Cole: I just want to help you. And I’m already in the hall outside your door.
I whirled around toward my bedroom. Was he really here?
Cole: Please, let me in.
I set the phone on the counter and bowed my head, trying to think. No way would I leave him alone outside my door.
How could I face him, though?
“You didn’t destroy me, Luca,” I spoke aloud with conviction. I refused to let him win.
One step.
One foot forward.
I made it to the main door in the living room and pressed both palms to it. “Cole,” I said, not sure whether he heard me.
“I need to see you.” The door couldn’t hide the desperation in his tone or the way his voice cracked. “I’m dying out here.”
His words were a shot to my heart.
He’d taught me how to shoot this week. Feel the slack in the trigger? You don’t want to just shoot. You want to ease into the trigger until the slack is gone, then fire.
There was no slack tonight. No easing. Just one quick pull on the trigger. No steady, aim, fire. Just bam!
I was bleeding.
He was probably bleeding.
“Okay.” I removed the chain and twisted the deadbolt to unlock the door. My eyes snapped shut as I pulled it open, not ready to see him.
“Baby, look at me.”
Baby? I’d never been his baby. I’d been his best friend but never his baby. Oh, God.
He gently placed his hands on my shoulders and walked me back into the room. The whoosh of the door slamming shut broke my silence, and I lifted my lids. “Cole.”
There was absolute terror parked on his face. Evident by the crease on his forehead and the crinkles around his eyes. The strain of his throat and jaw. Eyes so dark and sad. Lonely.
My lower lip quivered, tears on the verge of unleashing. Bree’s words filling my mind.
He tipped his head as his hands slid from my shoulders to my arms. “Talk to me, please.”
“I don’t know what to say.” The taste of salty wetness on my lips meant I’d already started crying, and I hadn’t even realized it.
He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand, wiping away my tears, absorbing my pain just like always. He was too good to me.
“I can’t talk about what happened there. Not yet.” I shifted out of his reach and started for the living room. I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and discard my tears. My emotions were betraying the confidence I’d worked hard to maintain, and I hated it.
“Then, can we talk about the photos?” His voice dipped and cracked. “I need to explain.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations.” My back went to the windows that overlooked the city, eyes on the hardwoods. No scratches beneath my bare feet like there’d been in that Russian prison. Brand new. A fresh start. Why couldn’t I move on?
The memories. The nightmares. The reality of what I’d done. These were the reasons I was stuck.
Cole was in black sweatpants that hung low on his hips. Black sneakers. And a black Patagonia down jacket.
I was also in black sweats. A thinner fabric. A loose-fitting gray tee hung off my right shoulder with a white tank under it. No bra, because who’d want to wear a bra when alone?
He unzipped his jacket, revealing a plain white tee and tossed the coat onto the yellow chair. I was instantly drawn to his forearms. Powerful and strong. He’d never been one to hit the gym back in New York. He ran, biked, rock climbed, snowboarded. He did a bunch of things that naturally carved his physique. Fighting had fine-tuned his body even further. He was solid, his muscles more defined.
“I don’t know what Luca showed you,” he began in a panic, “or if whatever you saw was even real, but—”
“I still have the images.” God, what was wrong with me? Luca forced me to keep the folder while I was there. Whenever he visited, he made me pull it out, forced me to look at the photos again, and tried to convince me Cole didn’t care about me. But why I hung on to that damn folder when the guards had sent me my belongings was beyond me. I should have burned it.
“You have them?” He lifted a hand to his throat, nervously pulling and pinching at the skin there.
“I was planning on throwing them away.” When I attempted to walk past him, he secured a hand on my arm and spun me to face him in one quick move.
“I don’t need to see them.” He carefully placed his fist beneath my chin, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I’m so sorry. He should never have shown you the man I became while you were gone, but that’s not me.” Sadness filled his eyes. Regret. “Not anymore.”
The man you became? I willed myself not to cry. I didn’t want to hurt Cole anymore by crying.
He was quiet for a moment, just staring into my eyes with a wistful look that conveyed how much he wished the past six years had happened differently. Or maybe that was me?
“You were a virgin?” His Adam’s apple rolled with a hard swallow. “You were waiting for me?” His chest rose, and with it, I gathered in a breath of his cologne.
“I’m sorry I lied,” I whispered.
“I’m so damn sorry you felt you had to.” He kept his hand beneath my chin, his other palm wrapped around my arm, but his eyes fell shut. “I’m sorry I wasn’t your first. It should have been me, damn it.” He spoke with such intensity I nearly felt the vibrations of sound on my lips. “I wanted it to be me. You have absolutely no idea how much. I’m so bloody sorry.”
I closed my eyes now. Too much pain existed between us.
At the sudden loss of his touch, my eyes flicked open. Both hands were bracing the back of his neck, gaze set on the floor.
“You said you’re not that man anymore. What do you mean?” My cheeks heated at my question, and when he looked at me, the touch of gold around the brown of his eyes seemed to vanish as his pupils expanded.
He inhaled and exhaled short breaths through his nose, then raced a hand over his dark hair. “I mean, I used to sleep around.”
I’d had time to digest the truth. To know he had indeed become a player after I left New York. But part of me clung to the hope that he never had a girlfriend, never made a commitment to a woman during those years, because he was waiting for me to return. I fucked up his heart by leaving—I was to blame for it all, wasn’t I?
“And the other part?” I gulped. “The sex clubs? Do you still go? Do you need to feel pain?” I worked like hell to hide the wobble in my chin that those words produced.
His hand clenched, and he pressed it to his mouth. Eyes now closed as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. “I’ve always preferred rough sex. But I haven’t been to one of those clubs in a long time. And the truth is, I haven’t been with anyone since the day I was told you died last year.” His lids lifted, and he rubbed his cheek.
I had no right to be upset that he hadn’t saved his virginity for me. He’d lost it in Dublin before even moving to New York. When Cole and I met, I was much too young for him to even consider romantically.
“Did you go to those torture clubs, or whatever they’re called, back then, before I was gone?” Damn Luca for showing me those pictures. Damn me for telling Cole I knew about it the night before we were going to go on our Valentine’s date and pretend to have a moment of normalcy.
“No.” He stood before me, hands fisted at his sides as if keeping himself from reaching out, afraid I’d reject him.
“Do you like to hurt the women you have sex with?” That was hard to get out. The other women part. How many had there been?
“No, never. I’m the one who likes to feel pain. I wanted you when you turned eighteen. Hell, I wanted you every day once you became legal, but I was terrified you wouldn’t be able to handle me. Or you’d hate me. I don’t know how many walls I punched trying to stop myself from taking you into my arms.” He was quiet for a moment. “And how many I struck after you were gone, angry at myself for ever letting you go.”
My chest tightened, and I moved to st
and directly in front of him. I grabbed hold of his arm, and he tracked my touch, then returned his focus to my eyes. “There’s something else you’re not telling me. I can feel it.” The same way I knew he could feel I was holding back.
“What I have to say will hurt you, and you know I can’t handle seeing you in pain.”
“Tell me.” I squeezed his arm. “I didn’t give you that letter to make you feel bad. I wanted there to be one less secret between us.” I was trying. I was doing my best. “You have to remember, I’ve had those photos for two years. I’ve had time to cope. To process. To understand,” I added, keeping my voice soft.
His head angled slightly as he studied my features, and the pad of his thumb smoothed over my cheek. “After I gave up trying to find you, I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I became dead on the inside.”
I hated myself.
Hated what I’d done to him.
I needed to hear the truth, though. I deserved whatever pain it might cause. It’d be the only way we’d move forward.
“The, uh, sex clubs,” he said, dropping his hand from my cheek, “were a fecked-up form of therapy to help me get over you. To force me to feel something other than that dull, achy numbness. I kept my family and friends off my back by putting on an act that I was okay, that everything was normal. But it wasn’t. Far from it. And somehow, being a total arsehole and sleeping around with women who were into kink . . .” He let go of his words, deciding there were just some things that didn’t need to be said.
I knew how he felt, but I’d hidden my problems by drinking.
“But no matter how much I tried to forget you, I couldn’t.”
Cole and I had always just fit together perfectly.
Like a puzzle.
Only, I’d taken some of the pieces away and left us both incomplete. An unfinished puzzle, the empty spaces taunting and staring back at me, was maddening.
“I’m so sorry. In my first letter, I asked you not to forgive me yet for leaving, but—”
“I do.” He cupped my face between his large, warm hands and held me in place. More tears threatened to fall as I took in the passion and beauty in his intense gaze. “Do you forgive me for being such a feckin’ idiot?”
I nodded, and my lip wedged between my teeth in a lame attempt to hold back the storm of emotions battering me from every angle. “How many times have we almost kissed?” I whispered.
“I remember every time. As well as all the times I wanted to but didn’t—too many to count.” He removed his hold of my face, clearly still fighting to hold back, when I leaned in and brought my lips closer to his.
“Do you feel this?” My thumb brushed over his mouth, parting his lips. My other hand went to his cheek before threading through his hair. “Do you feel something when I touch you?” Did he need pain? Or did we just need each other?
“I feel everything when I’m with you.” A husky honesty bled through his tone.
“What do you want? What do you need?” My panties were soaked, which wasn’t the outcome I’d expected from this conversation, from my letter.
The tingling sensation between my legs and the fluttering in my stomach intensified.
“You,” he answered, right before I dipped the edge of my thumb into his mouth. He gently bit down, and my nipples pebbled, turning into hard peaks. “But first,” he added when my thumb moved to his cheek, “I need to kiss you like I should have done years ago.”
My body shuddered as his lips slanted over mine, and I grew dizzy. Lightheaded from the moment that I’d waited over a decade to happen.
It was a possessive kiss. A hard and nearly bruising one. And I loved it. So, so much.
It was a kiss that almost felt like redemption for my sins, and I moaned against his mouth and stumbled backward until I hit the window.
He swooped my arms above my head and laced his fingers with mine, pinning me against the glass. Our powerful fight to control our need was the fuel that swept us into one unbelievable kiss.
Every almost-kiss was now gone from my memory, replaced with our first real one.
His tongue swept along the edge of my lips before dipping into my mouth to twine with mine.
I thrust my hips forward, bringing my body tight to his. He had me caged, and it was the only type of cage I ever wanted to be in—one of Cole’s making, one where I was held captive by him alone.
A throaty groan left his mouth when he pulled away from me for one second, long enough to set eyes on me as if to see if this was real, then he seized my mouth again with hungry reverence.
Cole was kissing me.
At fourteen, I’d felt guilty for imagining a twenty-year-old’s mouth on mine.
At fifteen, I couldn’t stop myself no matter how much I tried not to imagine it.
At sixteen, my first self-induced orgasm had been a result of thoughts of Cole making love to me.
Years of wanting. Years of being denied because of my age, because he refused to be a creep.
But his lips were finally on mine. And it was beyond perfect. It was Sisyphus finally getting that boulder up the hill and it staying there.
He released my hands, only to secure his palms on the backs of my thighs, to lift and guide my legs around his hips. I gripped him tightly, our tongues slowly mingling as we kissed and kissed. I almost came right then, the friction between our bodies enough to make me insane. If I didn’t feel this man inside of me soon, I’d go crazy.
My fingernails buried into his back as he held me, and without thinking, I took his lip between my teeth and softly bit.
“Fuck,” he growled out.
My feet hit the floor a minute later, but I realized it was to discard his shirt. My hands roamed greedily over his taut abs, and I raked my nails over his flesh, my eyes falling to the bandage at his side. Shit, I forgot he’d been hurt earlier. “Are you okay? Is this okay?”
His lips tipped into a smile. “You could never hurt me.”
“But do you want me to?” Did he still want pain now that he had me? And he did have me, right? How in the world could I deny being with him even though I was carrying around a secret?
“I honestly don’t know.” His forehead tightened, hands going to my hips. “But I’d never hurt you. I’d try not to be too rough or go too fast. I’d be as gentle as possible.”
“I don’t mind hard.” Sex with this man in any way would be amazing.
He touched his forehead to mine and groaned. “I want you naked. All the times you’ve tortured me over the years with that body of yours, I need to see you naked. To just fecking look at you like I’ve always wanted to do.”
Holy hell, I was turned on.
But also—no, I couldn’t get naked. I. Just. Couldn’t.
I shook my head, unaware of how adamantly I’d done it until Cole’s hands had gathered on my shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes filled with tears. The truth trying to slip free. “I want to be with you, but I can’t take off my clothes.”
My body may have been in the room with Cole, but my mind went back to Luca’s prison.
Spitting blood from my mouth.
Pushing up on my forearms on the dirty ground, gasping for breath.
“What’d Luca do?”
Cole’s deep tone saved me. He brought me out of hell and back to him.
Two steps back, hands off me, he stared at me, waiting for an answer. “So help me, I am going to find whatever prison he’s in and kill him.”
“He didn’t . . . it’s not what you’re thinking,” I managed to get out before Cole lost his mind.
His nostrils flared. “If he did—”
“He didn’t.”
His shoulders relaxed a touch, but he was still uncertain of what to think of my sudden unease about removing my top.
I’d never had a problem showing my body before. Bikini. Strip poker. So on and so on.
Cole had questions.
I had an answer I wasn’t ready to give.
His hands went
to prayer position, and he brought them to his lips. Dark thoughts probably filling his mind. Worry about whatever happened to me. An erection killer, even though he’d been on the verge of screwing me while both our pants had been on, that’s how intense our moment had been.
“Happy Valentine’s,” I said with an uneasy smile, hoping to distract the darkness, to stay in the present and avoid falling back into the ugly hell of what happened in that prison. “It’s after midnight.” I pointed to the wall clock, but he didn’t follow my gaze, his anger toward Luca still front and center. He needed to punch a wall. Maybe I did, too. “Are we still on for dinner?” I asked, forcing a cheery tone.
But the damage was done, the mood ruined. There would be no sex tonight.
“Yes to dinner.” He scratched at the back of his head. “But I don’t want to leave right now.”
“I don’t want you to go, either. But maybe it’s for the best,” I said sadly. “We just learned a lot about each other, and we shared our first kiss.”
Besides, I needed to go scream into a pillow. Then cry. Alone.
His attention lowered to the drawstring of my sweats, and I knew what was on his mind. And as crazy as it may have seemed, it was on my mind, too.
I needed his touch. Craved how he made me feel. Free. Not shackled down by the burden of the evil thrust upon me by Luca.
“I need to touch you,” he confessed, a rasp to his voice. “I’ve dreamed about how you’d feel since I allowed myself to fantasize after you graduated high school.”
“How’d you manage to shut off your feelings for me until then, because I was incapable,” I admitted, my thoughts pointed in one direction now. Him. “Seventeen and twenty-three isn’t exactly unheard of, you know.”
“I patched quite a few holes in the walls.” A near smirk touched his lips. “But you were also my best friend. I had to look out for you. And I refused to let myself be that guy.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t always easy, especially once you were a senior.”
I smiled, taking pleasure in the fact Mr. Goody Goody (with a dark, kinky side) had, in fact, wanted to pin me to the wall and bang me. Well, from the sounds of it.
The Inside Man: A Dublin Nights Novel Page 11
