by Liz Meldon
“Industry standard, I know,” his CFO muttered, and Cole disconnected the line with a quick tap, tap, tap around the custom built-in screen. Feeling his palms starting to sweat, he parked the car on the far side of the driveway near the path down to the beach, needing a bit of a buffer between himself and Skye—if only to get his panic under control.
She looked upset. Angry, more like. Cole would probably only need one guess as to what had her in a tizzy, but he’d rather her come right out and say it.
God, she was beautiful, even when she was angry. He’d always thought so, from the second he saw her picture on that dreadful sugar daddy website all those years ago, right up until now. Stunning in every sense of the word. He wasn’t sure what he’d done in a past life to have her feature so prominently in this one, but he must have been some kind of saint or something.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart, he popped his sunglasses on his head, cut the car engine, and hurried out. By the time he closed the door, Skye was about five feet from him.
Do not leer at her. No matter what kinds of wonderful things that skirt does for her hips, do. not. leer.
“Skye,” he said as he slid his clammy hands into his pockets. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
Cole did his best to sound calm, cool, and collected, but he hadn’t felt any of those things since the night of Finn’s sex party. There had always been a much-needed, much-cherished sense of comfort between him and Skye; it was something Cole found himself craving whenever they were apart, sometimes longing for it so desperately it physically hurt. However, ever since that night, and all the fuckery he’d wrought upon their relationship after, the comfort was gone. Something had shifted between them. Something had changed.
Change was good. People said it all the time. But change was hard, and Cole had never been very good at it. Not as a highly anxious, socially inept child, and not now, as a less anxious, still somewhat socially inept man who had learned to fake his confidence when necessary.
Things had always been easy with her. His best friend. The woman he felt most at ease with, no matter the situation. She bolstered his confidence—she made him brave, even if she didn’t know it. All the racing thoughts, the fears, the stress, it all disappeared when they were together. Skye Summers and writing his own code: two of the best forms of anxiety medication he’d ever known, besides his actual medication. Now, however, it seemed every little thing he did in an effort to repair his previous fuck-ups just made the distance between them even greater.
Being so close to her in that moment, not able to touch her, to smile at her as he once did, made his stomach knot so tightly that he almost doubled over.
“Stop,” she said, raising a hand to silence him, a fury burning in those hazel eyes he’d never seen before. “Just answer honestly.”
“Always.” The word slipped out before he could stop it. Cole mentally kicked himself when her gaze narrowed.
“Did you, or did you not, force Quintin Cocksman to give me a job?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say force—”
“Cole!”
She’d yelled at him. Skye had never yelled at him before. Cole stared at her for a moment, from the red in her cheeks to the fire in her eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a snide little voice commented that in all their history, Skye had been his sugar baby. She owed her university degree, her home, and her financial standing to him. Perhaps that had kept her from ever yelling before. He raised his chin, unsure if that theory had any validity, and squared his shoulders.
“I didn’t force anyone to do anything,” he told her—and that was the truth. Yes, he had heavily suggested that Quintin Cocksman, a pompous asshole who had spent the whole fundraiser they were at sneering rude things about the wait staff, offer Skye a position worthy of her within his vast museum empire. “I spoke with Cocksman about you and your hard work and expressed what a good fit you would be in his organization. Skye…” He took a soft breath, noting the way one of her hands had uncurled. “The job you have now is beneath you. You are capable of so much more, and I was just trying to—”
“I like my job!” She threw her hands in the air and started pacing. “Is it everything I could have hoped for and more? No, but it’s mine.”
His anxiety retreated into the recesses of his person, allowing the frustration he’d been feeling for her to come to the forefront. “Skye, you are more intelligent, more capable, and certainly more qualified than selling tickets.”
“That might be your opinion—”
“It’s fact.”
“But it’s not your decision to make!” She rounded back on him, angrily brushing her loose red waves from her face. “It’s my life. It’s my job, my career, and I got it on my own. You had no right to meddle like that. We’re not even…” The colour drained from her face, and she crossed her arms, her gaze lifting skyward. “Cole, we’re not together anymore. You don’t get to have a hand in how I manage my career. The choice to be there is mine. I earned it.”
He opened his mouth, ready and able to counter with a few thoughts of his own, but thought better of it. Head bowed, he stared at the stone pattern of his driveway, suddenly feeling rather foolish—not an uncommon thing these days.
Because she was right. Skye had done the work to acquire her degree. He had seen her during various exam seasons. Hell, he had cooked her meals and hired a maid service to clean her apartment for a whole month one year because she was so stressed with everything. He had even cancelled work duties to help her, paying for it the following month by working night and day to make up for his absence. And now here she was, finding her way in the world, and he thought he had a right to steer her in the direction of his choosing.
“Skye… I’m sorry.”
She was also right in that they weren’t together anymore. Nothing had stung more than when the sugar daddy agency informed him that Skye had gracefully exited their contract.
He knew he had to fight for her—actually fight for her. In the past, circumstance had always brought them back together. Now that they were both free agents, Cole needed to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. Metaphorically, of course. Dirty with feelings and messy emotions he’d tried to avoid for years, worried about what said feelings and emotions might do to their safe, easy relationship.
“I should have considered that there is merit in starting from the bottom,” Cole admitted quietly in the silence that followed his apology. “I… I thought you were settling. I thought that by taking another position, you’d have a chance to excel, not realizing you were already doing it on your own. It was, well, rather…”
“Presumptuous of you?” she offered, head tilted slightly to one side. While the fire was gone from her eyes, her entire being looked stiff. Tense. “Yes, it was. You had no right to do what you did. I’m not qualified for the job you told him to give me. I wouldn’t have done well there.”
He scoffed. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually,” she snapped, her curtness forcing him to look up. “It might come as a surprise to you, but I know a little something about my industry. And maybe I’m a bit overqualified for this job, but I wasn’t ready for anything else. I had no experience. I want to learn it all, and you don’t get to take that away from me by using your influence to hoist me to the top of the ladder. That’s not fair.”
Cole blinked rapidly, his brain briefly short-circuiting before a quick reboot showed him exactly where he had made a mistake. A huge one. It was a wonder she bothered to come down here at all.
You fucking twat.
“I didn’t think about it like that,” he said, “and I should have.”
When he had, admittedly, bullied that pretentious ass into offering Skye a job, Cole had thought he was doing something that would skyrocket her into a job she loved. Even if his and Finn’s plan failed and he was never able to hold her again, if she could never know just how much he loved her, then Cole wanted Skye to at least be ha
ppy. He didn’t want to see all that hard work and sacrifice go to waste while she hawked tickets at a sex museum forty hours a week.
But she was right, of course. It hadn’t been his call to make. Skye needed to learn the ups and downs of her industry. She needed to put in the hard work. She needed to fall on her face and she needed to soar through the ranks respectively. No one could do it for her, least of all Cole.
“Again,” he said, swallowing down the hard lump in his throat, “I’m sorry. Sincerely.”
He expected her to stomp off and call a cab, but she just stood there, her eyes misty and her cheeks flushed. When she caught him staring, she turned her head away, biting down on a wobbly lower lip and sniffling. Trying to read the complicated air between them, Cole flexed his hands in and out of fists, a nervous habit that had once been effective in combating the anxious thoughts. Keep moving. One step ahead of the fear. Seeing her so upset, however, did the trick too. He’d never wanted to make her cry, and seeing it with his own two eyes beat the creeping feelings of inadequacy and terror back. He squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw, brow furrowed.
She needs you to be brave, just this once, you bloody coward.
“Skye, I…” He risked a step forward, but his throat clenched up, choking the words before they could roll off his tongue. Cole swallowed hard, breathing through the tightness of his chest; after all, she hadn’t retreated. That had to mean something. He wrenched his stiff arm away from his side, forcing his fist to open, and ignored the flood of adrenaline coursing through his system. Instead, he concentrated on her, on the tears in her eyes, the heartache on her face—knowing he was the one who’d put it there—and gently cupped her elbow. “I’ve missed you.”
She continued to avoid his gaze, and he moved from her elbow to her hair when the wind dragged a few thick tresses across her face. Before he could sweep them back, Skye caught him, the physical contact sending a shockwave straight to his heart. Rather than throw his hand away, however, she merely held it, her misty hazel eyes darting to meet his gaze. Then, slowly, she threaded her fingers through his, and they lowered their clasped hands between them.
God, he really had missed her. Cole had been trying to ignore just how much he missed her over this last month. Sure, they only ever saw each other in person a few times a year, generally during the busier “social” seasons, but they used to speak at length at least once a week via some device or other. No matter what his mental state, she had always managed to brighten his life—not just his mood, his whole fucking world.
How could he have let her go?
But was he making a mistake now? Taking soft, controlled breaths, he did his best to gauge her reaction, searching for signs in her face to tell him what to do. Let go. Move closer. Say something. Say nothing.
Her grip tightened around his hand. Cole inched closer, wanting nothing more than to bury his nose in her hair and breathe her in. To kiss her into sweet oblivion. But he couldn’t quiet the fear. In that moment, they stood in silence, nothing but the wind and the distant crashing waves to serenade their reunion. However, his head was the loudest it had been in weeks, conflicting voices shouting for him to let her go, to drag her against him, to apologize again and again until he was blue in the face, to stop being such a colossal fucking idiot—
She leaned in and brushed her lips over his—and suddenly, there were just the waves, the wind, and Skye.
Cole had never felt more at peace in his life.
6
Spill Your Guts, Sir
They stumbled through the front door in constant contact, as if the universe would swallow them up should they dare let go. Hands fisted in his shirt, Skye dragged Cole into the mercifully air-conditioned beach house, her eyes ablaze with a different sort of fire, and he found himself fumbling over the jingling keys stuck in the lock. In the end, he left them behind, slamming the door and surrendering to the kiss, to the feel of her hot mouth over his, the tentative sweep of her tongue across his lower lip. A growl escaped him, his arm snapped around her waist, and he dragged her closer, using her gasp to plunder her mouth.
It really was a crime that they hadn’t kissed sooner. Skye had always made him brave, but kissing her—it was like she made him superhuman. Her lips, plump and supple, were made for every kind of kiss: stolen, fleeting, passionate, desperate. Cole had wanted to try all of them for the last four years. Sometimes, he’d find himself staring at those lips while she talked, while she laughed, so hopelessly in love that it frightened him. And it had. The sheer weight of his love for her had startled him from the beginning.
But Skye had needed to focus on school. She didn’t need sex and love to distract her, so Cole had settled instead for a wonderful friendship. If all he could ever have was her friendship, he’d still die a happy man. Yet now that he could touch her again, drag her lithe, toned figure so impossibly close to him again, he knew he couldn’t settle. Not anymore. And from the way she kissed him, sucking at his lower lip, mouth lifted in that stunning sort of smile he had come to worship, Cole wondered if she felt it too. The pull between them. The gravity. He had always thought they fit so perfectly together, whether they were standing before a wall of screaming press at a movie premiere or seated on opposite ends of the couch reading, their toes touching in the middle, they just fit.
Holding her now… It felt like coming home.
Much to his surprise, Skye went for his clothing first, slipping her delicate fingers under the belted waistline of his trousers and tugging. Her intent was clear; even if he couldn’t see the inferno in her eyes, he felt it in the way she moved. Her courage emboldened him, and he felt himself come alive at her touch.
Groaning, he tore his mouth from hers and trailed it along her jaw, relishing her taste, her smell—if he wasn’t mistaken, she was wearing the Chanel perfume he’d bought her last Christmas. A hint of teeth over the edge of her jawline, catching the delicate skin by surprise and making her gasp. Gently, carefully, he raked those teeth down the column of her throat, savoring the way she shuddered, her hands fumbling over his belt briefly before she regained control and yanked it open.
Cole returned the favor by undoing the stylishly loose satin bow at the neckline of her blouse with his teeth, then unceremoniously dragging the garment over her head. Her coppery waves fluttered down around her, the flyaways like a halo. Skye Eloise Summers. A veritable angel in his eyes, tinged with a sultry side that made his knees weak and his cock hard. Suddenly shy, she brushed her hair out of her face, cheeks pink and eyes downcast—but the slight quirk of her lips suggested she wasn’t the doting submissive she appeared to be.
He watched, curious, as she went for his pants again, this time grazing his steadily hardening shaft as she unzipped them and yanked them down. With trembling fingers, she unbuttoned his dress shirt too, her stare wandering the broad expanse of his relatively hairless chest with blatant interest. Cole rolled his shoulders back when she pushed the shirt off, exposing himself, shedding the armor of business attire.
And that was precisely what it had always been to him. He purchased the finest pieces, tailored them to perfection, spared no expense, because he wore them to battle each and every day. They not only protected him from the so-called sharks of his world, but they trapped his fears inside. True and valuable armor. Yet with Skye, they belonged on the floor, forgotten.
With Skye, Cole never needed them.
His eyes flitted down to her skirt briefly, an unspoken request passing between them. Slowly, Skye twisted around and undid the zipper at the back, instantly loosening the waistline. She then pinched the fabric around her hips and slowly, teasingly, wiggled side to side until the skirt was nothing but a puddle of fabric around her feet. A mischievous gleam twinkled in her eye, but as she reached for the now impossible-to-ignore tent in his briefs, Cole caught her wrist and dragged her toward him, holding his captured prize between them.
Molten desire replaced the mischief in those hazel orbs, and he delighted in her soft, shu
ddering breath as their eyes met, his lidded and controlled, hers bright and wide. The tremor in her lip. Her racing pulse. It put him at ease, just as it had the first time they made love, that his brand of fucking didn’t frighten her.
Despite his anxiety, his fears, Cole had always been a bit bossy in bed—but only with the right woman. Years ago, a psychiatrist had deduced that it stemmed from his need to aggressively give affection after years of it being denied to him in his childhood. Being in control was an effective tactic to manage his anxiety too, and the psychiatrist had suggested that this, paired with his obsessive need to ensure other people were comfortable and cared for, led to his sexual preferences.
Cole hadn’t given much thought to the theory. He liked what he liked, but he would never force it on anyone. After all, it took him being extremely comfortable with the woman in question for that side to come out and play. The few one-night stands he’d had over the years had resulted in pretty standard, vanilla sex. With Skye, Cole knew how he wanted to worship her—like a goddess who deserved nothing but pleasure.
Still gripping her wrist, he took a step forward, and she countered with a measured step back. Their little dance carried them across the small foyer, until Skye reached the four steps that led up to the rest of the house. He thought she’d remember, but her heel caught on the first step and down she went—until Cole caught her.
“Oh!” she giggled, one hand braced on his shoulder while the other covered her mouth. Grinning, Cole slowly lowered her to the small tiled staircase, then nudged her hand aside and captured her lips once more. A soft moan caught in her throat, and she arched up to greet him as he slowly eased down to join her. Only he had no intention of sitting on the stairs, taking her right then and there—as much as he might have wanted to. Instead, he lifted her up two more steps, then snagged her panties and dragged them down her legs. Skye watched, transfixed, her lower lip caught between her teeth, until the cotton passed her ankles and disappeared over Cole’s shoulder.
