Colton's Spring

Chapter 10

Would she have been able to go through with it?

Spring wasn't sure. In a way, she was grateful Colton had put a halt to her exploration of him. Of course she had done everything she was offering with a number of other boys, but they had all been boys. Colton was a man. The first man Spring had ever been attracted to. She'd been twenty-one to his thirty, but she had felt a pull. Of course she would never have said anything, given he was her brother-in-law.

So she had gone on her merry way and dated with fervor, trying to banish errant thoughts of a brooding cop. Spring liked men. She had a reputation of falling in and out of love at least once a month and, to a certain extent, that was true. She'd gone out with more than her fair share of men since Colton had broken up with Sunshine, but none of them ever measured up. Maybe it had been an unfair comparison because none of them had ever stirred her the way Colton had.

What exactly had she been offering him? In retrospect, it seemed a little tawdry and, she hoped, he would forget all about the incident. Jocelyne had been quite specific about the side effects including grogginess and lack of coordination. Well, that hadn't been an issue with Colton. No, his hand had been operating just fine, especially when he had used it to pull her even closer. And kiss? The man could kiss, that was for sure.

But it was the erection which had been the most impressive. Not for size or anything like that, but for his ability to get one at all. Doped up on painkillers and antibiotics, she wouldn't have thought him capable. She'd been dead wrong on that count.

So where had her insecurities come from?

Because, despite her brazenness and her comfort with her own body, she wasn't very experienced. All those boys she'd fallen in and out of love with? Few had ignited her and even fewer had made their way to her bed. No one knew about that except Sunshine and that was because Spring couldn't hide anything from her sister. She had once worried Sun might know about her crush on Colton, but Sunshine had never said anything. Had she been respecting Spring's privacy or ignorant of her sister's deepest desires?

So now she was sitting in Colton Pritchard's apartment and she had no idea what to do. He never had given her the wireless code, so she was stymied with that. She was checking the internet through her phone, but it wasn't the same thing. No, what she really needed was to be able to boot up her laptop. That and she needed to know what was going on between Catriona Upland and Chantale Byrne. What she wouldn't give to be a fly on that wall.

Instead, she was watching over a virtually comatose man who was going to be grouchy as hell when he woke up. Spring had thought she might make him some cookies or something like that, but it was hopeless. The guy had enough single-serve meals to last through Armageddon, but nary a bag of flour to be found. There were some vegetables and fruits, but that was about it. She'd scouted some rice and was planning a stir-fry for dinner. Much beyond that and she was going to have to go shopping.

So how long was she planning to stay? Colton was a big boy and could probably care for himself, but Jocelyne was really worried about an infection developing. Once something like that took hold, it could go downhill really quickly. So Spring could set up a rotation of people to come through and check his temperature as well as help him out with other stuff, but that thought didn't appeal.

No, she wanted to be the one Colton relied on. Because for every moment since that tape had landed on her desk, she'd been fighting this attraction. Up until today, she was pretty sure she'd done a good job. Now, however, Colton knew how she felt. Well, he knew she was willing to pleasure him. If he suspected the rest, he hadn't let on.