Cole

by Trent Jordan

  Cole smiled and leaned forward on the couch, coming within just a foot of me. Oh, that warm glow had turned into something like a burning hot ember within the depths of my stomach. I think my body actually started to shake.

  “I still don’t... it still doesn’t... my father…”

  “Lilly.”

  He said my name gently but firmly; with kindness but authority; with tenderness but assertiveness. The mere mention of my name had frozen me, prevented me from shaking, but also locked me into place, free to let Cole do as he wished.

  He leaned forward some more. There was no resistance. I didn’t want to resist. I wanted to let whatever happened…

  Cole’s lips came within inches of mine. His eyes closed. Mine remained open longer, but just seconds before he made contact, I closed mine.

  And then he kissed me.

  Cole Carter, President of the Gray Reapers, one of the arch enemies of my father, had just kissed me.

  And I liked it.

  I really, really liked it. I—

  And then he pulled back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate.”

  “But—”

  “I got caught up in the moment,” he said.

  What the hell?

  And why was this making me want him more? Why did I suddenly feel the urge to yank him down to me for even more intense kissing?

  “I’ll protect you and defend you, but... I shouldn’t have done that. You’re not... it wouldn’t work out.”

  “Cole?”

  “Let me know if you, uh, need anything else,” he said, hurrying to grab a pillow and a blanket.

  I wanted to reassure him that I had liked the kiss. I wanted to let him know that him doing that didn’t bother me and, in fact, had me feeling as aroused as I’d felt in forever. I wanted him to... I didn’t know if I wanted to get naked with him, I didn’t know if I wanted to lose my virginity to him, but I knew I liked how far we’d gone so far.

  But I didn’t know the words to bring him back. I didn’t know how to say it without sounding desperate or sad.

  Why would I, anyway? It’s not like I had an extensive history of boyfriends and personal growth. My father’s shadow still loomed over my heart and mind, even if his physical shadow did not; it was as if his hand was wrapped around my brain, preventing me from thinking of the right thing to say.

  “You can, uh, well, I guess you can stay here until you figure things out,” Cole said as he tossed some more pillows and blankets on the couch. “Since your cell phone can’t be tracked now. We’ll, I, uh, take care, see you in the morning.”

  “OK,” I said, feeling extremely unsatisfied with my last words of the night to him.

  Where were the words that got him back to that couch for some more kissing? Where were the words that sought to express how I felt? Where were the words that would tell the truth about my lack of sexual and romantic past, and how I wanted to break free from my father’s influence and be myself?

  Wherever those words were, they were not accessible.

  Cole went into the room, shutting the door. I pursed my lips. Now, with Cole gone, my arousal had gone through the fucking roof. Just because I’d never had sex didn’t mean I didn’t have libido; in fact, I suspected my virginity played a huge role in making me want to have sex that badly. The experience of sex could be anything that I wanted it to be.

  I found my hands falling down inside my pants, but could I really do that on Cole’s couch? I didn’t fear making a mess so much as I did getting walked in on—how would that go? If Cole had walked away from me after a kiss, what the hell would he do when he caught me touching myself?

  But the urge was far too great, and the desire far too overwhelming.

  I made sure all of the lights were off. I made sure I had all of the blankets on me, the better so I could have some plausible deniability. I removed my pants, leaving on only a t-shirt and panties.

  And then I slid my hand underneath.

  To an extent, everything that I thought was merely conjecture. I was not so sheltered as to not know what sex entailed; I was not a part of some weird religious cult. But there was a difference between knowing what it was like to have a man inside of me and assuming what it was like to have a man inside of me.

  But that didn’t stop the thoughts of imagining Cole kissing me, kissing my body, working his way down my chest, my stomach... and then pressing his face in between my legs and eating me out.

  I rubbed myself and pleasured myself as I imagined Cole would. I bit down on my lip very hard to make sure that he wouldn’t hear me in the other room, but given that even masturbation did not happen that often for me, the feeling was incredibly intense and pleasing.

  I imagined him coming forward, taking off his pants, and revealing his cock. It would, of course, be hard and ready to fit inside of me. I imagined him sliding in and going in and out, in and out, all the while, his girth grinding against me. The pleasure intensified. I had to focus on not breathing so hard and so loud.

  And then, the pleasure started to center. It started to concentrate in a very small area. I was close.

  I imagined him saying my name. “Lilly…” Oh, it was so fucking hot. Oh, just imagining him inside of me, naked, saying my name…

  “Ah!”

  I let out a gasp as the orgasm rolled through my body. It was loud, but it was short, and I didn’t worry that Cole would have heard it. Worst case, I’d lie and say I stubbed my toe.

  But I definitely felt like I had gotten away with something naughty, and it was so thrilling. The man one room over, probably no more than ten, fifteen feet of physical distance, was the source of my pleasure, my imagination, as I achieved sexual release. All he had to do was walk out, not even for me, just for a glass of water or to lock the door... and what would have happened then?

  That was an even more erotic, arousing, thrilling thought.

  Cole Carter had become something more than my protector, the man who would guide me to the next phase of my life.

  And I had to admit, I was getting more and more interested to see what that “something more” would wind up being.

  Cole

  It started with what sounded like heavy breathing.

  At first, I thought that I was hearing things. No way I heard Lilly... pleasuring herself, right? That was ridiculous.

  But there was something about the human mind that just knew the instant some sort of sexual gratification was happening, whether in the form of two friends trying to get it on in secret in a bathroom or someone touching themselves one room over. Everyone thought that they were being subtle. Everyone was usually wrong.

  And I knew as I heard Lilly’s breathing intensify that she was touching herself, and I strongly suspected that our kiss had something to do with it.

  Why had I pulled away? It was inappropriate. Sure, it was consensual, but... I had to focus on the Reapers’ task at hand, which was to kill Lucius Sartor and end the Fallen Saints. Making out, let alone sleeping with, his only daughter was not only not going to help that, it was going to complicate things pretty badly.

  But now, as I leaned against my door, listening to Lilly finger herself, listening to her try and be so silent and yet being able to hear everything... oh my God, the temptation to “accidentally” walk in on her, tell her I’d take care of the rest, and make love to her was almost irresistible. I think the only thing that kept me in place was just that it would take effort; had, say, I still been on the couch or even at the kitchen table, I probably would have done something.

  My cock was rock hard. I was touching myself, too, albeit not like she was. I was touching myself like I was priming a pump, getting it ready for use in case that moment came. I was fighting like hell to make sure I did not have to, but damnit, a woman as beautiful as her, right on my couch, probably using our kiss as erotic material…

  “Ah!”

  I heard her come. She tried to stifle it, but the cry was so loud, I would have heard it
from my porch. It was not as subtle as she probably thought it was. Orgasmic release almost never was.

  I supposed the good news of that moment was that I now had an excuse to remain in my bedroom, which was that she had achieved the release she wanted, and I had no role to fulfill. Yes, I knew women could orgasm in rapid succession, and yes, I knew that physically speaking, there was nothing preventing us from having sex right then. But I was happy to latch on to any excuse I could get to avoid making things more complicated than they already were.

  But as I went to bed, I knew that just because I had released myself of the temptation to go out there and do more did not mean that I had released myself from my sexual libido. I tried to sleep, tried different positions, tried various things, but I kept going back to that pleasured gasp, that heavy breathing, that kiss... I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  Finally, probably a good hour after she had achieved orgasm, I bit the bullet. I went to the bathroom, stepped into the shower stall, grabbed some lube, and touched myself as she had.

  It took me all of about thirty seconds to finish. That was how aroused Lilly Sartor had made me.

  One Week Later

  Somehow, through a fortuitous combination of going to both the Gray and Black Reapers’ clubhouses, avoiding physical touch, and keeping conversation to a minimum, neither Lilly or I had so much as hugged the other, let alone erotically touched and been more intimate.

  But there were unavoidable signs that there was only so long we could keep up this little distanced dance of ours.

  First, that night where she touched herself was not the last. In fact, she wound up getting more and more daring, perhaps without even realizing it. At least twice, I could hear her saying my name as she touched herself. It felt so naughty to be listening in to whatever she was doing, but it was like the apple in the Garden of Eden—I could not resist it.

  Second, we were like magnets that drew together very slowly; it took more effort for us to stay apart, and if we didn’t pay attention, we could suddenly find ourselves sitting mere inches away from each other on the couch.

  And finally, perhaps the most obvious sign was the fact that, well, it was even possible to have signs in the first place.

  Lilly’s stay was never meant to be a long-term or even a medium-term thing. It was meant to provide her safety from the watchful eyes of Lucius, like hiding her from Big Brother—except now, it was Big Father—until she had a plan. And once she had that plan, she’d be on a train or a plane somewhere far away, never to be seen again by me or anyone else in this town.

  Seven days later, I wasn’t even sure if she had looked up any train tickets.

  And what was equally “bad” was that I made no effort to push her out the door. I think maybe on the third day, I’d made a comment about how there were many places she could go that were cheap, but it never went beyond that. I let her stay as much as she chose to stay, and both sides of that deal indicated something that needed to be fulfilled first.

  So, yeah, it seemed like there would soon come a point where me listening to her and then me going to the shower were going to end, and it was going to be replaced by me walking in on her.

  But at least for this morning, one in which I would have a legit reason to be away because of a club meeting, I had gotten by with a quick jerk-off in the shower. I made myself breakfast while Lilly watched television, keeping our conversation light, surface-level, and distanced. I sort of missed that comfort and that satisfaction of having serious, vulnerable conversations with her, but there was just too much at risk.

  When I arrived at the Black Reapers’ clubhouse, the location of choice for our church meeting this go-around, I made a beeline straight for the private meeting room. I always tried to keep my presence to a minimum now, always sure that the longer I stayed here, the more likely it would be something would get revealed.

  Lane was sitting there inside. I patted him on the shoulder, and he nodded up at me, giving me a quick “sup” as I sat down next to him. I said, “Not much,” and that was the end of that. Lane and I were improving, but that didn’t mean every conversation had to be deep and heavy. Slowly, the rest of the club officers started to filter in.

  “Is this everyone?” Lane said. “All right, let’s get rolling. So, something has happened since the last time we met. We got a report that two Fallen Saints went to Tom’s Billiards in Ashton and confronted Cole and Phoenix.”

  What the fuck.

  What the actual fuck?

  I glared at Phoenix, but he refused to look at me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Nothing had happened that day. The two Saints had talked shit to us, smashed a glass, and then gone on their way. Nothing more had happened, and no real fallout had come as a result. What the…

  Phoenix wouldn’t have told Lane. Phoenix may have forgiven Lane for what he and the rest of this club did to his father, but that didn’t mean he trusted him more than me. But... Butch…

  He and Butch had tried hard to make amends. Maybe he’d said something to Butch, and Butch, dutiful as he was, had reported the incident to Lane.

  “Cole, Phoenix. Do you two know why they came?”

  Oh, sweet fucking Lord. I was going to be under the gun in front of our own clubs. Just because he wasn’t trying to be a dick to me any longer didn’t mean that there weren’t some difficult moments.

  “Why would I know?” I said, trying my best not to sound confrontational. “If I knew how the Fallen Saints operated, I’d do something about it. They probably know now that the Gray Reapers are in Ashton, and so they decided to try and confront us. I think they got the idea, though, that doing so in broad daylight was a bad idea.”

  “And it’s not like that bar operates like Brewskis did,” Phoenix added. “It’s not a late-night dump. It’s a community spot. I’ve met the owner; he’s a great guy. It’s not a place that only the degenerates of society go.”

  Lane looked at us with something resembling friendly doubt, like he thought we were full of shit but didn’t want to make a scene of it in the meeting.

  “I see,” Lane said. “And they didn’t say anything to you revealing why they’d come?”

  I shook my head.

  “You know how it is. Called me a midget. Said some things to Jess. They didn’t say anything to Phoenix, but they knew he was there. Never did they think they’d get a clean kill off.”

  Nor did they ever know Lilly was there. And neither will anyone else in this room if we can help it.

  “OK,” Lane said.

  He said nothing more, which told me he had so much more to say. He changed the subject to a discussion about bringing in the DA’s office through Angela to apply some political pressure on the Fallen Saints, the better to recreate the feeling of a war on all fronts, but that never got far; there was an understanding that when the government got involved, it didn’t discriminate as to which bikers were safe and which ones wound up in jail, especially if anyone above the local level got dragged in.

  Lane ended the meeting a short while later, but he did so looking at me. I knew there was no point in even pretending to think I could go. Lane was not going to be as merciful as he was the last time he’d talked to me after our meeting.

  And frankly, in his shoes, I probably wouldn’t be either. There was just too much history between us for this to feel like a safe space for arguing, though.

  “Cole, I don’t want to be a dick, but I know you’re hiding something.”

  Well, here we go. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, but history suggested that the second Lane’s accusations came, my defenses would rise, and neither of us would listen to the other.

  “I want to believe what you said last week was true. But this is the second meeting in a row that you’ve hemmed and hawed your way through a conversation. Forgive me, but what the fuck is going on?”

  This was, I recognized, an enormously critical moment.

  It was a moment in which I would decide where I put my loyalties. Would I pu
t them with my brother, the man who had tormented me and been a fucking nightmare up until the last few weeks? The man whom, even if I was not sure I would ever have a truly loving relationship with, I needed to help in this battle?

  Or would I put them in a woman I had met barely a week ago, a woman that could be the key to defeating the Saints... but a woman who represented something that I had never before had—a woman that would stick around in my life for the long run?

  In short, would logic or my psychological needs win out?

  “Cole?”

  If I betrayed his trust, all for a woman... and that woman just wound up moving to New York or New Mexico in the next few days... everything derisive and derogatory that Lane had ever said about me? Completely justified.

  And yet, I couldn’t pretend that those psychological scars weren’t real. I couldn’t act like I wasn’t affected by everything that had happened. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t have that need to not have a woman die because of me or leave because of me.

  “Cole, man, the fuck—”

  “Lane,” I said with a sigh. “I…”

  “What?”

  “I saw Lilly the night we all went to Lucius.”

  “His daughter?”

  I nodded. I felt saying her name would free me.

  But actually, I felt trapped. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want Lane to equate her with the Fallen Saints. She was related by blood, but nothing more. She didn’t deserve to be entangled in this.

  “I told you last week I was frustrated because I didn’t see Lucius, but I saw Lilly. I... I pried her for more info. Well, I couldn’t get anything out of her. Not because she was hiding it, but because she didn’t know. But she was trying to run away from her father. I helped her; I took her to Ashton. But other than that... I haven’t done anything with her. So the Saints were probably looking for her in Ashton.”

  Lies. Lies. Lies.

  Everything Lane said about you is right.

  You’re so desperate and fearful of losing a woman that you’ll protect one who’s known you for a week.