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  Copyright 2019 © Hazel Grace All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the reader of this ebook ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Cover design: Black Widow Designs

  Proofreading: Dom’s Proofreading

  Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. It is only appropriate for adult readers age 18+

  Please keep in mind, this is a series. Which means all answers to questions won’t be answered in one book. If you don’t like cliffhangers, you might want to wait until the series is over. Lucky for you, this is the last one.

  xoxo,

  Hazel Grace

  Things are changing. But they always do when Colson is involved. And just like a decade ago, I don’t know what to do with the receptive twist and turns that are Colson when he makes himself the leading role (or villain) in my life.

  Mindlessly, I walk the flight up to my second-story apartment, needing the escape of the merry-go-ride my brain’s been on. Not even all the appointments I’ve had today could rid the night and morning Colson and I had three nights ago. The perfection of it, the attentiveness of his hands and lips, the way he nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck. His expert tongue that knows I shiver when he licks my ear lobe then sucks on it, leaving the scraping of his teeth behind. My body has shivered and convulsed over a dozen times with just the flashbacks of his weight on me.

  But after a decade of need, want, and wishing, I’m no more advanced or mindful of what the hell was going on with us.

  Zero. Zilch. Nada.

  Shit is fucking annoying.

  Over the last seventy-two hours, I’ve mentally demanded to myself that there are too many things riding on me being a sane person. That, if I let my defense crumble for just a split second, Colson will bulldoze that shit quicker than he used to blow off girls in high school in five or less words.

  I’m not about to dive neck-deep into some bullshit with him when I’m still not able to get over how we ended, where we ended up, what he fucking did.

  Or better yet, who he did.

  Skylar.

  Let’s also not forget my assistant on my desk that I still wiped down with anti-bacterial wipes when I hit a flashback of that lovely day.

  Pulling my keys from my pocket, I unlock my door and throw my purse on the nearby table. My feet stall when my eyes fall on the blue and green paint samples still scattered over my small desk. I run my hands down my face.

  He couldn’t even bother to take them with him or just throw them the hell away. Just like he couldn’t let me explain what happened ten years ago or that he still didn’t know what to do with us.

  I need a damn beer.

  I grab one out of the fridge, about to remove the strap of my dress from my shoulder to take a shower when a knock raps on my door. I peer over at the cheap plywood that keeps me safe, contemplating the day of the month.

  Am I late on rent? Did I order something on Amazon and completely space?

  My heart flutters in my chest when Colson comes to the forefront of my mind.

  Before my mind tells my feet to move, they already are, and I may have opened the door a little too readily. Might have gotten a tad bit excited and anxious.

  Because I’m right. Like a sixth sense on steroids, I’m right.

  Colson peers up at me with a smirk from the other side of the doorway, the one that melts me into a puddle and bends me to his formidable will.

  “Hey,” he greets, holding a brown paper bag and a...duffle bag?

  “Hi,” I reply, choking the neck of my beer. “How—what are you doing here?” He furrows his brows at me like I’m fucking losing it.

  Am I?

  Shit, why wouldn’t that phase me?

  “You need to eat, right?”

  “Yeah,” I state slowly. My gaze locks on a brown duffle bag. “What’s that?”

  “My clothes.”

  “For…”

  “For my staying over…”

  I perk a brow. “Did I misinterpret something when you said ‘we’ll talk later’?”

  He ignores me and walks inside, brushing my arm with his. “My movers are already packing up my shit and with all the boxes, it’s cluttered.”

  I watch him make himself at home, tossing his bag on my couch and striding toward my kitchen like he’s been here a million times.

  All I can do is just stare and gape at him like a mindless moron.

  Each step he takes oozes confidence, which makes mine shrivel up and die with him being in my personal space.

  “This weekend,” he announces, placing his bag on my tiny kitchen island. “Sucked.”

  I narrow my eyes as they follow him striding toward me. “Why?”

  He stops about a foot away from me, taking the beer out of my hand and twisting the cap off. Bringing it up to his lips, he stops to say, “Couldn’t sleep in my own bed because you weren’t in it.”

  You better focus girl.

  “It’s a full-size bed,” I counter, begging my body to chill the fuck out. “No one your size could sleep in that thing.”

  A deep chuckle resonates in his chest while he takes another swig before handing it back over. “I was doing alright with it before. And now with all the boxes—” He shrugs. “—I didn’t want to stay there.”

  “Did you ask Ben?”

  “I’m not interested in cuddling up with Ben, Bases,” he transmits.

  “Well, it won’t be for long,” I try to reason. “We close on Friday.”

  “It’s Monday, and I’m already tired of it.” I take a long pull from my beer, knowing I’m displaying my discomfort after the third swallow.

  “What’s wrong, Bases?” he muses, the corner of his lips lifting. “Are you unhappy that I’m here?”

  I shift my weight to my right leg. “Just...surprised.”

  “Why?”

  This motherfucker just said ‘why’.

  “I didn’t hear from you all weekend.”

  “The boys had their baseball camp this weekend.”

  “Oh.” Colson licks his bottom lip, keeping his heated stare locked onto me.

  It sears through the top layer of my skin, sending my mind reeling with possibilities of what he’s doing. What he may do to me. I can’t help my paranoid self from coming up with feasible plots of things he’s trying to accomplish to make my life easier or harder.

  I’m going with the latter because, like I said, I’m paranoid as fuck with Colson Hayes.

  “Well,” he falters. “I’ll be sure to pay my way around here.”

  My brow descends. “How?”

  That gets me a full-blown smile.

  “If you need reminding of what I can do, Bases —” His tone drops down another octave. “—just let me know.”

  He doesn’t wait for a reaction, turning on his heels to leave me alone in my living room with my heart flinging in my chest like a toy that’s being hurled around by a two-year-old.

  “Go take a shower,” Colson orders, withdrawing items from his bag and placing them on the countertop. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  My eyes squint weak laser beams at his forehead as
I wait for him to get zapped at any moment.

  I loathe that he can still sense me.

  That he still knows everything about me, every quirk and whim, while I could never figure him out for the life of me.

  Slowly, I make my way down my short hallway to my bathroom, where I lock the damn door because my body wants to throw a pep rally on how he’s here in my place.

  I quickly take my shower, just to chastise myself for the hundredth time since Colson stepped in because I forgot to grab clean clothes.

  Wrapped in a towel, I slowly open my bathroom door to find some waiting for me outside in the hall.

  Fucking fantastic, now he’s going through my drawers and picking out lace white panties for me to wear.

  I dress, towel dry my hair and leave it wet to give myself a wet dog effect. If he’s staying tonight, he’s sleeping on the damn couch, and maybe I can get his closing moved up to Wednesday.

  Walking out of the bathroom, Colson is seated at one of the two stools at the island, looking down at his phone and drinking his own beer. When my traitorous floor squeaks and gives me away, his eyes drag up then drift leisurely down the length of me.

  “Feel better?”

  “Not when I know you went through my dresser,” I counter.

  He smiles, rounding the island toward me. “Trust me, it was safer that way.”

  I expect him to hover over me, to make me squirm, but he continues to the oven and shuts off the burners.

  I inhale a slow pull of air, letting it fill my lungs before releasing it.

  This is going to be the week from hell, and I haven’t even agreed to let him stay. He just assumed.

  Assumed.

  Wait a damn second, this is my apartment.

  I pay the rent, I deal with the handyman fixing my dishwasher every other month. The neighbors upstairs play metal music at midnight on Fridays and banging my broom on the ceiling only made them play louder.

  The shift of a spoon shows up in front of my face, and I jerk back to land against Colson’s chest.

  “Try this,” he conveys. I have no choice but to open my mouth as it closes in on me. I taste a creamy Alfredo sauce as the richness melts against my mouth, making me fight back a moan. “Taste okay?”

  I nod, wiping the excess sauce off my bottom lip.

  “Why don’t you turn around and tell me, Bases, instead of you pretending I don’t exist.”

  I roll my eyes, twirling around to face him as I straighten my spine. He doesn’t step back, forcing me to lift my chin to look up at his whiskey-colored eyes staring down at me. His hand laces through my wet hair, sending a small chill and sliver of ease down my arms.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “A little.”

  He jerks his head. “Go take a seat and I’ll get your plate made up.” His fingers remain mixed in my hair, the smell of his spiced pine cologne infiltrates my nose, and I can’t help but inhale deeply.

  Everything that I don’t want to happen is occurring as I sink deeper into the quicksand I’ve been trying to avoid.

  I force myself to take a step back, letting his hand fall away. But as soon as I throw a foot of space between us, he’s on me.

  His face lowers to mine, his chest centimeters away, and my breathing staggers.

  “Do you know how hard this is?” he growls, aiming his half-glare, half-confused examination in my face. “To let you in again, to deny the power you have over me. That you’ve always had over me.”

  My lips part but no words leave them.

  Yeah, I do.

  Apparently, we’re both doing this to each other again, the push and pull. The refusal and the want that we both crave for the other one.

  Shit, we spent months denying it.

  Dismissing the simple fact that we both liked each other. Conducting pranks in high school and jealousy. Gavin stood in the way then but nothing was here now but our pride.

  “What do you want to do?” I can’t help but let my thoughts spill from my mouth.

  I need to know.

  It’s slowly eating me alive with each day that passes. And I can’t deal with anymore omitted information.

  “I honestly have no fucking idea,” he admits, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. “The only thing I do know...is that I’ll fuck the next guy up if I see you with another one in this town.”

  “Sounds relatable.” He perks a brow. “Fuck with someone connected to me, Hayes, and I’ll kill you this time.”

  He brushes a piece of hair away from my face, pinching it between his fingertips. “Guess that means we’re stuck with each other again.”

  I tsk. “God, that’s so sweet, Hayes. When you put it like that, I might as well drop my panties right now and bend over.”

  “I was picturing what your ass looked like when I picked them out but eat first.”

  “You’re sleeping on the couch,” I rebuff quickly.

  He shrugs. “I sleepwalk.”

  “Doubt it.”

  He leans forward but backs away just as quickly. “I’ll go grab your plate.”

  Making his way back to the stove, I sit my ass in my stool, steadying my heart back down to its normal rhythm and thinking of all the ways I can stay at the office later.

  “You still like extra cheese?” Colson asks me, peering over his broad shoulder.

  I stifle a groan. “Yes.”

  Within seconds, a steaming plate of Fettuccine Alfredo and garlic bread is sitting in front of me. My hand immediately snatches my fork, forgetting my current dilemma, and I dig in. My stomach growls in appreciation to substance as I haven’t fed it since breakfast.

  I feel Colson’s eyes on me, as he sits alongside me with his plate.

  Normally, I’d care, but ordinarily Colson isn’t trying to sleep over and cook me a meal to get into my pants.

  So I continue to eat like a five-year-old.

  “Eat your food, Hayes,” I decree, shoving more food in my mouth. “And don’t worry about what I’m doing over here.”

  “Like inhaling your food? Slow down or you’re going to choke.”

  I wave my free hand in the air. “I can heimlich myself against a chair if need be.”

  We eat our food together in silence, well, I scarf it, he takes his time, and I wash my dish at the sink then throw it in the dishwasher.

  “That was amazing, feel free to keep the leftovers,” I tell him, taking back my seat next to him.

  “Save room for dessert?” he asks.

  “What is it?” His hand cuffs around my arm, and suddenly, I’m yanked off my chair, positioned between his legs that start to squeeze me to stay.

  “Me.” His lips crash to mine, stealing any thought of what has been barrelling through my brain over the last hour. His kiss is needy, tempting, something easily that I get lost into.

  His face presses into mine, nudging my lips to open wider so that his tongue can slide in between them. His hands grip my ass through my cotton shorts, molding me to his chest.

  Every kiss is different but with the same effect.

  I can’t battle back how my body behaves and implodes to his. No words or memories overpower the need for him. The want of belonging fully to his will always seems to win out.

  And it’s dangerous.

  So fucking unsafe and parious that I never was able to develop a shield against him. Colson has had me from the moment he laid eyes on me at the pool party. I just deflected away his shitty ass words and chalked it up as him being a broody asshole.

  But his eyes, they displayed something so different that it chipped away every wall, screen, and disguise I threw in his way.

  Now, ten years later, I’m still sitting in the same spot. Still craving him everywhere and anywhere near me. The overthinking, the tingles that shoot up my body when he’s around, the awareness that he wants to pounce on me every second he gets then glares at me the next.

  There was no cure for Colson Hayes.

  No antibiotic or shot that could cure
me from the wrath and lust that he exhibits when we’re in the same room. He was and is an epidemic to my life but a spark to igniting my eyes open. To not be so careful, just smarter. To live unsolicitedly through life because you’d never know when something might surprise you.

  “I can’t quit you, Bases,” Colson mutters into my lips. “And I don’t know if I want to.”

  “I don’t even know what to do about that,” I reply, wrapping my arms around his neck. “All I know is that you’re a dangerous human being to my sanity.”

  He latches to my lips again then presses his forehead into mine. “I want to take this slow. Go on dates, see if this can work.”

  I bite his lower lip. “You’re not doing a good job with trying.”

  He pulls me closer, kneading my lips again with his. “You’re Sawyer fucking Boyd.” Another soft, torturous kiss. “Do you know how many boys at school wanted to touch these lips...along with other things?”

  A hand roams up my ribs from underneath my shirt, brushing the side of my breast as his tongue plays a game of who can dissolve quicker on the floor.

  “I was one of them, wanting you all for myself. In my baseball shirt, with my hands roaming all over your body for all those fuckers to see.”

  “You were a horny teenager,” I retort.

  “I might have been horny, Bases, but you were the only girl I wanted to fuck and keep.”

  Okay, I lost the battle.

  We’re a chemical reaction, always fusing together, neither of us being able to separate because it’s impossible to. And I’m done fighting the attraction, the fear. It’s time to stand up and let myself either live happily ever after with him or get punched in the gut again.

  Either way, I got to experience Colson for myself again, no matter how little time I had.

  Colson breaks our kiss, his chest heaving in slow huffs and eyes fixated on me. “Do you want to—”

  “Honey, I’m home!” My body jumps in Colson’s hold while my heart slams right into my ribcage.

  I don’t have to look to see who just bursted into my apartment like the damn SWAT team because I’ve known that voice for my entire life.

  Hesitantly, I turn my head toward the door, dread killing my buzz of Colson’s lips.