Read Online Raced by K. Bromberg - Free Book Online Page A

and fuck if she’s not bringing us right back there with her attempt to apologize.
    “Why’d you leave, Rylee?”
    The harshness in my tone causes her to stare at me a moment before she answers. “A number of reasons, Colton. I told you, I’m just not that kind of girl. I don’t do one-night stands.”
    “Who said it was a one-night stand?” I throw her own excuse for leaving back at her and immediately question myself and the implication I’ve now left open for interpretation. That’s exactly what I need with her to avoid the shit she unknowingly brought to life last night. What the fuck am I doing here besides muddying up the fucking complicated water even more?
    “What?” Confusion flickers over her face. “You lost me. I thought commitment wasn’t your thing.”
    I lost me too, sweetheart.
    “It isn’t.” I shrug. Time to turn the subject back to you. Make you explain because fuck if I’m going to delve into my closet of nightmares to explain myself. “I don’t believe you.”
    “What?” She’s confused. Good, because that makes two of us. Thank fuck, though, I’m the one with the reins now.
    “Your excuse for running last night. I don’t buy it. Why’d you leave, Rylee?” Give me a real reason. Tell me you got spooked the fuck out too. That it just wasn’t me. Tell me you hate me. That you want me. Tell me anything to ease the fucking schizophrenic thoughts owning my head right now because you’ve turned this man who never needs anything to one who needed to see you. And fuck if I can figure out why.
    I need to get this—us—back to where I’m comfortable. A good time with no future.
    “I just—” She sighs, fiddling with her ponytail thing, and I can now see her nerves. Can sense her unease. And when she meets my eyes again, she knocks the gas from my tank because they are so full of conflicting emotion. “You made it clear that you were done with me. With us, cursing adamantly to demonstrate why my presence was no longer needed.”
    No longer needed? That’s what she thought? “Sweet Jesus, Rylee!” Why is it with any other woman I’d be ecstatic that she thought that. Would make it easier to have the talk with her that I need to have and lay down the law about the only things I can give her, but hearing the words from Rylee causes a tightness in my chest.
    She thought I was done with her. Leave it be, Donavan. Shut your fucking mouth and leave. Apologize for being an ass and walk away.
    “Do you have any idea … you made me … I just want to protect you from—” I can’t even finish my thought my head’s such a mess. Yeah, the get up and leave idea worked real well there . Fuck me. I shove up out of the chair and head toward the window, toward an escape.
    How do I explain that the way she made me feel caused the demons I’d buried deep down to start to whisper that I don’t deserve anything from her? That I saw myself using her—hurting her—like those before her and for the first time ever, I couldn’t do it. Knew she didn’t deserve it.
    Shit just got real—fast. Real when all I want is to go back to our bantering foreplay. I need to get this back on ground I can walk on because right now I’m starting to freak the fuck out.
    “I asked you to stay. That’s all I can give you right now, Rylee. All I’m good for.” I know I sound like an asshole, know that she just said I hurt her and my response was anything but an apology, but at the same time she doesn’t have a fucking clue how normally I’d say “my way or the highway” and instead I’m trying to explain a bit of myself when I never have before.
    “C’mon, Colton, we both know you didn’t mean it. Let’s just say I left last night for reasons you don’t want to know about,” she finally says, eyes lifting to meet mine, and fuck if I can tell what they are trying to say to me that her words aren’t. I wonder if these reasons are the cause of her sudden change in demeanor from last night to this