with trepidation before returning her attention to the cut on her head. “Clears my head."

“From what?”

“From being here."

“With me."

“Don't be so sure."

”Stop lying to me," he mutters.

She scrapes the hair away from her eyes, her body imploring for some semblance of balance her senses have been abandoned of. “It helps me think, okay."

“And you have to endanger yourself to think? You could've run in the backyard, it's big enough. But no, you have to journey into the fucking woods. You could’ve injured yourself worse than a few cuts."

“Don't curse at me,” she grunts, despite the screaming soreness in her head. “I run where I want, when I want. I like the woods, okay. I like the trees and the grass, I like being there. Alone. And I don't have to explain why."

“It’s my duty to keep you safe."

She tips her head at the ceiling. “You're trying to make me crazy."

“I'm sorry." The velvet sincerity of his apology has her eyes springing up then down to meet his lingering stare.

She leans her weight on her palms. “For what?” she asks, breathless. There never seems to be enough air to inhale when she’s around Colt.

“I did this,” he confesses, lowly. “If I hadn’t been so hard on you…"

“Colt. It's fine. This isn’t your fault. I wanted to run… It helps me."

“Because you're here with me?"

“I-I… I just… I just need some air sometimes… to think... Don't—don't blame yourself.” Her body scoots forward, acting on sheer impulse. “You know I liked to go in the attic. It's the same here, that's all."

He doesn’t hear her. “Don't care. I don't want you hurting yourself because of me. You're already in enough danger."

“It's okay, I—”

A sharp, tight sting ricochets off her skull drumming to the core of her brain. She leans forward pressing the flat of her palm into her head. “Ow!” She tries to play it off as no big deal already knowing Colt is up and right over her.

“I'm okay. I'm fine… I'm sure the Motrin is going to kick in soon."

“Look at me.” His soft order stirs the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. When she doesn’t immediately tilt her head up, both his hands cup each side of her head, raising it in small deathly inches. His brilliant eyes sweep across her face and she melts in his hands.

Becky licks the dry, parched patches of flesh on her lips, feeling self-conscious when his face inches to the point of sensory suffocation. Her eyes drill into the spot above his shoulder, her hands fist at her sides clumping fabric with her hands.

His inspection drags out at a torturing pace. His eyes seem to sketch and memorize every detail of her as they move the length and width of her, from ear to ear, hairline to chin. It's as if she isn’t there at all. He is so thrown into what he’s doing, Becky almost feels like a distant memory. A ghost.

Her mouth opens on a sigh, barely missing his chin. “It's okay, Colt. I'm fine."

He doesn’t seem content with her words or with what he sees, but he stops, releasing her face, not budging from where he sits over her.

“You sure you're all right?” His whisper almost hazes in her mind.

“I-I… Yes." The side of his finger comes up, pushing her chin gently but firmly in the direction of his face. Looking openly at him, her eyes grow large, darting reluctantly between his candid stare. Her skin grows heavy, she feels like cement is being poured over her whole body. She can’t move to resist him. “I'm fine.” She makes the phrase come out before she crumbles altogether.

He shakes his head, distracted by some part of her face. His thumb climbs from her chin to the cut below her bottom lip. In a slow menacing caress he follows the pattern of the cut and his stare follows his finger, darkening along its path.

“You scared me,” he confesses, so quietly, she isn’t sure if she imagined it.

“I didn't mean to,” she admits, just as low, gulping when his hand voyages farther back and palms her head in his large hand.

“You never mean to,” he lightly accuses. His voice is solemn as he speaks against her face, drawing her breath into the rhythm of his. The small connecting sounds, like tiny earthquakes, silence the room, wrapping around their bodies, annihilating whatever excuse she is about to hand him.

All she can do is feel and think... him.

He is overloading her senses, drowning out her pain, her worry, her life, and taking full reign of what small control she has left.

“I don't want to make you mad,” she says. When she sees the hint of skepticism reach the corner of his eyes, she, herself, turns serious. “I don't. I know it's all I seem to do but that's not what I want. It's not what I want at all."

The weight of his palm under the curtain of hair presses against her skin like a hot furnace. He unabashedly brings her closer, nudging her unwillingness to surrender. Her cheeks keep up their continuous everlasting burning as the tip of her nose bumps the space between his upper lip and nose.

She hasn’t touched him yet, but her imagination is running wild with the idea of him. How he will feel against her... The small hairs on his face, the smooth sharp tip of his nose as he draws her in with his greedy intake of breath, the way his eyes cut through her thin veil of awkwardness, reaching for the one he wants, the one he hunts out and seeks like a starving man in need of sustenance.

He licks his lips, his breath shaky against hers. “What do you want?"

“I... I want to… I don’t know..."

“Right now…” His eyes pin her against the wall of her mind. “…what do you want?"

Her answer is urgent, desperate, “Something that... doesn't exist.” A tear pricks at one of her eyes, but it never falls.

That answer seems to be enough for him, pushing him over some limit, some line he swore never to cross. He grips her hair tighter, firmer, almost to the point of pain, but the pleasure is so overflowing and cumbersome she has to bite at her lip to shield the moan her body threatens to scream.

“Becky,” he warns, darkly, the crackle of the fireplace meeting in beat with the crackle of building sensations that are stalling and waiting at the very edge of her. “Aren't you gonna stop me?” he taunts.

“I can’t...” Her cry comes against his mouth, her lips quivering and dipping in between the slit of his mouth that opens in await for hers. “I can’t, even if I tried,” she gasps.

She goes to finish what he’s trying to torment her with by inching her head and mouth up at once, but when her lips make contact with his, Colt takes charge, leaning the full weight of his desire in his kiss.

She thinks he will be brutal, seducing her with hard unforgiving strokes of his tongue, demanding her to open herself up to him and take ample advantage of her innocence.

She will like that.

She doesn’t know why exactly, but his forcefulness is so intoxicating—mind numbing—she is helpless but to follow his lead willingly. His patience, his burning need for her is evident in every whispering tremble of his touch and that is enough.

But she isn’t ready for this.

He’s gentle. His mouth against hers is so gentle she barely feels the sweet capturing lead of his lips between hers. His mouth comes and falls away like a beckoning call to her insides, pressing her senses against the surface of her in a throb that pulses low and quick. Her hands come up clutching his hair as they beg through his dark silky strands.

Butterfly-soft he kisses her once, one way, skims her nose as he slants the other way to start the kiss all over again. His face seems to circle hers as he dips and teases her into the hypnotizing steps of his captivation.

Then she comes closer, opening her mouth, catching his lips and he immediately deepens the kiss to a severity that stuns her into submission as both their mouths remain open and their tongues dominate their actions.

Colt's one hand is steady, cupping her teetering head while the other compresses different parts of her body; squeezing the soft side of her back, traveling down and grabbing at her hips so greedily into his palm, it’s like he wants to take it with him. Her hands are no less busy, working off pure compulsion as she curls her fingers in his thick, luscious hair, grabbing at the sides of his head and then going to the back to bring him so close she can feel the imprint of his face on hers.

Both their breathings pick up. The white flimsy shirt she is wearing feels like a dissolvable fabric against the heated skin of his chest. Like he is fire and she is snow, melting into him, becoming consumed by him to the point where she doesn’t know where she begins or ends without his touch on her.

The rough friction of his tongue slows, finding a new speed, one that is generous as he strokes her again and again, the same way, repeatedly, in a design to make her faint. And just when she thinks she will, Colt switches, relieving pressure, then moves slightly another way and the magnetic pull will start all over again.

Not willing to break any sort of physical connection Colt leans his forehead against hers in a silent message that has her following the lead of his godly body to the floor. Eyes shut she falls blindly against the pillows behind her, their mouths fused together like they’re melded that way by their kiss.

With his one hand Colt grabs at the back of his shirt from his neck and pulls it over his head, allowing only the small moment of absence from her mouth because of necessity. She takes the small second to gulp air, but it isn’t long enough to even draw a full breath.