by Chloe Cox
“I love you more.”
It was a one-up game they played when Lizzie got home from school or Bette got home from work. Lizzie had the next move. She was supposed to take a big step back, put her hands on her hips and defiantly declare, “Nuh-uh!”
But she didn’t. Instead, she pressed her face harder into Bette’s stomach and cinched her arms up tighter. Bette looked up to where Mrs. Palmer stood on the porch. The older woman was frowning slightly. Bette’s stomach clenched up into a hard knot.
“I got you something, baby girl.” She lowered her gaze to Lizzie’s and tugged her sister’s messy ponytail. “Do you want to see what it is?”
Lizzie nodded but didn’t lift her head.
“I have iced tea,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Why don’t you girls come on in where it’s cool?”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
Lizzie still wasn’t moving so Bette walked the both of them to the porch. Lizzie finally let go at the bottom of the stairs.
“Do you want to see what I made at school this week? I made it for you.”
“Um, yeah? Of course I want to see it. Go get it before I pee myself from excitement.”
Lizzie turned away and headed inside so fast, Bette didn’t get a good look at her face, but it was hard to miss the red flush across Lizzie’s freckled nose and cheeks. While she ran upstairs, Bette turned to Mrs. Palmer.
“Did something happen?” she asked. “Mark again?”
“No, nothing like that. She just…well, I think the adventure’s wearing thin and life is becoming too normal here,” Mrs. Palmer said carefully. She sighed, and her eyebrows came together in that universal expression of pitying concern that no one ever wants to see. “Lizzie doesn’t want that here. She wants it with you.”
Bette squeezed her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms with enough pressure to sting. Mrs. Palmer didn’t notice, but she did lead Bette away from the stairs with a silent head nod.
“She’s homesick,” Mrs. Palmer said. “She has bad dreams sometimes, that you don’t want her back and she never gets to go home.”
And those words were the sucker punch. Bette closed her eyes as heat spread across the bridge of her own nose, a precursor to tears that she and Lizzie shared. She inhaled sharply against the sting behind her eyes, but it wasn’t enough. Lizzie’s quick feet pelted the stairs and she bounced into the kitchen.
Lizzie took one look at Bette’s face and stopped. “Bette? Are you okay?”
Well, that was one question Bette never wanted Lizzie to have to think about. Only one of them was the parent here, and it wasn’t the bright little ball of light looking at her like she was worried.
“I’m good, baby,” Bette said, and smiled. “Is that what you made for me?”
Sinking to the floor right there in the middle of the kitchen, Bette pulled Lizzie onto her lap and squeezed her so fiercely, Lizzie let out a laughing cry of protest.
“Let go! You’re crushing the breath out of me,” Lizzie giggled.
“Nope. Never!”
Bette was joking, but also kind of not. She was never letting this kid go. After a bout of deflective tickling, they collapsed breathlessly on Mrs. Palmer’s spotless floor. Lizzie showed Bette her school project, which turned out to be an art journal filled with drawings centered around the theme of family.
Bette wanted to laugh. C’mon, Lizzie, let up, you want me to start bawling right here? Her drawings featured Lizzie and Bette and a dog—so that was subtle, they’d be getting a dog eventually—and the Palmers in a house next door, all of them looking pretty happy while a bright-yellow sun shined down from a bright-blue sky.
After that, things were kind of a blur. A happy blur, though. That was the thing—whenever she spent time with Lizzie, it all went too fast. It was alternately amazing and terrifying, not knowing if she was doing it right, not knowing how to answer a child’s tough questions about life, but it was terrifying because Lizzie filled Bette’s heart with so much love that Bette almost didn’t know what to do with all of it. She hadn’t known it was possible to love like this.
So Bette stayed for dinner, and then she got to put Lizzie to bed, reading to her like it was just the two of them back in Bette’s apartment, Lizzie fighting back sleep because she wanted to cuddle up a little bit longer.
“Hey kiddo,” Bette said, softly. “I know you’re a little scared sometimes, staying with the Palmers.”
“They’re nice,” Lizzie said. But she did look scared. Like the fear had come to the surface. Bette wanted to take it away forever.
“They’re awesome,” Bette agreed. “But I’m working on making it so you can come home soon. I went and talked to a new lawyer today, and I’m going to go talk to a judge, and anyone else I have to. Because you are my little one, and I want you home where you belong, with me. You’re my family, Lizzie, and I love you more than anything else in the whole world. No one is more important to me than you. Ok?”
Silently, Lizzie nodded. But her body relaxed, and she sighed. Then she looked up, eyes bright.
“Can we still visit the Palmers once I come home?”
“Every week, if you want,” Bette said.
“And our dog and their dog will be friends?”
Bette laughed. Man, her little sister was good. “We’ll talk about it,” she said.
Lizzie grinned, knowing she almost got away with it. And then it was just one more story, and Lizzie was out like a light, sleeping peacefully.
And Bette was a mess of emotions. She thanked the Palmers—profusely—and made them promise to call her immediately if Lizzie had any more bad dreams. Then she went and sat in her car and cried for what felt like forever.
Not all bad, either. Some of them were happy tears. She loved that little girl so much. And she was going to get her home, come hell or high water. She was going to find a way to square this impossible circle, no matter what. She had to.
And she almost had herself convinced that she could do it when her phone chirped. Bette grabbed for it, thinking there would only be one person who would text her this late. She didn’t know what she was going to say to Cole, but good Lord, was she excited to hear from him.
It wasn’t Cole.
It wasn’t Cole at all.
“Where the fuck have you been, Barbie? And where the fuck is what I asked for?”
Faulkner. Bob Faulkner. Had her cell number from her records. And he hadn’t somehow forgotten about her. His price for a recommendation about Lizzie’s custody was still the same. Cole’s head on a platter.
Suddenly the bind was real again, and Bette’s shaky confidence evaporated. The heavy New Orleans air got heavier, and the darkness collapsed inwards. She had to move.
Bette started driving. Just driving, mindlessly, her body on automatic, her heart on fire.
It wasn’t until she was there that she realized where she was going.
It wasn’t until she was knocking on his door that she realized there was nowhere else she would want to be.
“Bette,” Cole said, opening the door. He was wearing just a pair of old sweatpants, the light from the porch playing with the deep shadows of the muscles in his torso. God, his body. He was so strong, and so powerful, and just so…
“What’s wrong?”
Bette looked up, helplessly. She didn’t know how to tell him. She didn’t know how to do any of this.
But he did.
Wordlessly, Cole reached out and took her hand. He pulled her into the house, and into his arms.
25
Cole knew who it was as soon as he heard her steps on the porch. And he knew something was wrong.
He’d opened that door braced for the worst. That whoever she was running from had found her. That his worst suspicions were true. That she’d been hurt, and he hadn’t fucking been there, because he’d given her a long lead.
Instead, he found his sub quivering on his doorstep, tears in her eyes. Not hurt. But scared. Vulnerable. The raw, naked vul
nerability of a human being, standing on his goddamn doorstep, unable to even say what was wrong.
Instinct. Pure instinct. Cole grabbed her hand, and pulled her inside. She fell into his arms, the tears breaking over his chest as she buried her face there. He heard her inhale, watched the shuddering of her shoulders. Felt her hands on his abs, reaching lower, her fingers scrabbling at the drawstring of his Quantico sweats.
That was not how this was going to go.
He grabbed her hands, kicked the door closed behind her, and pinned her against it.
And then he got a long, long look.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Not just physically, though Jesus Christ. Her eyes were hazel in this light, her hair golden more than blonde. Her lips full, her eyes big, her cheeks flushed. But more than that. She was open. Hiding nothing. And looking to him for what she needed next.
In theory he could make her talk. Make her tell him exactly what had happened. If someone had asked Cole not five minutes before Bette showed up how he would handle a distressed sub on his doorstep, that’s what he would have said. Get her talking, find out what happened, then figure out what she needed and how to deal with it.
But Bette would freeze up, shut down, if he did that. So he didn’t. Slowly, while watching her eyes, Cole took her wrists and pinned them up above her head, holding them there with his one hand.
He watched her sigh, another level of tension melting away.
A growl arose in his throat. Watching her slide into subspace, he was moving into topspace. But different, this time. Felt different. Felt raw. Felt feral.
Cole held on, just a little bit longer. For her.
He held her eyes as he ran his thumb down the side of her cheek, resting his free hand on her throat. Just a little pressure. Felt the moan in her throat before he heard it, his cock thickening in response.
She was already beyond words. She’d been beyond words before she came here. And he was moving there quick. She didn’t need a Dom; she needed him. She needed animal dominance, safety, release. Whatever the fuck was happening, it was new, all over again. Each time it was newer, deeper. Cole felt something big and primal stir inside him, saw it answered in her.
He moved his hand to her jaw, held her there, and kissed her.
Devoured her.
Christ the way she tasted. The way she melted under him, yielding. The way she moaned into his mouth.
When he pulled away, her eyes were glassy, her lips wet. A growl rumbling in his throat, Cole ran his hand down her neck, over her breasts, down to the bottom of her t-shirt. He pulled it over her head, unclasped the bra, his hands moving faster and faster, not waiting for her. This was his. She was his.
He would have her.
His hands on the button of her jean shorts, then inside the waist of her underwear, pushing them down, stripping her until she stood bare naked in front of him, the wetness glistening on her thighs.
For a second, he looked at her, wanting to see what was his. Making sure she knew.
“Cole,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Please. I need you.”
And he broke.
Bette hadn’t known how to ask for what she needed. She hadn’t even known what she needed, until she saw Cole’s face hovering right over hers, while he held her there, against the door, naked. Hovering right over the edge of the same cliff.
And then she’d said it, and he was moving.
He’d thrown her over his shoulder like a ragdoll, like he couldn’t wait another second. Her hands spread down his back, feeling the muscles move under his warm skin, feeling all that power underneath her. By the time he threw her down on his bed she was breathing fast and hard.
His bed.
Yes. That was where she belonged. The look on his face confirmed it.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at her for another long moment, nestled on the covers that smelled of him, and spread her legs in front of him.
The growl in his chest fucking undid her.
“Please,” she said again. It was the only goddamn word she knew anymore. “Please.”
A shudder rippled up from his flexing thighs, through his core, to his shoulders. She stared in wonder as his stoic features hollowed, his eyes went stormy right before his spiky lashes hid them. She was still staring at his face when he grabbed the backs of her knees and hauled her ass up his legs so she was sprawled beneath him, her breasts falling towards her chin, her hands looking for purchase.
With one hand, he freed his cock. She almost missed his cock fall into view because he pushed his other hand between her legs, covered her pussy and spread her wetness all over, up to her belly button, down her inner thighs, painting her in lewd strokes that ended with his long fingers buried deep. So much deeper than anybody else had ever touched her. With his free hand he reached forward and pinned her wrists again, and her body arched itself toward him all on its own.
God, she couldn’t wait any longer. Could barely function. Could barely breathe.
Cole swirled his fingers inside her, tearing another moan from her as the pressure inside her spiraled even higher, and then removed them, lubing his rigid, swollen cock with her wetness. Bette threw her head back, her whole body shivering with tension, with anticipation.
He let her hands go, only to grab her by the hair and force her to look at him.
And then he plunged into her with one deep, hard stroke.
Bette cried out, his cock stretching her to the point of pain that melted into pleasure. Cole held her underneath him, his eyes dark and open, like portals to something she hadn’t seen before, with just a moment of stillness. Of rightness.
He’d taken her, and it was as things were meant to be, and everything else fell away.
A fevered orgasm built quickly as he began to move inside her, deep, hard strokes that left no room for anything else. She had already come screaming by the time he fell on top of her, his hips driving into her, his teeth on her neck.
It all went white.
Who knew how long it was before they were done. Cole had flipped her over after the third time she’d come screaming, holding her down by the neck as he fucked her from behind, going deeper and deeper with every stroke, until with a roar he came and collapsed on top of her, the two of them a tangle of hot, sweaty limbs amid a haze of sex.
Bette was smiling into the pillows as Cole turned her over and pulled her into his arms. Her body felt impossible light, and somehow fuzzy around the edges, as though she were melting into the air around her.
She was…content. And safe.
She’d never felt so safe as she did in Cole’s arms, her head on his chest, her heart listening to his. Like somehow everything would be ok. She didn’t know how…but she knew it would be.
Without thinking about it, she nuzzled the dark hairs on his chest before kissing him, lightly, the salt of his sweat sweet on her lips.
This had been exactly what she’d needed.
And then, as if he could fucking read her mind, Cole reminded her she wasn’t done.
“You’re going to talk in the morning, Bette,” he said, the words rumbling deep in his chest. He threaded his hand through her hair, and without being told, Bette looked up into those eyes.
“You will tell me what’s wrong,” he went on, his voice deep but gentle. “All of it. But right now, you need to sleep. So that’s what you’ll do. Understood?”
Bette waited for the fear to rise in her, that familiar feeling of being trapped with no way out, but it never came. She was in Cole’s arms, and she was safe, and he’d given her an order. And he was right.
It was just a relief.
So she nodded, smiling. She kissed his chest again. And then she must have passed out almost immediately, because when she woke up again it was dark, with only the semblance of light beginning to seep in through the window.
Dawn.
She’d slept right through the night. Bette couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. There was always something to wake h
er up in the middle of the night, and keep her awake for at least an hour of worrying and fretting—Lizzie, Mark, Bob Faulkner.
She was only awake now because she had to pee again like a…like someone who had to pee a lot.
Carefully, slowly, she unwound herself from around Cole’s sleeping body, not wanting to wake him, and swung her legs off the bed. She paused there, wanting to get another look at him in the dull light. His massive chest rose and fell with the slow, sure rhythm that had calmed her all night long, and even in that light, you could see how strong he was. Bette exhaled, shaking her head slightly. She couldn’t believe he was real.
She knew almost nothing about him, but she knew Spencer Cole was the best man she’d ever known. Which was crazy. And yet it was true.
Smiling to herself, happy to be a little bit crazy for once, she tip toed out of his bedroom and into total darkness. His bedroom windows must face east, which meant everything else was dark.
It was stupid, but the darkness, and not remembering exactly where the bathroom was, brought back her uncertainty. Bette had definitely fallen for Cole, there was no doubt. She knew that because she thought about the order he’d given her, right before he told her to sleep — “You will tell me” — and she wanted to do it.
And now she was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t completely bonkers.
Bette felt along the hallway wall for a light switch, her bare feet padding on the hardwood. There was a little voice in the back of her head, a voice she kind of wished would shut the hell up, a voice that got louder in the dark. It was the voice that reminded her that the last time she’d thought something was too good to be true, she’d been horribly, tragically right.
That had been Mark.
But she’d known, with Mark. She’d known something was off, she’d seen signs. She’d just ignored them because she hadn’t wanted to believe it. And as long as she didn’t ignore big, obvious glaring signs anymore, that voice could go to hell. Just because you were right once doesn’t mean you’re always right, she told it.
Good Lord, where is the bathroom?
