Page 10 of No Apologies
“You’re welcome.”
“Call after you talk to her, or have her call me.” Jemma seemed to relax a little.
“Yeah, okay, I’m going now.” He sighed as he maneuvered the dark streets of their small hometown.
“Seriously, thank you Colt. Love you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you back.”
He hung up before Jemma could say anything else. He’d never been comfortable with the L word and as far as he was concerned Jemma used it way too easily. She used it freely with Cash but she’d caught him off-guard the first time she said it to him. Since she kept doing it he figured he’d hidden his gut instinct to recoil but he didn’t think she missed that he never said it back.
With that dark thought twisting inside of him, he parked in the lot outside their building and killed the engine on his truck. He shot the unit on the far end a glance but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The door was shut and another glance around confirmed Skylar’s car was parked out front.
She was home, just as Jemma had said she was. That explained why he hadn’t been able to catch a single glimpse of her outside the shop today. Usually he at least got the chance to see her walking from her car to the salon she owned right next to his space. The fact that he hadn’t seen her go bouncing by once today had made him wonder where she was, if she’d taken the day off or if she’d just gotten better at avoiding him.
With one last glance at her door, he marched to his own apartment to retrieve Jemma’s keys. He was only going to knock on Skylar’s door and say he was checking on her as a favor to her friend if she answered. He didn’t let himself think about what he would have to do if she didn’t.
He headed for the other end of the building with that nervous energy beating at his insides. She was fine. She had to be fine. If she wasn’t and he somehow hadn’t known… no, he couldn’t think like that. She was fine, sick and probably sleeping it off but fine.
Colt banged on the door with his fist and then listened for the sound of movement on the other side. Nothing. It was completely silent. He knocked again, louder and longer, and waited impatiently for a response that never came.
“Shit.”
His hands shook slightly as he forced the key into the lock. She was fine. He repeated that mantra to himself as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. She had to be fine, right? She was young and healthy, at least as far as he knew. Food poisoning sucked but it wasn’t something that would kill her, right? Damn it, he hated that he didn’t know the answers to those questions, didn’t know if her heart condition was something that could make her sick or not.
Jesus, how had he never thought to wonder and worry about her heart failing her?
He put a lot of time and energy into thinking about her and most of those thoughts centered on how best to protect her. How to keep her safe. Mostly from him but also from the world at large. He couldn’t believe he’d missed thinking about a threat to her wellbeing like her health.
He pushed himself into the apartment, trying to listen over the sound of his own racing heart. The place was dark, not a single lamp or light on inside. He peered around quickly to make sure she wasn’t on the couch and then headed down the hallway towards her bedroom.
The door was open but he paused before entering her room. He knew which one was hers because he’d helped Jemma move her things into the other one not all that long ago. But he’d never been inside Skylar’s personal space before and when he’d imagined it, rushing in to make sure she was breathing hadn’t been part of the fantasy.
He swallowed hard and stepped into the dark room.
The first thing he noticed was the smell. Skylar’s perfume clung to the room. That scent of black orchids made him instantly hard even as he told his cock that now wasn’t the time, that it would actually never be a good time for that reaction.
And yeah, it probably made him a total stalker that he knew what perfume she wore. He’d asked her once what it was and then he had looked it up to find out what it was made of. It was a sexy, erotic scent that drove him crazy but he’d never been able to figure out if that was because of the flower or because of the woman that wore it.
The second thing he noticed was that the bed was empty. He forgot all about his erection as his eyes jumped around the room. The bed was a mess, sheets and blankets tangled as if she’d slept fitfully in it before she got up. But if she wasn’t in the living room and she wasn’t in her bedroom, where the hell was she?
Had she left? Maybe she was feeling better and decided to go out but that didn’t make sense because her car was in the lot. Maybe she’d relented and let her boyfriend come and pick her up, let him take her back to his place to care for her.
Colt scowled at the thought and backed out of her room.
He shouldn’t be here. He’d known that before he came but he’d been worried. That was the real reason he’d raced over here. Not because he owed Jemma or Cash, not because he was doing them a favor. He’d come to check on Skylar because he cared about her and he’d needed to see that she was okay even if she wanted nothing to do with him.
She wasn’t here. He shook his head as he peeked into Jemma’s room just to be sure she hadn’t gone in there for some reason. No, she wasn’t here and he was a fool for barging in thinking that he was going to save her somehow. He wasn’t any sort of savior and…
Colt stopped in his tracks outside the door to the small bathroom. Just like in the apartment he shared with his brother, this unit only had one bathroom and it was situated at the front of the hallway. He’d blown past it on his way in, desperate to get to her bedroom, but now he saw what it was he’d missed.
“Skylar?”
In the dark it was hard to tell but he thought she was curled up on the floor of her bathroom. She’d dragged a pile of blankets and pillows in there and was half hidden beneath the gigantic mound. If the odd shape on the floor hadn’t caught his attention he wouldn’t have even noticed, definitely wouldn’t have seen her blonde hair peeking out.
“Skylar?” He raised his voice a little as he moved into the small bathroom. “Sky? Hey, you awake?”
He had to tiptoe in carefully since he couldn’t see where she was beneath the blankets. He didn’t want to accidentally step on her. He crouched down and felt his way forward until he could pull the blankets back from around her head. He winced when he got his first good look at her.
