Page 22 of Fixing to be Mine (Valentine Texas #5)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SUNNY

B y the time we get back to the house, my blood is boiling, and my skin feels like it’s carrying leftover electricity from the way he kissed me.

Colt kills the headlights, but doesn’t move to get out right away. The truck clicks and settles beneath us, the air warm and quiet in the cab. The only light comes from the porch, glowing softly across the ground, like it waited up for us.

We sit there for a second, both breathing a little harder than normal, not talking yet.

I don’t know what to say. I kissed him in front of the entire town.

Correction: he kissed me , but I kissed him right back like it wasn’t the most reckless thing I’d done since driving halfway across the country with a designer wedding dress stuffed in my trunk.

He glances over, and his grin is lazy.

“Are we gonna survive that?” he asks.

“I hope so,” I say, even though I’m not entirely sure, not with the invisible clock ticking down.

My heart hasn’t settled since I heard the emcee say “twenty thousand buckaroos.”

“How do you have that much money?” he asks. “You threw it away on me.”

“No, I didn’t. I have more money than I know what to do with,” I explain.

He shifts his body toward me. “Who are you?”

“I’m just a girl who’s trying to figure out her life,” I tell him, hoping that answer is enough, not wanting to scare him away.

“Okay,” he says, not pushing me—because he never does. His smile returns. “Leave a place for me in it.”

Before I can respond, Colt climbs out and comes around to open my door, offering his hand like we haven’t been dancing around this moment since the second we met.

His fingers are warm and steady in a way I’m not. I step down, and he doesn’t let go of me.

The crickets are loud tonight, and the stars are clearer than I remember them ever being. My boots thud softly across the porch as we step inside.

He sets his keys on the hook by the door, then leads me to the kitchen. Without asking, he pulls down two glasses, then reaches for an unopened bottle of whiskey beside the coffeepot and the unopened pasta.

“No offense,” he says, glancing back at me, “but I think I need a drink.”

My mouth lifts. “I could use one myself.”

He pours two fingers into each glass and hands me mine, and I follow him to the living room, where we both drop onto the couch, shoulder to shoulder, legs stretched out in front of us.

It resembles déjà vu, and I wonder if maybe we’ve done this before, in a different life.

Maybe that’s why the pull between us is so strong.

This man belongs to a place that’s so far removed from everything I left behind.

We drink, and the whiskey burns, but it’s a welcome kind of heat that grounds me enough to stay in the moment.

Colt leans his head back against the couch cushion, eyes half closed, smile still tugging at his mouth.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” he says after a moment.

My heart thuds once—hard.

I don’t answer right away. I sip again, watching the way the porch light casts shadows across his jaw.

“I don’t either,” I finally say, knowing I felt something awaken in me that I’d thought would never exist again.

He turns his head to face me, and the space between us shrinks.

“I liked watching you lose it a little,” I add, grinning.

He huffs a laugh. “I was panicking. I thought you were gonna let Tessa win me.”

“Please,” I say. “No one else gets to walk away with you but me.”

His eyes flicker toward me. Neither of us laughs this time.

I take another sip, and he leans in enough for his knee to brush against mine.

The whiskey is warm in my blood now. His presence heats everywhere else.

I don’t know where this night is going, but I don’t want it to end when it feels like something real is happening between us.

Colt breaks the tension, walks down the hallway to grab the bottle of whiskey, then returns. He fills our glasses fuller this time, and I shoot it back instead of savoring it.

The second glass hits me in a way the first didn’t. It settles low in my belly, softening everything that’s still spinning inside me. My head is floaty, but my heart is anchored to him, to this couch, to this house.

Colt shifts beside me, resting one arm along the back of the couch. His fingers are only a few inches from my shoulder, and I wonder if he knows how badly I want him to touch me.

“How does this end for us?” I ask, turning toward him.

His mouth tilts into something slow and dangerous. “I don’t know. You keep me guessing.”

“An honest answer I can appreciate,” I say, but my voice sounds too soft. “I don’t know either.”

He doesn’t say anything else, only watches me, eyes tracing the lines of my face like he’s memorizing the moment.

I set my glass on the coffee table and shift onto my knees, the cushions sinking beneath me as I crawl into his lap without thinking, without planning it, because I need to be closer. Because all night, I’ve wanted his hands on my skin and his mouth on mine, and now I don’t have any more excuses.

His breath hitches when I straddle him.

His hands move to my thighs like he’s making sure I’m real.

I’m in his lap, remembering exactly what it’s like to want someone so damn bad that it almost hurts. It’s been years.

I slide my hands up his chest and over his shoulders, letting my fingers curl into the back of his hair as I lower my mouth to his.

The kiss is immediate, deep, and aching.

There’s no warm-up. No slow play. Just heat and breath and the sound of my name somewhere in his throat.

He’s hard beneath me, and I rock once, gently.

His grip tightens on my hips like he’s barely holding on.

His mouth opens wider beneath mine, and our bodies fall into rhythm, breath syncing, heat rising.

With strong hands, he roams higher, one slipping under the hem of my shirt to rest at the small of my back.

My heart is thudding so loud that I can’t hear the crickets anymore.

I can’t hear anything but his ragged breathing and the sounds of my whimpers. But even as my body pushes closer, something in me pulls back. It’s not out of fear, not because I don’t want this. I want him. But I can’t hurt him.

I break the kiss and press my forehead to his, breathing hard, trying to steady the crash inside me.

“I want you,” I whisper, my voice shaking slightly. “God, Colt, I do, but …”

“This is enough.” His hands stay on my waist, grounding me. He doesn’t move or pull away. His lips brush against my jaw as he exhales, and then I feel him smile. “But don’t make rules with me, darlin’. I already warned ya once. I’ll purposely make you break them.”

I close my eyes, swallowing against the ache in my throat. He slides his hand up to my face, brushing a piece of hair behind my ear with a kind of gentleness that undoes me more than anything else tonight.

“You’re so damn pretty,” he says. “You’re the one in control of us.”

I open my eyes, and he’s watching me like I’m the only thing in the room worth waiting for. And just like that, I melt into the safety of him. Of knowing that he respects me so much that he doesn’t push. He holds me like I’m enough, even if I don’t believe I am.

Not wanting to move, I stay on top of him for a while longer, tangled up in something that’s too important to break.

I’m still straddling him, and he holds me in his arms. His thumb traces slow, mindless circles along the curve of my hip.

Neither of us talks. We breathe in the quiet and let the weight of everything that’s happened settle between us.

I move from him but am still close enough that we’re still touching. Colt leans forward and reaches for the whiskey bottle.

“More?” he asks, pouring more into our glasses without waiting for an answer.

“I suppose,” I say, drinking this one slower.

We’ve both made it through some invisible test neither of us knew we were taking.

The room is dim, lit only by a lamp in the corner. Outside, I hear the crickets again, and they sing like they’re trying to fill in the spaces between our words.

Colt leans his head back against the cushion and exhales slowly. “You ever have one of those nights where everything seems like it might work out?”

“You mean like tonight?”

“Exactly,” he says.

We drink in easy sips, and after a few minutes, I shift to face him. My knees draw up, my elbows resting against them, and I study the side of his face—his scruffy jaw, his perfect mouth, the way his lashes curl.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I escaped to Texas. Meeting you wasn’t on my agenda,” I admit.

He lets out a chuckle. “Starting this conversation strong. Truth be told, you weren’t on mine either. But we were both in the right place at the right time. I don’t know what happened that made you want to escape, but I’m real damn glad it did.”

I memorize the blue specks in his eyes, knowing it’s time to be honest with him.

“I walked out on my wedding,” I admit, my voice softer now. I can’t look at him this time, so instead, I down the rest of the whiskey in my glass and grab the bottle. “I saw my fiancé with his hands in my sister’s panties forty-five minutes before the ceremony.”

Colt doesn’t say anything. The silence is filled with understanding and anger that only shows up when a person hurts someone you care about.

I risk a glance at him. His jaw is tight, but not with judgment.

“I was ready, wearing the designer dress that had been made for me,” I say. The words come out too fast, but I don’t stop. “Hair and makeup were done. The bridal room was too loud, so I stepped out for a breather. I saw them laughing, kissing, and fooling around.”

He finally speaks. “Fuck him. Fuck your sister too.”

The air conditioner clicks on, and the hum fills the space. I grab the bottle and take a long drink, finally telling someone the truths I’ve kept buried for weeks. I’ve only written about them in the journal Colt gave me.

“I didn’t cry—and I still haven’t,” I admit.

“I didn’t cause a scene or call them out.

I left. I didn’t even tell anyone. I took his cherished car that we were supposed to drive to the airport for our honeymoon, stopped at a gas station, changed in the restroom, and kept going until I made it here. ”

Colt sets his glass down carefully on the coffee table, then shifts to face me. His firm hand rests on my thigh.

“I hate that this happened to you, but I’m glad you didn’t marry that cheating prick,” he says.

“Me too.” I nod. “I ran, which is something I never do. For the first time in my life, I needed to disappear.”

His voice softens. “And here you are, in my house.”

“Sleeping in your bed,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

His eyes never leave mine as he reaches for my hand. “I’m really fucking sorry.”

The words hang between us.

My other hand is still curled around the whiskey bottle, but I’m not drinking anymore. I sit with my shame and my truth and a man who somehow makes me believe it’s okay to put it out in the open.

“My name isn’t Sunny.”

He doesn’t react, doesn’t pull back, or question me. He watches me with that steady calm he always carries, the kind that tells me my world’s not ending, but somehow beginning.

His thumb brushes slow circles over mine, and it’s more comforting than any words I’ve ever been offered.

A few seconds pass. I keep my gaze forward.

Then he speaks. “Will you tell me your real name?”

It’s not demanding, not invasive, just a simple invitation.

He asks because he wants to know me, because I know he cares.

I take a breath, and for the first time since I left everything behind, I let it out without fear tightening around it.

“Stormy,” I whisper.

He doesn’t repeat it, only chuckles. “That suits you really fuckin’ well.”

The corner of my mouth lifts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re more of a tornado than sunshine, darlin’,” he says.

“I’m sorry I lied. People are searching for me, and I don’t want to be found. Please don’t be upset with me.”

“Fuck, I’m not,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice now. “Thank you for telling me. Stormy. Mmm. Sexy. I think I always knew, but I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

Right now, I’m not sure whether I need space or closeness, but he somehow gives me both. I keep my breathing steady.

“You made me realize not all men are trash,” I admit. “When I left New York, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again. I didn’t believe anything good could ever come after being betrayed by two people I loved. Then I met you, and it turned my world upside down.”

“Well, that’s the best damn compliment I think I’ve ever received.”

I squeeze his hand and lean into him. He wraps his arm around me and holds me tight as he lightly draws circles on my arm. We stay there—two people on the old couch with whiskey and my heartbreak and whatever this is blooming between us.

“Will you still call me Sunny around your friends and family?” I ask.

“I’ll call you whatever you want, darlin’. Your secret’s safe with me.”

I yawn, and he notices.

“Come on. Let’s go to bed. It’s been a long night.”

Colt stands, and so do I. The whiskey hits me, and the world sways. He hooks his pinkie with mine and leads me to the bedroom.

As I fall asleep in his arms, I ask myself what I did to deserve finding him. I should send Donovan and Skye a thank-you note.