Headstrong (36 page)

“Colin…”

“Touch yourself for me.” He watched her fingers take over where his had left off and drove himself into her, rhythmic and sensual. “Look at me,” he whispered. He knew he was good at this. He was
great
at this. He wanted the sight of him gliding in and out of her forever burned into her memory, branded as hot and black as it would be in his.

She stared between them, her mouth falling open.

She felt unbelievable, but Colin wanted to make this last. Needed to. He needed to make this beautiful, brief episode in his life go on for as long as it possibly could. He needed to block out the sensations—the warmth of her, the tight hold she had on him. He closed his eyes and tried to make his brain exit the room so he could stand a chance at not losing himself too fast.

Libby noticed his concentration. “What are you thinking about?”

“Rugby.”

He heard her chuckle. “Are you on the brink?”

He groaned, mock exasperation.

“I don’t mind if you come. I can’t bear to watch you suffer.”

“I wanted this to be perfect,” he said with a frustrated laugh. “I wanted to be so good for you.”

“You are. It
is
perfect. Go on. I want to see you come. It’s what I want.”

“Oh, God, fine.” He opened his eyes and took her harder. Rougher and faster, the way his aching body craved.

She moaned. Beautiful.

“You like it deep,” he observed with a fresh thrill.

She moaned again, setting his entire body on fire. He gave her more, watched her arousal mounting, her fingers’ frantic motions.

“And hard. Come on.” His body followed her cues—giving, taking, demanding, obeying, all melting into a frantic blur.

“Oh, my God—Colin.”

Another flash of that fire. “Come on. Say it again.”

“Colin…” It came out in four syllables and he knew she was falling over the edge. He pounded into her, fierce, sweat running down his skin with the glorious effort of it. Her core gripped his dick as her back arched, his half-spoken name trapped in the back of her throat.

“Oh, Libby.”

Her mouth dropped open, wordless, and her fingers flew to his hips. He drove deep and held there, feeling her body flutter around him.

Slowly, Libby reclaimed her senses. Colin was braced patiently above her. She could feel him twitching deep inside her, and he was grinning like a man who’d just won the lottery.

She grinned right back. “What?”

“You just came on my dick.”

“You got that right.”

“That is the most fantastic thing that has ever happened.
Ever.
Anywhere. To anyone.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

He sighed and looked around the room, eyes a bit crazy. “I’m going to die if I don’t come now.”

She smiled, feeling invincible. “By all means.”

Colin’s body came down against hers, his chest and stomach slick with sweat, the smell of him intoxicating. He found his rhythm again, excitement mounting fast.

“Good,” she said, in awe of his strength.

“Ride me. Please.”

“I’ll try.” She let him pull her up and wrap her legs around his waist. His hands held her hips, guiding her. His own hips began to pump, quickly turning fast and greedy. The feeling of him, hard and thick and urgent, thrilled her all over again.

“Libby.”

“Take it. Anything you want.” She gave what his hands demanded, needing to see this side of him. Needing to hear the strain in his voice and feel the heat emanating from this powerful body. To feel a man who
wanted
this from her.

“God, Libby.” He held his panting mouth against the corner of her lips, his breath burning hot on her skin.

She stroked his strong back and arms, and reveling in his strength and desperation, in this mutual giving and taking.

He moaned. “Make me come, Libby.” His hands commanded her hips, rough and fast.

“Colin…”

He lost control.

“I love you,” he groaned. He repeated it with each spasm, until his body quieted and all Libby could feel was the frantic rhythm of his breathing. Until all she could hear were his ragged exhalations and the echo of his words in her ears.

A weak, early sun filtered through the blinds, waking Colin from one of the deepest sleeps he’d ever experienced. Within seconds, his heart was pounding.

Pounding, when he remembered what had happened the previous night.

Pounding, when he realized Libby wasn’t with him in the bed.

That can’t be good.

He jumped to a thousand conclusions, acceptances, hopes and agonies in the thirty seconds it took to stand and tug on a T-shirt and track pants. By the time his hand touched the doorknob, Colin had settled on an emotional cocktail of grim acceptance and morbid gratitude.

He imagined scouring the city for Libby again, to try to make right what had surely been a terrible mistake—an ill-advised slip of her common sense.

But it turned out his search for Libby was extremely short. She was in the kitchen.

Dressed in her pajama bottoms and the shirt Colin had been wearing the night before, she was standing by the sputtering coffeemaker, flipping through a supermarket circular. She looked up as Colin appeared. She frowned deeply and his chest clenched. She raised the paper up to cover her mouth and nose then lowered it, her frown replaced with a wide grin.

Colin’s impending heart attack subsided. He wandered over to lean against the center island.

“Sleep all right?” he asked, sounding about half as shy as he felt.

Libby didn’t reply but set down her reading materials and stepped to him. Slipping her arms beneath his, she wrapped him in a hug that spread warmth—and no small measure of relief—through his entire body. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he breathed in that ocean smell of her hair as his hands ran over her back. He could have spent the next fifty years in this embrace.

Libby pulled back after a few glorious seconds, keeping her hands on his waist and looking into his eyes. “Coffee’s almost ready.”

“Ta.”

She bit her lip and smiled dopily, glancing away. He swept her messy hair off her face and hoped she’d never start wearing makeup.

Her long arms wrapped around him again and pulled their chests together. Colin tried to ignore his body’s baser interests as he returned the hug.

“Thanks,” Libby said against his collarbone.

He laughed. “My rate’s forty an hour, so you owe me…let me do the math…plus gratuity…”

She smacked his back. “Shut up.” He heard the smile in her voice. Then suddenly her body tensed and she pulled away.

Colin turned to find Reece leaning in the threshold. His brother’s face was cold and unreadable, arms crossed over his chest, an empty glass in one hand.

Libby’s hands dropped from Colin’s sides, and she stepped back a pace. “Morning.”

“Hey.” Reece’s voice was tight, but with what well-hidden emotion, Colin couldn’t guess.

Libby’s jaw was set. “Coffee’s just about ready.”

“Just needed some water, thanks.” Reece walked to the fridge for the pitcher.

Awkwardness descended like a heavy curtain, and Libby rooted through the drying rack for two mugs and filled them from the coffee pot. Colin held his ground, not moving until Reece exited.

Libby hissed out a tense breath. “Fuck, that was weird. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He took the mug she handed him. “Let him think whatever he wants.”

“He never wanted me to…mess with your head, I think he said.” Libby looked odd when she was worried, like a different woman.

“Yeah, well, he can shove it. He’s treated me like some kind of powder-keg pity case for the past six years.” He felt his chest constrict. “And I hope
you
don’t—”

“Of course I don’t.”

“I’m just saying, if last night was a mistake for you, it’s okay. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you regret it. I’m hard to damage.”

Libby’s face went pale and her eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God.” She set her mug down and came close, putting her hands on his shoulders. She ran them down his arms, jostling his hand and making hot coffee slop over her arm. “Ow.”

Colin smiled and extricated himself enough to set the mug down.

“Last night was definitely
not
a mistake.” She licked the coffee off her wrist in her undignified but charming way. “Last night was awesome. I want every night from now until I get kicked out of New Zealand to be exactly like last night.”

“Yeah?” Colin couldn’t stifle his grin.

“Good God, yes.” She smiled and looked him in the eye.

“Exactly how many nights might that be?”

“If my extension comes through, I’ll probably get the boot in a little over three months.”

Sadness squirmed in Colin’s midsection. Libby’s appearance as a daily fixture in his life had happened so abruptly, yet already it was impossible to imagine this town, this flat, his family, any of the places that comprised his home, without her. And now she could be gone, just as abruptly, yanked back to the opposite side of the globe. Three months was not enough time. Three months was a heartbeat.

“You’re quiet, Tiger.”

“Yeah. It’s hard to imagine you not being here.”

“Really?”

He nodded, not feeling up to elaborating.

Libby sipped her coffee, staring into space.

“I have to go into the city. I promised to help a friend move this morning,” Colin said. He glanced at the clock on the microwave. “I don’t know if you want to stay here, with Reece, or…”

“I should talk to him.” She looked into her mug, seeming to steel herself. “So things aren’t too weird. You go on.”

He cleared his throat. “Will I see you tonight?”

“Yeah, if you want to.” She smiled in a coquettish manner that dissolved into a smirk.

“I think you can guess the answer to that question. I’m behind the bar, from six onward. But if you want to do something afterward…”

“You’re cute when you’re shy. And yeah, I’ve got some things I’d like to do with you later. I’ll come by after six.”

“Good.” He pulled her to him again and pressed a kiss into her forehead. “I’ve better go get ready. Good luck with him.”

A quiet knock roused Reece from a pathetic pantomime of meditation. He’d been too agitated to clear his mind—any junk he’d managed to sweep away had just uncovered another pile of emotional clutter. He uncrossed his legs and stood from the bed, expecting to find Colin at the door.

“Hey,” Libby said.

His heart hardened. “Nice shirt.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you, so things don’t have to be awkward.”

“
You
don’t want things to be awkward?”

“No, I don’t.”

Reece laughed, incredulous. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have fucked my brother.”

“Hey—”

“Do you get how twisted that is?”

“It’s not—”

“He cares about you,” Reece said. “A lot, maybe. And you’re using him to get back at me.”

Libby’s long arms locked across her chest. “Oh, hold it right there. I am
not
using him. Don’t flatter yourself, Nolan.”

“I’m not stupid, Libby. You were trying to convince me to sleep with you a couple days ago, then I told you I’m not interested and you’re suddenly all over my brother? Who I expressly told you to stay the
fuck
away from weeks ago?”

“He doesn’t need protecting. He’s an adult. And he’s a hundred times more literate about his feelings and other people’s than you are.”

“You don’t know him. Not the way I do.”

“I understand him better than you ever could.” Libby paused as footsteps approached.

Colin appeared beside her in the doorway, dressed to leave for the city. He glanced between them. “This isn’t the quiet chat you two were meant to be having. What’s going on?”

Libby glared at Reece. Reece looked off to one side, equally incensed.

“I know you’re talking about me, so say whatever it is you want to say, Reece.”

Reece met his brother’s eyes. “She doesn’t love you.”

Libby made a noise of protest or disgust that Colin silenced with a hand on her shoulder.

“So what?”

“She’s using you, to piss me off,” Reece said.

“So what?”

Reece didn’t reply.

“Look, I don’t care if she’s using me. You’re using her, for the money. She’s been using you, for company, or control over her dad or whatever. I’m using her, because she makes me feel like a human being again for the first time in forever.” A tendon in Colin’s neck twitched. “So what? I love her. And I want to get used, all right? I’ve been so broken, Reece, nothing can hurt me anymore. So don’t fucking worry about it, okay?”

“She doesn’t know what you’ve been through.”

“She does. She understands it better than you do, so don’t fucking protect me.” Colin’s face was tense, eyes dangerous. “You haven’t known me since I was twenty-two, so stop bloody acting like I’m even remotely that same person. This family didn’t stand still while you were away, waiting for the fucking prodigal son to return and make everything all right again.”

“I didn’t—”

“So thanks for the bloody money, Reece. It’s
so
worth not having you here with me while I watched Dad dying in a hospital bed.”

Reece felt blood pounding in his temples. “I wanted to be here.”

“Yeah, so fucking bad you didn’t come home.”

“Watch it.”

Colin wound his hands around the strap of his bag as if to restrain them. “I want you out of this flat.” Libby attempted to interject but he cut her off. “I want you to go off, Reece, and do whatever it is you actually
want
to do with your life, and quit with the fucking lip service you’re paying this family.”

Reece bit back his anger and shock and a hundred retorts, finding his cool outer shell and slipping inside its safety. “Fine.”

“Brilliant.”

“Dig your own grave with her,” Reece added, pointing to Libby.

She stepped back a pace into the hall, stricken.

Colin’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve got some fucking nerve on you.”

“She—
you
,” Reece amended, firing a glance at Libby. “She’s a selfish, self-serving person. She only ‘helped’
our family because it benefited her. She’s here having a laugh on her bloody trust fund, on a goddamned holiday, watching us work ourselves into the ground to keep this place afloat. It’s what she does.”