Page 53 of Fake it for Keeps

17

COLT

Hallie’s skin was warm under my hands, sun-kissed and soft as I traced the curve of her waist. We were on the top deck of my yacht, but it was summer now. The sun blazed overhead, the sky was impossibly blue, and the ocean stretched endlessly around us.

“Colt,” she breathed, her dark hair spread across the white cushions like silk.

I kissed down her neck, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. She arched into me, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer.

“Please,” she whispered.

My fingers trailed over her nipples before I kissed one, then the other.

Her little gasps and quiet moans encourage me to keep going. The woman wants me as much as I want her.

I moved lower, tasting salt on her skin. Her breath hitched when I kissed her stomach, her hips. Then the inside of each thigh. I loved taking my time. Anticipation was half the fun.

She gasped, her hands tightening in my hair when my mouth kissed right over the part of her that had her body nearly bucking right off the deck.

I’d never heard anything more beautiful than the sounds she was making. Never wanted anything more than to make her fall apart completely.

I ran my tongue across her slit and then worked on the bundle of nerves that had her crying out and thrashing under my face. I grabbed her hips to hold her in place. I lapped at her while working two fingers inside her. I drove her wild over and over until she was begging me to give her the release she desperately needed.

The yacht rocked gently beneath us. The sun beat down. Hallie’s hands, Hallie’s mouth. She was perfect⁠—

The screech of tires shattered the fantasy.

Metal crunching. Glass breaking. A scream cutting off mid-sound.

No. No, not again.

I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart trying to punch through my sternum. Sweat covered my chest and back. My hair was plastered to my forehead. My hands were shaking.

The room was dark. Wrong. Not the yacht. Not summer.

The hotel. Shelter Island. Winter.

Shit.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt like they were being crushed, like someone had wrapped iron bands around my chest and was squeezing tighter and tighter.

The images wouldn’t fade.

“Colt?”

A hand touched my chest. I flinched violently, nearly falling out of bed.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.”

Hallie. Right. Hallie was here. In the bed. We’d fallen asleep.

She’d been the little spoon. I’d held her. And then I’d dreamed about her in ways that would make her slap me if she knew, before the dream had turned into the nightmare it always became.

“You’re okay,” Hallie said softly, her hands still on my chest directly over where my heart was pounding. “You were having a nightmare. But you’re awake now. You’re safe.”

The concern in her voice made everything worse. She was looking at me like I was broken, like I needed to be fixed. It was too much. Too familiar. Too much like the way people had looked at me in the weeks after Lauren died.

Like I was fragile. Damaged. Someone to be pitied.