Page 31 of The Unknown Colton
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The truck with the rust eating away at the bright blue paint was parked outside her cabin next to her SUV. It should have gone over the side of the mountain with the man inside it. He should have died.
While he’d survived this time, the boyfriend had to go. He was a pain in the ass, and he was going to get in the way and mess up the plan.
He had to die.
CHAPTER 9
Lakin saw the hurt and the fear on Troy’s face after her declaration of love. She knew he was thinking the same thing she was, that it wasn’t enough. They were slipping away from each other.
Earlier tonight, he’d nearly slipped over the side of a mountain. He could have been lost to her forever. She wanted to hang onto him like she had when he walked into the cabin earlier. Like she had every other time he’d come home after a long time away from her. She wasn’t thinking about the space that she’d told her parents she wanted from Troy. She was thinking of having no space between them at all.
“I was so afraid when I saw your truck over the side like that…” she murmured, her voice hoarse from yelling at him and at Billy, trying to be heard over their engines.
“I’m fine,” Troy said. “I’ll go into the police station tomorrow and report it.”
“Just that,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to the local police about Jasper Whitlaw.” She refused to call the man her father.
“You need to talk to someone about him. Have someone check him out,” Troy persisted.
“I don’t want to talk at all,” she said. Talking with Troy just led to frustration and disillusionment over their future. She didn’t want to talk or think or worry right now. She just wanted to feel.
Him.
She stepped closer to him now and pressed her palms against the sculpted muscles of his chest. Through his T-shirt she could feel the heat of his skin and the hard beat of his heart. Then she moved her hands up over his shoulders and pulled his head down toward hers.
His beautiful green eyes darkened with the desire already burning in her. “Lakin…” he whispered, his voice sounding even more hoarse than hers.
“I need you,” she said. “I need to feel that you’re alive and well…that you survived…” Not just tonight but that fall as well. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined him dropping down from the rig into the dark cold depths of the ocean. Disappearing under the water and out of her life.
“I’m alive and well,” he said with a smile. “I’m also aching for you…”
He’d limped when he walked up to her cabin earlier. “I don’t think you’re aching for me,” she said.
He took one of her hands and pulled it between their bodies. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing against the fly of his jeans. “I’ve missed you…so damn much…”
She’d missed him as well, too much to continue to deny herself. Especially after tonight, after he could have died once again. This time, not on a rig but because he’d been trying to catch her stalker. If that was even who it was…
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out those thoughts, those fears.
And he kissed her.
His mouth moved hungrily over hers. She parted her lips, deepening the kiss. As they kissed, they moved together toward the open door to her bedroom. But it was like a slow dance, not the usual frenzy when they first saw each other after a long separation.
Troy didn’t pick her up and carry her to the bed. Instead he moved stiffly, walking with her through her bedroom door toward her bed. When they got near it, they fell down onto the comforter. She felt Troy grimace and heard his sharp intake of breath.
She pulled back, panting for air herself, and asked, “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but his jaw was clenched like he was gritting his teeth. Was he in pain?
“Can you do this?” she asked. “Or will this hurt you more?”
“It’ll hurt me more to not be with you,” he said. “I have been aching for you, Lakin. To kiss you, to touch you…” And he kissed her again.
Then he began to undress her. Every inch of skin he uncovered, he caressed and kissed. He glided hismouth over her shoulder and then along the ridge of her collarbone and down to her breasts. As he drew one nipple into his mouth, he stroked the other with his thumb.
She was the one hurting now, her body tense and needy for his. She tried to touch him, too, but gently, so she wouldn’t hurt him.
