Page 136 of Broken Saint
That one word hits me like a bat. How I don’t fall off the stool, I have no idea.
“After everything I told you, you want to stay here. W-with me?” I ask, hating the vulnerability she can hear in that slight stutter.
Reaching forward, her hand wraps around my wrist, warmth spreading up my arm.
“Colt, what you told me…it helped me make the decision. For the first time, I feel like I truly know you. You’ve…” She hesitates, and I cover her hand with mine in encouragement. “I feel like we might just have a shot here. Tell me if I’m wrong, send me back to Texas if you want, but?—”
Pushing to my feet, I step between her thighs, wrap my hand around the back of her neck and slam my lips down on hers, cutting off her sentence.
“I’m not sending you anywhere that isn’t my bed, Bombshell,” I groan honestly into our kiss.
Her warm hands slide down my sides before tucking under my jersey so she can find my skin.
Desire shoots straight to my dick the second her soft palms run over my muscles.
We kiss until we’re both breathless and have little choice but to pull apart and take a breath.
“You’re really going to stay? Here, with me?”
Her brows pinch briefly, and I panic.
“I…I haven’t really thought this through,” she lies.
I know Ella better than she thinks I do. I’ve barely been home the last few days; she’s had plenty of time to think and obsess over this decision. I bet she’s also dissected every single aspect of it with Letty and Peyton, too.
It irks me that they were probably aware of this decision before me, but I find it hard to cling to the small burst of irritation when she’s staring up at me with wide, honey eyes and swollen lips.
“I’m not moving myself into your life, Colt. Letty offered for me to stay at their place. I could get a job, save, maybe get a place of my own.I don’t know.
“All of this is crazy. I barely even know this city. But…I need this. I need to be the version of myself that I’ve found here. Aside from my mom, there is nothing for me in Texas but bad memories and mistakes.
“I want a new start. I want to be the Ella you remember. The one who has fun with her friends, laughs, leaves the freaking house once in a while.”
“Ella,” I breathe, cupping her cheek in my hand. “You are that incredible person.”
“I have too much baggage in Texas that drags me down. I can’t go back there. If I don’t stay here, then I still can’t go back there. I could go to Chica?—”
“No,” I bark. “You belong here. Your family is here. I’m here.”
She stares up at me, desperately blinking back tears, and I’m reminded of what I told her not so long ago.
I have never said those words to a woman before. Hell, I barely ever say them to my family.
“Colt,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears faster than she can bat them away. “I love you, too. I always have.”
Her voice is rough, full of emotion, and it shatters something inside me just as much as it puts broken pieces back together.
“Fuck,” I rasp, barely able to accept those words from her.
I’ve wanted them. Fuck have I wanted them. But even now, I know that I don’t deserve them.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear them again and again and?—
“Colt,” Ella gasps as I sweep her from her stool and throw her over my shoulder. “I’ve just eaten,” she complains, but her fight is futile.
We leave behind the remains of our dinner—we can heat it up again later; there are more pressing issues right now.
Marching into my bedroom, I kick my foot out behind me to close the door before making a beeline for my bed.