And this was not casual. Not for me. I knew in the pit of my stomach that if Cole had just slaked whatever lingering thirst he’d had for me, if this was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am eight years in the making, I was going to crumble.
He’d asked me to stay the whole weekend. Did he still want that?
Did I?
I suddenly needed to find my clothes. A speedy getaway might be imminent, and that required clothes.
Cole gave a satisfied sigh that tickled my ear. Half his body was still draped possessively over me. An arm over my chest. A leg bridging my hips. Even through my armor of doubt, it felt nice.
Wonderful, really.
I brought a hand to his bronze, sculpted shoulder that lay across me and let my fingertips slide back and forth over the hills and valleys of his muscles. Even if my fears were valid and I did, indeed, wind up in a million separate pieces after all of this, I wasn’t going to regret tonight.
“Mmmm…” The sound came from deep in his chest, vibrating through mine as it did.
In spite of myself, I smiled. No, I wouldn’t regret knowing this part of him. The memory of him above me… the look of raw and conquered beauty as he came inside me… the way he’d whispered my name a half a dozen times, kissing me as he came down… I’d never forget. These moments would join my trove of Cole memories that kept him as the owner of my heart.
I wouldn’t regret the memories, but I knew I’d pay a heavy price for them.
At that thought, a sigh of my own escaped me. Cole drew back from the hollow of my neck, narrowing his half-lidded eyes. And then he frowned.
“What is it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing,” I croaked.
His left brow rose a fraction. Cole cleared his throat and spoke softly. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
I swallowed. It was the truth. With Mama, lies of omission had often been the best I could manage. Even now.
Cole rolled back just enough to prop his head on his arm and study me. “Wanna tell me what’s wrong?”
What I wanted was to hide from those piercing blue eyes. Since we were lying on top of his bedspread, I didn’t even have a corner of the bedsheet as my ally.
“Not really,” I admitted. My hands drifted up to cover my chest.
Cole’s focus sharpened. “Did I hurt you?” With a look of alarm, he scanned my body, his hand dropping gently to my waist. “I-I… Elise, I’m so sorry. I was too fast. I should have—”
“Cole—” Still covering myself with one arm, I caught his wrist before he could actually check me further for signs of injury. “I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me.” I released him and folded both arms across my chest again.
“You sure?” Concern filled his gaze.
I’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted me. Perhaps more. He’d stirred in me a potent, aching hunger, one he’d expertly fed. But at no moment had it hurt.
Blushing, I whispered. “Very sure.”
A flare of heat seared in his eyes, but he seemed to master it, the concern never leaving him. He gave a slow nod. “But you’re still afraid I will.” His voice was gentle but tinged with regret. “Hurt you, I mean.”
I held my breath. I didn’t want to offend him or hand him any more guilt than he already carried. But he was right.
“Never that way,” I offered.
Cole’s eyes travelled down my length, coming back to my arms still crossed tightly over my chest. He sighed.
“It’s so ironic.”
I blinked. “What is?”
He rolled away from me and sat up, giving me his back. He seemed to be doing up his pants.
For a moment, my heart plunged. Where was he going? Was he about to escort me to the door?
But in the next instant he plucked something from the head of the bed and turned back to me. He held his gray shirt, now more than a little wrinkled and missing its bottom button.
With the shirt in one hand, he took my right wrist in the other. When he tugged at it, I held firm, keeping my arm tight against me. I was trying to stay covered, after all. With a frustrated sigh, he released me.
“It’s ironic,” he said again, gathering his shirt in both hands until he rolled up one of the sleeves. “That I’ve always felt safest with you…” He took the wadded-up armhole and worked it over my uncooperative hand. My arm disappeared in the shelter of his sleeve, and his shirt front draped over my chest. “But you’ve always felt at risk with me.”
Cole slid his hands under my back and lifted me to sitting. And all I could do was gape as he drew the shirt around my shoulders. The garment swallowed me, and I watched in bemused silence as he stuck his hand through the empty left cuff and groped up the hollow sleeve until he snagged my elbow.
I let him move me this time, his hand blindly finding mine under the fabric before drawing it through the cuff.
I mastered my voice when his fingers met at the top button. “You… you felt safe with me?” The words were barely a rasp.
I wanted to touch him now, hold his hands, but they were busy buttoning me into his shirt.
Cole shook his head slowly, his focus never leaving his work. “Not just safe,” he said. “Safest.”
“With me.” It wasn’t a question, but we both heard my disbelief.
Cole raised his chin, leaned forward, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. He settled back. “Elise, I was always safest when I was with you.” His gaze sobered. “And not just because my father would never hit me when you were around — though I was always grateful for that.”
With an ache in my chest, I remembered the first time I’d seen the marks his father had given him. And the second time. And the third. I’d lost count after that.
Cole reached the last surviving button and fastened it before tugging on the bottom of the shirt and smoothing it over me. It was only then I felt its expensive softness and realized I was blanketed in Cole’s clean, male scent.
He put his hand to my cheek, teasing my skin with the gentle glide of his thumb. “I was safest when I was with you because you always had my back. You looked out for me. You protected me. You kept my secrets.” He looked at me with something like awe, a frown playing on his brow. “I never had to pretend with you.”
I swallowed, my heart now pounding almost painfully. I watched him force a grin that didn’t meet his eyes. “Even when we were kids and you hated my guts.”
“I never hated you,” I whispered, suddenly aware of the unwieldy love I’d carried for him since what had to be the beginning of time. The lifelong desire for him to love me back.
At my claim, Cole’s brow lifted in a sardonic arch. I rolled my eyes.
“You drove me crazy, and sometimes I was mad at you, but I always—” I stopped before I could tell him the whole truth. Cole shifted his gaze on me, watching me closely.
“You always what?”
I gulped and then took the coward’s way out. “Cared about you,” I supplied. “Even when you drove me crazy.”
Those crystal blue eyes narrowed on me with a look I didn’t quite recognize. It was like Cole knew a secret. He looked both startled and smug. He threw his legs off the side of the bed.
“C’mon.” He grabbed my hand and tugged.
At his urging, I slid from the mattress. “Where are we going?”
We were halfway across the room before he answered. “To the bathroom, of course.”
A seductive vision of sharing a shower with Cole invaded my mind. “Wh-what are we going to do there?”
Still walking, Cole threw me a bemused glance over his shoulder. “We’re going to brush our teeth and get ready for bed. What else?”
I clamped my mouth shut and shrugged like an idiot. We stepped into his bathroom — a place of gleaming white tile and a cast iron tub — and stopped at the vanity. Pursing his lips, Cole gave me a scrutinizing look.
“Hmm…” he muttered.
“Hmm what?” I asked.
He crossed his arms over his chest and stroked his
chin. It was a great chin. Strong. Virile. It paired beautifully with the smirk he now wore.
“I’m just trying to figure out whether or not you’re a germaphobe.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
Cole reached across the counter and plucked a blue toothbrush from a stainless-steel holder. He wagged it at me. “See? There’s just the one toothbrush. I’m happy to let you use it first, but if the thought of using my toothbrush gives you hives, I’ll just run to the Circle K and get—”
I grabbed it out of his hand. “We’ll share.”
His smile, so wide and unruly, lit up the room. The sight of it torched my cheeks.
I lowered my gaze and moved to the faucet so I didn’t have to face him. I wasn’t the kind of person to share a toothbrush with just anyone. I mean… gross. But this was Cole Whitehurst. My ideal. My touchstone. Besides, we’d just had sex upside down on his bed without a condom.
Without a condom!
The thought blasted through my brain like fireworks. I’d never, never, ever in my life had sex without a condom. In the moment, the notion of needing one hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was on the pill, but that reassurance hadn’t registered either. In fact, very little conscious, responsible thought had occurred to me from the instant his tongue touched my skin to the moment I caught my breath and returned to planet Earth in a post-orgasmic daze.
I rinsed his toothbrush under the tap and topped it with a swipe of toothpaste. As I brushed, Cole leaned a hip against the bathroom counter, watching me with an enigmatic grin.
“Wha…?” I asked around the toothbrush.
Cole shook his head, but his shoulders bobbed with his signature silent laugh. “Just you. Brushing your teeth with my toothbrush, in my bathroom, wearing my shirt…” He nodded with appreciation. “I like it.” He spoke softly, but every time he said my, I felt bolts of heat shoot down my front. And it wasn’t just at the way he said it. It was the look in his eyes, too. A claiming look. A no-turning-back look.
No turning back.
I didn’t want to turn back. God help me. I wanted this to be real. To be my future. I wanted to have faith that I wasn’t about to get my heart broken all over again. But I’d known nothing else. Not from Cole or anyone. My own father — whoever he was — had never bothered to claim me. To know me. Why should I expect anyone else to? Hell, not even Ava thought I was safe. Not only had she warned me that Cole was bound to hurt me somehow, she expected me to be the one to fight for him when he did.
How could I have promised her I would? I wasn’t even sure I had that kind of fight in me. And if I didn’t have it now, how would it suddenly manifest when Cole walked away from me again?
Lost in these unwelcome thoughts, I obsessively rinsed Cole’s toothbrush, scrubbing the head with my thumb. I counted to five. Ten. Fifteen. And then my hands were empty.
I jerked up to see the toothbrush in Cole’s grip and a questioning look on his face. “I… think it’s good,” he said gently. I watched him dab it with toothpaste. “You need to stop freaking out,” he added before popping the brush into his mouth.
“I-I’m not freaking out.”
Scrubbing his teeth with careless vigor, he raised a skeptical brow at me.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I am not freaking out.”
He shrugged silently, brushing away. I scowled at him and waited for him to finish. I was freaking out. Of course, I was freaking out. But arguing about it felt better than admitting the truth.
Bending over and giving me a breathtaking view of his muscled back, Cole rinsed his mouth before washing his hands. He dried them on a plush, white hand towel and turned back to me.
When he did, a little flicker of unreality poked me between the eyes. He was here. Right in front of me. Shirtless in jeans and barefoot. Fresh from ravishing me. It was enough to give me whiplash.
Cole tsked. “You’re freaking out right now.” He shook his head in mock pity. “There’s just one thing to do.”
I blinked. “Wh-what’s that?” If he was going to suggest more sex, I might faint. I was having a hard-enough time accepting the fact we’d done it the once.
His hand closed around mine. “Hold you until you fall asleep.”
Out of all the things he could have said, this gentle, soothing answer was the one I expected the least. And the one I needed the most. My insides turned to melted caramel, and, holding Cole’s hand, I followed him back to the bedroom.
Before climbing into bed, Cole nodded at me, eyeing his shirt. “You want to put on something else? A T-shirt or something?”
I looked down at the beautiful, rumpled dress shirt that swam around me and shook my head shyly. The shirt was soft, massive, and his.
A warm satisfaction seemed to bathe in his eyes. “Good.” Cole moved to his closet, unzipping his jeans as he did.
Turning pink, I glanced away and spotted my neglected undies on the floor. I retrieved them and with as much grace and dignity as I could muster — which turned out not to be all that much — I shimmied into them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cole shed his jeans, and I took the opportunity to unclasp my skirt and let it fall. The hem of his shirt fell to the middle of my thighs, making it the perfect night shirt, but a terrible shyness still had me darting under the covers.
Cole returned to bed in a pair of navy, broadcloth shorts that looked soft and inviting. But as he moved with a lazy, masculine ease back to the bed, I couldn’t think about his shorts. Everything else was bare. And he was stunning. His broad swimmer’s shoulders… his toned and sculpted chest… his lean and muscled legs…
I was glad to be lying down. The only part of me I had to keep under control was my expression. My knees could go as weak as they liked. My breath could stop. And then start again in a haphazard rhythm.
I watched as Cole slid under the covers. The bed shifted with his weight. and then I was in his arms.
It. Felt. Heavenly.
He held me close, our bodies pressed together, my cheek against his chest as we lay on our sides. One of his hands swept long strokes up and down my back. I filled and emptied my lungs, and my body sunk against his.
“That’s better,” he murmured. “That’s the answer.”
I frowned, tilting my head up to face him, a sudden and welcome drowsiness settling over me. “What is?”
One corner of his mouth curved upward, his face relaxed and open. “When you’re freaking out, I just need to pull you in my arms,” he said, shrugging at the simplicity of it. “Preferably in bed.”
The day must have been catching up with me, because as he held me close, and sleep made its stealthy advance, I heard myself mutter, “That’s a really good plan…”
I awoke hours later to a darkened room and an empty bed.
A quick scan of the room revealed no sign of Cole, but one of his French doors stood open, a shaft of moonlight spilling onto the floor. The gentle sound of splashing met my ears. Even though I was still blinking away sleep, I could guess what it was.
The bedside clock showed the hour was half-past two. Why was Cole swimming in the middle of the night?
I slipped out of bed and padded across the floor. One look out the doorway confirmed my guess. Cole was gliding across the length of his lap pool in smooth, measured strokes. With silent steps, I crossed the patio that skirted his house, tense but determined.
Had he not been able to sleep beside me? Did I snore?
Oh, God. I really hope I don’t snore.
Did he wake up, find me in his bed, and wonder what the hell he’d done? I braced myself to confront the worst when I reached the pool’s edge and found a folded towel and Cole’s discarded broadcloth shorts.
My breath caught. And without my permission, my gaze darted to the water. Moonlight danced across its rippling surface, glinting off Cole’s wet-darkened hair, and falling in sluices over his sun-kissed back and the pale globes of his buttocks. Without blinking, I watched as his powerful thighs propelled him to the far end wher
e he executed an underwater flip. He was a third of the way back when he broke the water’s surface for a breath.
I, on the other hand, was completely breathless. I had never seen anything so beautiful. So arresting.
I expected Cole to swim all the way across the length of the pool, gliding just underneath me, but he spread his arms wide and halted right in front of me. He looked up and brushed water out of his eyes.
My God, he was gorgeous.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, a curious, playful smile shaping his mouth.
I shook my head. “I… I don’t know,” I croaked. “I just woke up, and you were gone.”
Remorse tinted his smile. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”
I frowned. “Oh? Because of me?” I was suddenly aware of the uncomfortable beat of my heart. Was this when he would tell me thanks, but he’d made a mistake?
Cole leaned forward in the water and floated up to the ledge. He hooked his elbows onto the cement and tucked his chin over his crossed arms.
“Entirely.” The scorching look he gave me then was nothing short of fiendish, and my heart thumped out of tempo for a completely different reason. “I awoke beside you as hard as a sixteen-year-old boy. I figured this was better than a cold shower.”
My brows climbed toward my hairline and heat licked my cheeks. “Why not just wake me up?”
Cole chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve already attacked you like an animal once tonight. I don’t know what you’d think of me if I lost control again.”
Now I felt a fiendish grin claim my mouth. He’d lost control? I mean, I knew I had, but hearing he’d felt the same abandon was… well… liberating.
Cole reached forward with the index finger of his right hand and grazed it along my ankle. The cool, intimate touch sent a shiver through me.
“Come in with me.” Cole’s voice, low and seductive, moved over me like a caress.
Flutters in my chest and low in my belly had me gulping for breath. “I… don’t have a bathing suit.”
Cole’s arched look had me giggling. Still, it was a nervous giggle. Sure, we’d had sex for the first time a few hours ago, but he still had yet to see me completely naked. And I’d never gone skinny-dipping before.
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