All I can do is look at him through blurred eyes and with a hurting heart. He’s so right on every level, and yet I don’t know if I can find it within me to pretend. To act like I’m unaffected when the sight of Colton causes my breath to hitch and heart to twist. When we continually tear each other apart and purposely hurt one another. I cry out a strangled sound, hating the woman that I’ve become in the last few days. Hating Colton. Just wishing that I could be numb again even though it felt so damn good to feel again. But if I can’t have him—have my beautifully damaged man—then I’d rather be numb than live in this endless abyss of pain.

Beckett sees the hysteria surfacing—sees the moment that I realize how much I actually love Colton and the devastation I foresee on the horizon—and mutters, “Motherfucker!” in exasperation at being the one left to tend to my irrationality before calmly walking me over to the bed and pushing my shoulders down. “Sit!” he orders.

He squats down in front of me, the motion much like a parent does to a child, and it makes me realize what a good guy Beckett really is. He reaches out and puts his hands on my knees, looking me squarely in the eye.

“He fucked things up, right?” All I can do is nod my head, my throat clogged with emotion. “You love him still, correct?”

I tense at the question. The answer comes so willingly into my mind that I know even though I love him—that loving him will most likely bring me a truckload of continual hurt—it’s just not enough. “Beckett…I can’t keep doing this to myself.” I lower my head, shaking it as my breath hitches again.

“Remember when I told you that Colton was going to push you away to prove a point?” I nod my head, listening to him but really just wanting to be by myself, wanting to take my suitcase with items sticking out of it at all angles and make a mad dash to the airport—back to structure and predictability and a life without Colton.

And that thought alone robs me of every emotion possible.

Beckett squeezes my knees to get me to focus back on him. “Right now is that time, Rylee. You need to push away everything in your head. Clear all of the assumptions out and think with your heart. Just your heart, okay?”

“I can’t do it anymore, Becks—”

“Just listen to me, Ry. If you really love him, then keep knocking on that fucking steel gate he has around his heart. If he’s really worth it to you, you’ll keep at it.” He shakes his head at me. “The damn thing’s got to give sometime, and you’re the only one I think is capable of doing it.” When I just stare at him with my mouth lax, he just shakes his head at me. “I told you, you’re his lifeline.”

I just stare at him, unable to speak, trying to digest his words. Am I his lifeline? Can I possibly be his lifeline? I feel more like a weight dragging us toward the bottom of the ocean than a lifeline. And why does Beckett keep telling me to clear all assumptions?

“That can’t be. Love doesn’t fix—”

I’m startled from my thoughts from a knock on the door. I start to stand but Beckett just pushes back down on my shoulder and goes to answer it. When he opens it, I see Sammy shoves Colton through the door before Beckett slams it shut.

Despite everything Beckett said, just the sight of Colton ignites my temper. I’m off the bed in a flash the minute he stalks into my room. “Uh-uh! No way! Get that egotistical asshole out of here!” I shout at Beckett.

“Fuckin’ A, Becks! What the fuck is this?” he yells, confusion in his voice. He glances down at the haphazard packed suitcase and grunts. “Thank Christ! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, sweetheart!”

I step toward him, fueled with fury and ready to detonate.

“This is over here and now!” Beckett’s voice booms at us like a parent scolding his children. We both stop mid-motion as Beckett turns toward us, exasperation on his face and obstinance in his stance. “I don’t care if I have to lock you in this fucking room together, but you two are going to figure you’re shit out or you’re not leaving. Is that understood?”

Colton and I both start yelling at him at the same time, and Beckett’s voice thunders over ours. “Is that understood?”

“No way, Becks! I’m not staying in this room another second with this asshole!”

“Asshole?” Colton whirls on me, his body mere inches from mine.

“Yeah! Asshole!” I sneer.

“You want to talk about assholes? Try that stunt you pulled with bar boy back there. I believe you claimed the title right then, sweetheart. ”

“Bar boy? Wow, because having a harmless drink is so much worse than you with your gaggle of whores earlier, right?” I shove at his chest, the physicality of the action giving me a small iota of the release that I need.

Colton steps back from me and walks to the far side of the room and back, blowing out a puff of air from his lungs. My room feels small with Colton eating up the space, and I just want him gone.

He looks over to Beckett and shoves his hands through his inky hair. “She’s driving me fucking crazy!” Colton yells at Beckett.

“You’d know all about the fucking part seeing as you fucking Tawny is what started this whole thing in the first place,” I scream back at him.

Since Colton is standing beside Beckett, it’s hard not to notice the completely dumbfounded look on his face. “What?” Beckett stutters.

“What? He didn’t tell you?” I grind out looking at Beckett, my fists clenched as images flash through my head. “I told the asshole that I loved him. He bailed as fast as he could. When I showed up at the Palisades house a couple days later, Tawny opened the door. In his T-shirt. Only his T-shirt.” I focus completely on Beckett because I can’t bring myself to look at Colton right now. “Colton didn’t have much more on than that either. Told me nothing happened. But that’s a little hard to believe with his notorious reputation. Oh and the condom wrapper in his pocket.”

I finish my little rant, for some reason wanting to show Beckett what an ass his friend is, as if he didn’t know it already. Trying to explain to him why I have a case of the crazies right now. But when I stop, the look I expect to see is not there. In its place is utter confusion, and when he turns to look at Colton, it morphs into incredulity. “Are you fucking kidding me here?”

Now I’m confused. “What?”

Colton growls. “Leave it, Becks.”

“What the fuck, man?”

“I’m warning you, Beckett. Stay out of this!” Colton steps chest to chest with Beckett.

“When you start jeopardizing my team and the race tomorrow, then it becomes my business…” he shakes his head at him. “Tell her!” he bellows.

“Tell me what?” I shout at the both of them and their damn man code.

“Beckett, she’s like talking to a goddamn brick wall. What good will it do?”

Colton’s words hit my ears but don’t really seep in. I’m so focused on Beckett’s reaction that I don’t hear them.

“She’s right. You’re an ass!” Beckett snickers with disbelief. “You won’t tell her? Fine! Then I will!”

In a heartbeat Colton has Beckett pressed against the wall, his hands pressing against his chest, his clenched jaw inches from his. I suck in a breath at the sound of Beckett’s back hitting the wall, but I notice that he has no reaction otherwise to Colton’s temper. “I said leave it, Becks!”

They stare at each other for a few moments, testosterone oozing between them in two entirely different ways: Colton’s with force and Beckett’s with a simple look. Finally Beckett raises his hands and shoves back against Colton’s chest. “Then fucking fix this, Colton! Fix! It!” he shouts, pointing at him before yanking the hotel room door open and slamming it behind him.

Colton expels a litany of curses as he paces back and forth the length of the room with his hands clenched and his temper flaring.

“What was that all about?” Colton ignores my comment and continues to wear a path in the carpet in front of me, refusing to meet my eyes. “Damn it, Colton!” I stand in his path. “What don’t you want me to know?”

The eerie calm in my voice stops him momentarily, his head down, jaw clenched. When he lifts his head to look into my eyes, I can’t get a read on what underlies the anger I see boiling over on the surface. “You really want to know?” he shouts at me. “You really want to know?”

I step up to him, confronting him, standing on my toes to try and stretch my height to be eye level with him. “Tell me.” Fear snakes up my spine at what I might hear. “Are you that goddamn chicken shit you can’t fess up and just admit it? I need to hear it come out of your mouth so that I can get the fuck over you and get on with my life!”

He angles his head down and looks unflinchingly into my eyes, green to violet. My chest hurts so bad breathing feels impossible as time stretches.

His voice is quiet steel when he speaks. “I fucked Tawny.” His words float out into the space between us but stab sharply into my heart.

“You coward!” I scream, pushing against him. “You goddamn fucking coward!”

“Coward?” he bellows. “Coward? What about you? You’re so fucking stubborn that you’ve had the truth staring you in the face for three fucking weeks. You’re up there so high and mighty on your goddamn horse you think you know everything! Well you don’t, Rylee! You don’t know shit!”

His words that mean to hurt and push me away just fuel my temper even more, egging me on. “I don’t know shit? Really, Ace? Really?” I step closer to him. “Well how’s this? I know a bastard when I see one,” I seethe.

We stare at each other, both so willing to hurt the other that we neglect to see that we’re both tearing the other apart for the same reason. “Been called worse by better, sweetheart.” He smirks, taking another step toward me, the smarmy look on his face setting me off.

Before I can think, my hand flashes out in front of me to connect with his cheek. But Colton’s quicker. His hand jerks up and grabs my wrist mid-flight, our chests bumping against each other from our momentum. My wrist is locked in his hand and when I start to struggle away from him, he takes his other hand and grabs hold of my free arm that’s flailing. I’m frustrated and struggling against him, and I hate him so much right now that my chest hurts. His face is inches from mine, and I can hear his exertion in the breath that pants against my face.

“If you were done with me…had your fill of me? You could have just told me!”

He looks at me, face strained as he holds my arms from pummeling him. “I’ll never have my fill of you.” And then before I can even process what he’s doing, Colton’s mouth crashes against mine. It takes me a moment to react, and I’m so angry—so furious with him—that I buck against his hold and tear my mouth from his.

From the taste I crave but the man I hate.

“You want rough, Rylee?” he asks, my head not comprehending his words but my body reacting instantly. “I’ll give you rough!”

And from one beat to the next, Colton’s mouth crushes down on mine and takes every sensation in my body hostage for his sole manipulation. His hands still grip mine as I struggle to refuse his kiss, trying to push him off and away from me. Regardless of how much I thrash my head, his lips remain on mine, tiny grunts of satisfaction coming from deep within his throat.

I try desperately to deny the desire that starts to seep through the anger-induced haze in my brain. I try to reject the ache deepening at the apex of my thighs from the taste of his tongue melding with mine. I attempt to fight the pebbling of my nipples at the firmness of his chest as he brushes against mine.

Rage turns into desire. Hurt expels into yearning. Absence fuels our fervor. His touch blocks out all rationality. A soft moan catches in my throat as his mouth continues to tempt and torment every spot of my lips and within.

At some point Colton realizes that I’m struggling against him not to get away but rather to touch him. He releases my wrists and my hands go immediately to his chest where they fist into his shirt, aggressively pulling him into me. His hands, now free, are on the move, mapping the lines of my curves over and over again as our mouths convey the unbridled desire we still have for one another.

Every action and reaction reflects urgency. Necessity. Hunger. Longing. Desperation as if we’re afraid that at any minute we’re going to be pulled away from one another to never experience this again.

Colton brings a hand to cup the rounded curve of my butt as he jerks me into him while the other holds my neck still. I don’t even realize that the moan in the room is from me when the hard length of his arousal rubs against the V of my thighs as he pushes us backwards to the dresser behind me. He lifts me up and settles my backside on the top of it, pushing my dress up my thighs as he steps between my legs, all the while continuing his mind-numbing dexterity to my lips and tongue.