Chapter Sixteen
He pushed her back, not roughly, but with enough authority to catch her breath. Her shoulders aligned with the wooden bedframe, and then he was helping her higher, to her feet. Unsteady on the mattress, she gripped the headboard behind her, striving for balance as he placed her legs apart.
“Don’t move,” he told her, the command making her desperate to obey him. On his knees, he gripped her hips and leaned in, licking her where she was so sensitive. Long, pressured strokes that had her knees shaking.
“Fuck, Kenzie,” he muttered, the curse making her gasp. His hand rose up the inside of her thigh, and then he was filling her again, his knuckles pressing against her cunt with every stroke. She felt worshipped, each touch a declaration of his loyalty. A moan came from her lips, and when his hand moved faster, jabbing into her, she screamed.
She’d never come so hard as she did with him.
It went on and on, searing sensations that battered her body, and when she came aware next she was kneeling, tasting herself on his lips, and then pulled closer against his hard, hot chest.
“Tell me you want this,” he said.
“Now,” she said. “Now, Cole.”
He flipped her over on her stomach on the bed, sliding his hand beneath her stomach to lift her hips. Her hair slid over her cheek, hiding her face. His cock slid down the cleft of her ass, then pressed against her entrance.
She began to shake.
Now, her body screamed.
One heavy hand pressed up her spine, and then he sank into her, filling her halfway, then pulling out. Halfway again. Working her, just the way she liked. Bringing every nerve on edge. His cock was warm inside her. Hard and smooth and so warm.
She said his name. She told him deeper.
He didn’t give it to her.
He kept his shallow thrusts, taking what he wanted, keeping her there on the edge. His grip on her hips stung in a way that heightened each sensation. She tried to press back against him, but he pushed her flat on the bed and spread her legs wide out to the sides, keeping a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the tension in her inner thighs, fighting the stretch, then giving in to it. The cool cover on the bed against her flushed skin.
His hands never left her, circling her back, fanning over her arms, tangling in her hair. He wasn’t as precise as he’d been last night with his glasses on. He was more reckless now. More driven.
“You feel so good,” he muttered.
He sunk deep.
The air was smashed from her lungs. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t fuck him the way she wanted. She was powerless to do anything but take. His body came over hers, pressing her farther into the mattress. He kissed her neck and bit her shoulder and circled his hips, striking every nerve. And just when she thought the pleasure would tear her in half he drew back and speared into her. Again and again, grunting with the effort.
It felt like leaping. Like reaching for a cliff, just beyond reach, and then missing it. Caught from falling by the strength of his arms. Never was she this out of control.
But this. This was exactly right.
The pleasure was blinding. It was intoxicating. She screamed into the pillow. Her hands fisted the mattress. It was the most she could move.
Muttered words broke from his lips. Sweet and perfect and soft.
He loved her body.
He loved her.
She could feel it in the way he held her, too tightly. And the way he pressed his forehead to her shoulder when he was close. In the way her own heart felt like it was breaking.
It was too much to feel all at once. Too much when she was right there, chasing, chasing, and then caught by the storm.
Her scream warped into a moan. Her muscles flexed against him. He stayed deep, helping her ride it out, and pumping his hips in deep, sharp thrusts that brought another wave of pleasure on the heels of the last.
And then he was coming. She could feel it inside her. Hot and liquid. The rigidness of his cock, and his pelvis against her ass.
He was coming. And as her head began to clear she realized she’d felt it. Everything. Because there had been nothing—no protection—between them.
He grew still. She didn’t move.
Slowly, he pulled away, turned her. Kissed her forehead. He was shaking. She was, too. His hair was stuck all different directions. His chest was wet with sweat. His abs clenched with every hard breath.
She was a step behind, unable to decipher her thoughts or feelings. Knowing all of it was right on her heels, a wave, ten stories high, threatening to drag her under.
She was afraid to move.
He placed a tentative hand on her cheek.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t . . .” he began.
“I know.” Her voice was raw.
She didn’t want to talk about that. She didn’t know what she wanted. Out of nowhere, an overwhelming sense of homesickness filled her. She wished she was in Ambrose, on her own turf. Surrounded by her own things. This hotel was beautiful. This man, beautiful. But they weren’t hers. Not really.
She pulled back, just an inch, but enough.
“I was . . . tested after Candi.” He cringed.
“Cole.” She laughed dryly. “You would have told me if there’d been a problem.”
He bit his top lip. His hand didn’t move on her cheek.
“You’re on birth control,” he said.
“Yup.” Stung, she sat up. Moved to the opposite side of the bed. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
She could feel his stare on her back.
“Worry about what?” There was an edge to his voice, matching hers.
Over her shoulder, she tossed him a narrowed look.
“I’m not worried about that,” he said with a scoff. “I mean, it’s not ideal. But a kid . . . with you . . .” His voice had softened. “It doesn’t scare me.”
She snatched her panties off the floor and her jeans off the chair beside the bed, anger boiling inside her. “Well that’s great news, Cole.”
The rustle of the covers behind her said that he’d gotten off the bed. He’d found his glasses and jerked his pants back on before she’d made it to the bathroom to turn on the shower. It wasn’t enough; she wished he’d put his shirt back on. It was hard to think with his chest out on display. His rounded pecs and rippled abs. His skin, which had been hot and smooth beneath her hands.
His heart, pounding against her back, just minutes before.
She looked away, toward the spray of water circling the drain.
“It does scare you,” he said. “Okay. Okay, all I meant is that we could make something like that work.”
“Something like a child? Is that what you mean?” She threw her hands in the air. “How exactly? We send him to fugitive school? Move him around every week like Cassie and Jake? Or maybe we make it out of this and then what? We just stick him on a plane every other week and send him across the country?” She laughed, but nothing about this was funny. “I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. Yes, I’m on the pill. End of conversation.”
At least she had been on the pill before she left Ambrose. She hadn’t had a chance to pack a toiletries kit when they were running for their lives.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.
She got into the shower, wishing the spray would hurry up and carry away the slickness between her thighs.
He followed her inside, stopping beside the sink.
“I wasn’t thinking,” he said finally. “I got caught up.”
“Well there’s a first.” She sighed, rubbing at her breastbone with the heel of her hand. It didn’t ease the tightness behind it.
“A lot of this is new for me,” he admitted, and when she pulled back the white curtain separating them she was surprised to find his hands stuffed in his pockets, and his shoulders bowed forward. “It’s not an excuse. I should’ve asked what you wanted.” He exhaled. “I’m good at following rules, but I don’t really know what they are here.”
The tension spread across her chest. She’d blown up at him, for reasons he couldn’t possibly understand. Secrets she’d buried a long time ago were now coming back, and it worried her that he’d snuck past her defenses and found a way to dig them up.
I’m good at following rules, but I don’t really know what they are here.
“This is new for me, too,” she said. “I think we’re in uncharted territory. Maybe we can just figure out the rules as we go.”
He gave her a shy, apologetic smile. “Sounds good.”
She sighed. “How’d you get to be such a gentleman?”
He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his bare chest. “My sister, I guess.”
“Cassie?”
He nodded. “She always kept me on the right track. I fell off it a few times, but she got me back on. My dad left most of our upbringing to her after our mom left.”
She couldn’t imagine growing up without her grandparents.
“What about Elaina?”
He scratched the side of his head. “Elaina was crazy, even as a kid. Marsi wanted me to play dolls with her. Elaina made me to teach her how to skateboard.”
Memories of Garrett, letting her win bike races down their road, brought a soft smile to Kenzie’s lips.
“She could talk her way out of anything. She wanted this dog once—a purebred Great Dane she’d seen in the newspaper. It was something like eight hundred dollars, and Dad had told her, ‘You think money grows on trees?’ So she stole fifty dollars from his wallet and buried it in the backyard.”
“To grow a money tree,” Kenzie said. She washed herself off with soap. It struck her that this was such an easy thing—showering while they talked. It was something she could see them doing anytime, anywhere. Every day.
It wasn’t hard to imagine spending every day with him.
Cole’s head tilted back against the wall. “He would have killed me for that, but she got away with it. Elaina and my dad have always had a different kind of relationship.”
Which is why they might have been working together to sell drugs—Kenzie had gathered that much from Cassie. Still, she couldn’t help feel bad for the little girl who’d tried to grow a money tree just to get a puppy.
“You don’t know where she is now?”
Cole shook his head.
“How long’s it been since you’ve seen her?”
He thought about this a moment. “Really seen her? For an actual conversation?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe right after Marsi disappeared.”
It was easy enough to do the math—Cassie had been in Ambrose for two full years. She couldn’t imagine not talking to Garrett for that long.
“Are you worried?”
“About Elaina? Always.” He frowned. “She’s not like Marsi, though. When Marsi disappeared, I knew something was wrong. Elaina does this sometimes—goes off the grid. We clashed a lot as she got older. I was always pretty focused; she did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.”
“But she’s still your sister.”
“She’s still my sister.” Cole sighed.
Everything he told her added another layer of complications onto who he was. It made her realize how superficial all her past relationships had been. Even with Levi, she’d always worn her heart on her sleeve, always considered herself an easy person to get along with. But getting along with someone was different than knowing them.
She wanted to know Cole. She wanted him to know her. Even if it was only for a little while.
She turned off the shower, and when she stepped out Cole already had a towel ready for her. Wrapping it tightly around her chest, she looked up at him.
“I was pregnant when Levi told me he wanted to leave.”
Surprise arched his brows.
“He didn’t know,” she continued quickly, wanting to get it all out. “I didn’t tell him. He wanted to leave, and I wanted to be close to my family. I wanted my kid to know my brother and my grandpa, and grow up how I did. But I loved Levi, and I wanted to make it work. I agreed to go, but he knew my heart wasn’t in it.”
She rocked onto her heels, feeling like she was balancing on a ledge.
“He ended it, and then I miscarried, and then two weeks after the divorce went through, he and my best friend moved out of town.”
Cole reached for her shoulder, fingers trailing down her arm. His fingers wove with hers.
“Do you think things would be different if you’d told him?”
She looked at their hands, at his thumb, rubbing back and forth over hers.
“Maybe for a little while, but it wouldn’t have mattered in the long run. He would have been trapped in Ambrose. It’s my home, but it’s not everyone’s.”
Cole was quiet, and she left him to his thoughts. The gentle squeeze of his fingers was enough to let her know she was still with him.
With him, but not hers. Not forever.
“I could always come here and visit sometime,” she said, but even as the words came out of her mouth she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Even if they succeeded in this, and the cops got the bad guys, seeing Cole sometimes would only remind her that she couldn’t be with him always.
She kind of wanted to be with him always.
That was crazy. She’d only known him a week. He had a restaurant here, and another in Reno. Responsibility was ingrained in his nature, and that was something she admired about him. She wouldn’t ask him to leave.
But maybe if he asked her to stay, she might think about it. If they could manage the Irish issue, anyway. If she wasn’t in jail for arson, maybe.
The realization was as startling as it was clear. If Cole asked her to stay in Vegas with him, she’d consider it.
“I’d like that,” he said, and it already sort of sounded like good-bye.
She squeezed his hand harder, wanting to hold on for just a little while longer, but already she could feel Ambrose pulling her home. Flapjacks needed her. Someone had to convince the insurance agent she hadn’t burned down her own restaurant. She didn’t like being far from Garrett.
This was only ever supposed to be temporary.
“I like that you got caught up,” she said. “This all just happened fast. I’d known Levi since the fourth grade.”
“I wouldn’t leave like he did.”
“With my best friend? I hope not. That’d be a little dicey, seeing as she’s your sister.”
She laughed. He barely cracked a smile. Something in the bedroom distracted him, and with a subtle tilt of his head he excused himself. Peeking around the door, she saw him pick up his cell phone from the floor, then lift his head her direction.
“I need to take this,” he said, and quietly exited into the living room.
Curious as to what had bothered him, she hurried to put on her clothes, then lingered near the doorway to the adjacent room.
“Thank you. Yes, I’ll be there.” His voice was low, and it ground her to a sudden stop. He tucked the phone back into his pocket and pulled on a white undershirt.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“The jail.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “My dad’s in the infirmary.”
“What?”
“Some kind of fight. I can’t picture him fighting.” He laughed dryly. “Not with his fists, anyway.”
She thought of the money paying for this hotel. It was supposed to be protection money, to pay someone so that Cole’s father could be kept safe in prison. Despite what the man had done, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt for arguing against Cole doing what his father had asked.
“Is he all right?” She couldn’t help wondering if this fight had to do with the meeting Cole had asked him to set up. Things happened in prison—it wasn’t safe, and she got that—but the timing seemed too coincidental.
“I think so. I need to go sign some papers, I guess. He needs to have surgery on his arm. They couldn’t tell me much on the phone.”
He exhaled, nostrils flaring. He wouldn’t look directly at her, and that didn’t exactly make her feel better.
“Do you think he’s really hurt, or that this is it?” Nerves burst in her belly. The whole injury thing could be a front; he could be calling Cole to the prison to give him information about the meeting with Lynch.
“I don’t know.” He picked up his dress shirt, frowning down at the collar, where the fabric was ripped.
She searched for her clothes. Her bra was hanging on the doorknob to the bedroom and she snatched it, as well as one of his undershirts sitting on the dresser.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You have to go to the prison, right? I’m going with you.”
“You can’t come with me.”
She paused. Stood up straight and planted her hands on her hips. He wavered a little.
“I’m with you, remember?”
She didn’t say the other part—that it was hard being here without him. That she’d worried someone might come in again, like Candi had at the suite. She felt better when they were together.
Cole didn’t move at first, then shook his head. “I don’t want you coming anywhere near the prison. I don’t want him seeing you. Not after what happened at the diner.”
Kenzie didn’t like it, but he was probably right. Still, she wanted to be there. She wanted to hear what August Talent had to say and then figure out what their next steps would be.
“You’ll come back afterward?”
“Of course.”
It made her feel mildly better.
She followed him into the main room, where he looked for his keys, never looking straight at her. He could have been upset about his father’s attack, but something told her it was more.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much did the pregnancy thing freak out you?” she asked.
He snorted. “My dad’s in prison for selling drugs. One of my sisters took evidence in his case and disappeared, the other is an exotic dancer, and the Irish mob is after us. You can’t freak me out, Kenzie.”
She waited a beat.
“So like a six out of ten?”
The laughter burst from him. “More like an eight.” He took her hand, and brought her fingers to his lips, lingering there for a kiss that made her heart throb in her chest. “Strong women don’t scare me. I’ve loved strong women all my life. It’s getting them to love me back that’s the problem.”
He kissed her knuckles once more, and then headed toward the door.
I’ve loved strong women all my life.
It was one thing knowing he loved her, feeling it in the way he touched her. It was another for him to say the words in such a matter-of-fact way. But of course he would. He was Cole. Logical to the end.
It’s getting them to love me back that’s the problem.
Is that what he wanted? For her to love him back? As she stared after him, she wondered if she actually did. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone. Being around him was easy, and fun, and when she wasn’t she missed him. There were so many parts of him she’d come to admire over these past few days—his humor, and his kindness, and his dedication to her and his family.
But it had only been a few days.
She almost laughed. Was she actually trying to analyze love? Maybe he was rubbing off on her. That felt like a very Cole thing to do.
The thought of moving to where Cole was returned to her. She hadn’t considered really leaving Ambrose since Levi, but this felt different. It would be like running to something, not running away from it.
Boy, she was in deep.
“You can’t just drop the ‘getting people to love me back is the problem’ bomb, and then pretend it didn’t happen,” she blurted as he reached the door.
He glanced back. Turned.
“Cassie loves you like crazy,” she said. “She left Reno to keep you safe.”
His brows arched, making wrinkles on his forehead.
“I don’t know what happened with your mom, but maybe she did the same, did you ever think of that?” Kenzie continued. “Maybe she left to keep you safe, too. Because she knew something, or had seen something . . . I don’t know. Elaina asked you to teach her how to skateboard, so she obviously looked up to you at some point, and Candi. Well. You know she at least loved your smoking-hot body; that’s why she kept coming back.”
Cole’s head tilted. “Loving someone doesn’t mean leaving them.”
“Sometimes leaving is the best thing you can do.” Her own mother had left her and Garrett, and that had been for the better.
“Is that why you’re going back to Ambrose?”
She paused. Here they were again, on the edge of the cliff, waiting for reality to push them over.
A thought skittered through her head, surprising her. Ask me to stay.
She didn’t realize until that moment that she actually wanted him to.
Ask me.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said turning back to the door. “Lock up, all right?”
She wasn’t ready to end this conversation, but she didn’t know what else to say.
A memory was thrust to the front of her mind. She was sitting at the diner talking to her grandpa after Levi had left, two days before she’d lost the baby. If he doesn’t want you, you don’t need him, he’d told her. I would have crossed the universe to be by your grandma’s side. One day you’ll meet someone who’ll do the same.
She’d always thought she was the unmovable force, that her someone, if he ever arrived, would come to her. Until Cole, she’d never considered that it might be the opposite.