COLTON’S CHAPTER | 6
Ah, fuck, she didn’t.
Except, yes. Yes, she did.
She’d just said the only thing on the planet to turn me off.
I froze just as she covered me completely. Half a second later, she froze too, her hand still wrapped around my cock.
Then she lifted her face to gauge my reaction, her eyes huge and lips parted in shock.
We just stared at each for, like, the longest second in eternity. And then she finally began to shake her head rapidly back and forth, denying what she’d just said.
“No,” she breathed, her chest heaving with panic. “I…I…I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—”
I jerked back, dislodging her grip from me. Her eyes only grew wider and more worried.
“Yeah, you did,” I said before whirling away to yank off the condom and throw it across the room. I jerked my pants up, wincing because for some reason hearing the girl with her hand around my junk say she loved my brother still hadn’t killed my erection. It hurt like hell to shove it back into my underwear and zip it up, nice and snug and blue-balled.
When I fumbled to close my shirt, I remembered the buttons for it were scattered across the floor.
Shit.
I thrust both hands through my hair, still feeling the imprint of her fingers there.
Double shit.
“Colton?” Her timid, uncertain voice made me wince.
I turned back slowly.
She’d shoved her skirt down, pulled the bustier back over her breasts and hopped off the table so she was standing before me as if I hadn’t been about to fuck her silly.
When she saw my expression, her eyes watered and she brought her hand to her mouth before muffling out, “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. You have to know I never meant—”
Shaking my head, I whipped my tux jacket off the table and started for the
door, unable to listen to anymore.
I’d totally intended to be a bigger man than this and somehow help her smooth it all out, tell her it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t like she’d said something I hadn’t already known, and it was probably best we stopped anyway because seriously…drunk hookup at a wedding? Not the best idea. At least not for us two.
Things had morphed into hyperspeed at the drop of a hat. Her ugly, cold-water splash of the facts in our faces had actually been a good thing. We’d almost made a major mistake.
But I just…couldn’t. I couldn’t say I was grateful for what she’d said. I couldn’t stay in that room with her where I could still smell her release on my fingers and taste it on my tongue. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t even look at her.
It felt too much as if I’d just been stabbed in the heart with a really dull, really painful spoon, and I was simply unable to stick around a moment longer.
Suddenly, I hated my brother. Not because Julianna wanted him and not me, but because he’d forced me to go over to her in the first place.
If I’d just fucking stayed away, I wouldn’t have learned what her goddamn earrings meant, I never would’ve suspected she had the cutest, catchiest laugh, I never would’ve buried my fingers inside her or tasted champagne straight from her tongue. I never would’ve thought I might actually stand a chance. But now I knew all of that, and it made the realization that I still didn’t stand a chance all that much harder to swallow.
Stumbling from the room, I hit the still-quiet corridor and kept walking until I reached the door to a rear service exit of the building. Cold January air immediately filled my lungs, and I sucked it in hard, grateful for the sting it brought to my senses. A trio of waitstaff paused their smoke break to glance curiously at me. I nodded before turning in the opposite direction and pacing away for my own privacy.
Then I set my hands on my hips and bent at the waist, blowing out a long deep breath and causing a little vapor cloud to float up around me.
My arousal finally began to subside; the freezing air slapping against my bare chest helped. I straightened and shrugged on my jacket, wondering where my bow tie had gone. Thank God Brandt had forgone vests or cummerbunds when he’d rented our outfits; he was already going to kill me for losing my bow tie and the buttons off my shirt. He’d threatened me within an inch of my life not to spill anything on my tux when he’d handed it over to me earlier to wear. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to react to this.
And why the fuck was I worrying about his reaction to a ruined rented suit?