Page 32 of Colton’s Mate

Her lynx said, Sexy leopard.

Don’t get attached, Callie warned. You know where that ends.

Lynxes do not get attached. We are alone.

But her lynx was watching Colt just as intently as he was watching her.

Their eyes met, and everything seemed to stop for a minute. Then Colt broke the silence. “So let’s drink to that,” he said.

“To doing the hard stuff?”

“To being brave.”

He thinks we’re brave. Her lynx sounded pleased.

They each knocked back a shot. And then another, and another, and another. How many was that now? It didn’t matter. She had another bottle of whiskey somewhere.

Callie started feeling a pleasant glowy buzz. It made her bold. Bordering on obnoxious. But what the hell—she was Bad Callie, and Bad Callie apparently not only couldn’t resist a dare, but was also nosy as fuck. “I have a question for you,” she said.

“Is it personal?” Colt asked. He sounded hopeful. He lowered his voice. “Is it dirty?” That sounded even more hopeful.

“Noo,” Callie said. “Well, I guess it might be. What is it with you and Remy and the revolving door of women and bedpost notches?” She’d mixed up that metaphor somehow, because bedposts didn’t go in revolving doors. But she wanted to know.

Colt looked slightly offended. “We don’t have notches!” He thought about it. “Although, we don’t have bedposts either, so…”

Callie took another drink, then pointed her empty glass at Colt. “Because Kitty says you’re skanky man ho’s. And Kitty knows. She knows you forever, right?”

Colt rolled his eyes. “Nooo,” he said. “I mean yes, she knows us forever. And so, she feels the need to puncture our egos at every opportunity. Without her, we’d be insufferable.” Colt gave Callie the patented panty-dropper smile. “At least, she thinks so. In reality, we’re adorable.”

Callie tried to steel herself against the smile, but she could practically feel her panties wanting to just slip off and land on the ground. “Sez you,” she retaliated. “So, despite the astonishing number of women you’ve slept with, you’re claiming lack of skankiness?”

“Of course. I have no communicable diseases and I shower, like, every day.” He poured more whiskey. “Except when Brandon and Kitty won’t fucking stop banging and I can’t get to the bathroom without my eyes being melted in their sockets by actually seeing them going at it.”

“Oh my god, now you made me picture it.” Callie waved her hands frantically in the air between them. “Get it out! Get it out of my brain!”

“It’s okay,” Colt said soothingly. “Just picture me in the shower. Naked. Like, super-naked, with water glistening on my muscles. I’m rubbing soap all over my body. Across my impressive pecs. Over my sexteen-pack abs. I mean sixteen-pack.”

“There aren’t sixteen abs.”

“You’re ruining the visual. Your eyes drift lower, lower…”

“If you describe your dick to me, I’m going to pour the rest of the whiskey over your head.”

He took the bottle from her. “That would be a waste.” He poured her another shot.

“So, in answer to your question,” he went on, “neither skanky or a man ho’. I just like partying. And recreational sex. So I find women who also like those things, and we do them together. And I try to be nice to them, because I like them. I don’t lie to them or lead them on.”

“But you don’t fall for them.”

“I said I have sex with women I like, not women there’s any danger of me falling for.”

That made Callie curious. “Why don’t you want to fall for them?”

Colt looked down at the whiskey bottle, running his fingers around the label. He opened his mouth, then shook his head with a little smile. “It’ll sound stupid if I say it out loud.”

Callie could feel something between them, happening right now. A moment. His face wasn’t showing much—he was still looking at the whiskey bottle—but she knew her question had touched something real. Something he didn’t show to most people.

Suddenly she really, really wanted him to share it with her.