In the spirit of letting decisions happen on their own, I coast through the next couple days without forethought, itinerary, or course of action. The only schedule I’m committed to is working at Bissara three to midnight, five nights a week.
The morning after I stayed with Trace, we slept in, lazy and contented. Later that day, with his hand in mine, I called my parents and my closest friend, Nikolai, to tell them about Cole. They took the news about as well as Bree did, offering their condolences and support while I figured things out.
After I ended the calls, Trace and I didn’t discuss it, focusing instead on each other until I went to work.
There’s something to be said about spending time with an incredible man without sex in the equation. We talked and cuddled, kissed and flirted, whispered and laughed more that day than we have in the six months I’ve known him. I enjoyed it so much I stayed with him two nights in a row.
The third night is now upon me, and as I hop off the stage and end my shift, Trace meets me at the entrance of the restaurant.
Pressing a hand against my lower back, he turns to guide me toward the elevator that will take me to his penthouse.
I didn’t have a plan for tonight, but the need to see Cole digs my feet in.
“I’m going home.” I pivot to face him.
A black look shrouds his expression. “Bored with me already?”
He assured me he could handle the oscillation of this dating thing for as long as it takes. I also know he’s prepared himself for the inevitable nights I spend with Cole.
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you…” I peer up at him, feigning a grimace. “I’ve been bored with you for months.”
He chuckles, a gloriously dark and gravelly sound. Then he grabs my waist and lifts me to capture my mouth in a plundering kiss.
I fold my legs around his hips and feed him my moans, my desire, and my love. Our lips remain locked as he carries me down the empty corridor. We continue licking and nibbling as he blindly taps in the access code on the panel for my private dressing room.
The door opens, and I break the kiss, dropping my feet to the floor. Restless and dreading what comes next, I smooth my hands over the crisp lines of his suit.
“I had an amazing last couple of days with you. Because of you.” I straighten his yellow tie and step back. “Turns out, you were right. Assholes make my pulse race.”
“And your panties wet.” He pins me with a knowing look, the smug ass.
“I’ll see you here tomorrow.”
Two more days of work. Then I get a two-day break. I don’t know what I’ll do on my days off or who I’ll be doing it with, and I kind of like not knowing. There’s no expectations. Nothing to fret about.
I slip into the dressing room and close the door partway, leaving a foot-wide crack filled with stony blue eyes and a gorgeous scowl that I want to kiss right off his face.
Leaning in with his hands on the doorframe, he regards me for a weighted moment, licks his lips, and whispers, “I love you.”
“Love you more.”
“Impossible.” He straightens his spine then his suit jacket. His hands slip into his pockets, and he turns on his heel, vanishing around the corner.
I close the door and sag beneath the force of my feelings. The desperate urge to run after him and hug him with all my might is a powerful pull. But it would only make it harder to say goodbye.
It’s time to go home. I haven’t seen or spoken to Cole in two days. He started his new job tonight, and I want to hear about it.
And I miss him.
As much as I already miss Trace.
Fuck me, my life is a mess.
They gave me their hearts, willfully, recklessly. If I choose one, I break the other. What the fuck am I supposed to do?
I want to keep them both. But even if we were the last three people on Earth, that wouldn’t happen. Not with two men as possessive as Cole and Trace.
I take a shower and pull on jeans and an oversized sweater and coat. It’s after one in the morning when I drive home and park the Midget in my empty driveway. No motorcycle. Cole’s still at work?
Bracing against the cold, I race inside, through the back door, the dance room, the kitchen, and pause. I didn’t lock up.
Since Cole has his own keys, I retrace my steps to the back of the house. As I pass through the dance studio, the mirror on the far wall catches my eye. I swivel toward it, squinting at the pristine new glass, and press a hand against my tightening chest.
I broke that mirror three years ago in a drunken rage of grief. Then I left it, splintered and sad, as a reminder of what I look like when I give up.
And Cole replaced it.
Anger lances through me, spiking my pulse. But I shake it off. He didn’t know. He was just trying to be helpful.
Do I even need the reminder anymore? The night I dragged myself out of that dark place, I hoped I would look back someday and appreciate the distance I covered.
I started dancing again. And smiling. And living. And I fell in love. That’s a pretty good distance. A happy distance.
The near future won’t be easy, but I like to think I’m past the hardest obstacle of my life. Cole’s alive and breathing and able to share those dimples with those lucky enough to know him.
As if on cue, the purr of his motorcycle vibrates along the side of the house. It shuts off, and I rush toward the door, yanking it open and shivering against the chilly air.
Cast in shadows, his dark silhouette swings off the bike and approaches in long, unhurried strides. I step back, making room as he enters.
“You just get home?” Glancing at my coat and gloves, he sets his helmet on the chair by the door.
“A few minutes ago.” I lock up and pull off my outerwear. “Thank you for fixing the mirror.”
“You’re welcome.” He shrugs out of his leather jacket, takes my coat, and hangs everything on the hooks behind the door. “How did the glass break?”
“It got in a fight with a bottle of whiskey.”
His bog-brown eyes scan my face. Not prying. Just looking. Taking in my features like the first day we met.
It’s always the visual connection that sparks first between us. The silent greeting of eye contact. The instant physical attraction. It creates a crackling glow that wraps around us until the rest of the world fades into the void it was without him. We float in a luminous bubble, staring and gravitating closer together and smiling foolishly.
The helmet left his brown hair in spikes of sexy defiance. Dimples dent his cheeks, and a black t-shirt stretches across his wide shoulders. Black slacks and a gun holster on his hip complete the security uniform. It’s uninspiring as far as uniforms go, but my God, he knows how to work it. I bet he turned every female head in the stadium tonight.
“Do you know how to use that?” I point at the gun on his hip, assuming his prior job required expertise in all manner of firearms.
He arches a brow and huffs. “We’ll go to the shooting range, and I’ll show you how to use it.”
“Sure.” I shrug. My interest is solely in watching him handle a gun. “How do you like the new job?”
“It’s just a job.”
I circle his wide stance, taking in the delicious fit of his clothes. Sitting low on his trim waist, the cargo pants highlight the powerful muscles in his legs and the firm shape of his ass. He’s covered head-to-toe in black, like a formidable shadow, except for the white lettering on his back that reads Security.
He went from a high-speed operative with a top-secret clearance to the sheriff of Nothingham with an iron-on decal on his back.
“You hate it, don’t you?” I return to his front and study his dark gaze.
“I hate being in this house without you here.”
My shoulders slump. “I know this is hard—”
“Hey.” He lifts my chin with a knuckle and glides his hand beneath my hair to hold the back of my neck. “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. The job gives me something to do while you’re working. That’s all it is to me.”
“And a paycheck.”
“I don’t need much beyond what’s standing right here.” He folds his arms around me and holds me tight to his chest. “This… This is everything to me.”
I clutch his waist, balling his shirt in my hands and sinking into his molten eyes. His beautiful lips are right there, a breath away. The need to kiss him is so deep-rooted and intrinsic I’ve never had to think about it before.
But I don’t want to turn this into a passionate make-out session that ends in frustration. And it will, because we never go halfway on anything. When we met, we fell instantly. When we kiss, we go wild. A feral, uncontrollable kind of wild that always leads to sex.
I shift back, putting a sliver of space between us. “Are you tired?”
He shakes his head, eyes warm and hooded.
“Want to have a picnic on your futon and watch movies?” I ask.
“You mean, watch one movie? The only movie?”
“You remember.” I grin.
“Are you kidding? I watched Dirty Dancing countless times over the past four years, just so I could come home and recite it with you.”
“You know the words?”
“All of them.”
I bounce on my toes, unable to contain my excitement. “I’ll get the snacks.”
“I’ll take a quick shower and meet you downstairs.”
Later, with my belly stuffed with cheese, crackers, and beer, I lie face-down on the futon, with his pillow scrunched beneath my chin. He mirrors my position beside me, wearing lounge pants and a white t-shirt. With our legs angled toward the top of the bed and our heads at the foot, we’re glued to the TV on the wall a few feet away.
There’s only a couple scenes left in the movie, and he’s proven that he does, in fact, know all the words. Midway through, we fell into our own speaking parts, with him reciting Johnny Castle’s lines while I perform Baby’s. It’s turned Dirty Dancing into a whole new viewing experience, and I can’t stop laughing.
He shifts to his side, facing me, as he reels off his next line. His eyes glitter, and his mouth sensually forms each word, delivering the dialog with passion and drama.
I squint at his intense facial expressions. “Are you making fun of this movie, Cole Hartman?”
“Never.” He inches closer and trails a hand down the back of my t-shirt.
While he showered, I slipped into pajamas, opting for the most coverage. The shirt is tight but longer than most, gathering around my hips. And the flannel pants have a double-knotted drawstring at the waist.
He turns his attention back to the TV and continues his speaking parts. But that hand is still moving, roving lower on my back, rubbing, and exploring. I soften beneath the affection, mesmerized by his presence. So much so the movie fades into the background.
Under the guise of massaging my tailbone, he works open a gap between my shirt and waistband. When his fingertips find my skin, goosebumps skitter up my spine.
He rests his cheek on the pillow, watching me intently. His deep brown eyes are magnetic, beguiling in their focus, baiting me to tip closer, peer deeper, and fall in.
Closing the distance, he presses his hips against mine and seizes my mouth with warm, soft lips.
His fingers stretch beneath my shirt and splay across my back as his other hand cups my head. With his arms around me, he pulls me flush against his body, chest to chest, mouths fastened, and tongues plunging.
Our legs twine together, rubbing, sliding, my fingers tangling in his hair and my nails scratching his scalp. Holding my head, he adjusts the angle and deepens the kiss. Groaning, breaths quickening, he dips his other hand beneath the waistband of my pants and palms the curve of my butt.
I tense, knowing we’re headed toward a landslide that won’t quiet. Not until we’re both moaning with release.
“Don’t get stiff on me. I just want to feel you,” he breathes against my lips. “This ass…” He squeezes a handful of flesh. “Fuck, I missed this goddamn ass. The round, toned shape, this tight little hole…”
He sinks his fingers between my clenching cheeks and strokes the rim of my back opening.
I whimper. “Cole—”
“Let me touch you, baby. I won’t push for more. I just…need…” His brow rests heavily against my temple as his entire body vibrates and rocks closer. “Christ, Danni, it’s been so fucking long.”
So long since he’s touched me. Since he’s been with a woman. Since we’ve let ourselves come together in the spontaneous, unrestricted, explosive way we both want.
If I let him fuck me, I’ll have to tell Trace, and it’ll shatter him. Or I don’t tell him, and the guilt will eat away my insides until I’m sick with it.
Or I do the smart thing and resist Cole’s advances.
“No.” I clutch his wrist and try to remove his hand from my pants. “We can’t.”
He fights me for a moment, his fingers tightening against my backside. Then he snaps his hand away and rolls to his back.
“Goddammit.” His guttural whisper breaks something inside me.
“I’m sor—”
“Go upstairs, Danni.” He closes his eyes and rests his forearm across his brow, shutting me out.
My shoulders curl forward, and an ache swells in the back of my throat. I feel bruised, rejected, which is stupid since I’m the one who rejected him.
He continues to lie there, with his cock standing like a flagpole in his lounge pants. He holds that arm over his eyes and fists his other hand in the bedding, waiting for me to leave.
Because he wants me out of his sight.
He can’t even look at me.
My chin quivers as I climb off the futon. My bones feel heavy and wounded, and I can’t stop the hurt from rising up my throat and choking past my lips.
I make it halfway to the stairs before the futon creaks beneath his weight.
“Are you crying?” Concern roughens his timbre.
I’m always crying, because I’m not strong enough for this. Hell knows what he sees in me. A wise man wouldn’t waste his time with me. I’m fucking pathetic.
The tears slip free and course down my face. I keep walking, taking the steps two at a time as his footfalls give chase. He catches me at the top and swings me around in the doorway.
“Fuck.” He swipes his thumbs across my damp cheeks and drops his hands to my waist, pulling me against him. “I’m a prick.”
Thick shadows encase the stairway, snagging and snaring every crevice and crack without mercy. He stands one stair beneath mine, putting us at eye-level, his gaze somber and inklike in the phantom darkness.
I sense his unease, his creeping sadness. I recognize it, because it’s coming from me, too.
The last four years changed us, and now everything hangs in the balance. Our hopes and dreams are on pause, and I’m terrified to press play. I don’t want to know the ending.
As my tears continue to fall, he kisses them away, whispering between the brushes of his lips. “I sent you upstairs because I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to fuck this up, and when I’m with you… Dammit, Danni, I want all of you, in every possible way.”
“I’m making it worse.” I grasp his tense neck, holding our foreheads together. “I’m not good at saying no, especially when I’m dying to say yes. I’m failing—”
“No, baby. The person failing here is me. I’m impatient and selfish and demanding. I make mistakes and lose my temper.”
“You’re passionate and impulsive and yeah, sometimes you get out of control. But if I can’t handle your worst moments, I don’t deserve your best ones.”
“Jesus. I must’ve done something right to have been given a chance with you.” His voice rasps, deep and throaty. “You have such a beautiful mind. You’re incredibly understanding and gracious. And those qualities are shaped into a stunning flesh-and-bone work of art. I only have to look at you to know I have something special and rare.” He releases a breath. “Sometimes you feel like an unattainable dream.”
“I’m just a girl, Cole. And I’m right here.”
“You’re everything, and I want more.” He palms my backside, fitting our hips tightly together as he speaks against my lips. “I want you to belong to me. I want my ring on your finger, my babies growing inside you, and your future welded to mine. I want to watch you teach our kids how to dance and see you swing on that pole when you’re ninety years old—”
“Gross.”
“Never. You’ll always be beautiful.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I had my grave marker removed from the cemetery yesterday.”
“You did?”
“I’m going to buy a larger plot. When you die, I want you buried beside me.”
The air whooshes from my lungs. “That’s kind of morbid…in a really romantic way. Now I feel all glowy and mushy.” I grin a soggy, hot mess of a grin. “Is that weird?”
“No.” He trails kisses over my face, tingling an electric thrill through my body. “Not at all.”
“I’ve felt this before, right outside, when a sexy hunk of a man rolled up on his motorcycle.”
“I was right there with you, baby.” He touches his smile against mine. “But now I feel it more.”
He’s right. There’s a powerful charge in the air, like the stirring of energized matter, seeking and fusing into a cocoon of untamed chemistry that only Cole and I can create. It’s an unexplainable connection between us, one that bridges the gap between lust and love. I can’t see it or hear it, but I feel it, feeding light into a flickering moment, making it shine brighter than all the hours that haunted me in the dark.
In the sheath of glowing heat that envelops us, I anticipate a hard fall into a feral kiss. His hands bite into my backside, and his hungry breaths spin around mine. But he doesn’t attack my mouth, seemingly fighting an internal war. A war that eventually ends with him backing me out of the stairwell and leading me to my bedroom.
My pulse kicks up, and my legs wobble. Is he going to fuck me against the wall? Bend me over the bed? Take me on top of the dresser?
He does none of those things as he tucks me beneath the covers. He digs for the sheet beneath the blanket, which has been kicked to the foot of the bed. I help him, but it gives me pause. The bedspread is so tangled up… This isn’t how I left it two days ago.
“You slept in my bed.” I stare at the sheets, glad they’ve been washed since last time Trace slept here.
“It used to be our bed.”
“But I wasn’t here.”
“Your scent is.” He pats the pillow and pulls the bedding over me. “It’s one of the countless layers that will always be a part of you. When we’re wrinkled and toothless and fucking like arthritic animals, you’ll still smell like you.”
I burst into laughter and sink onto the mattress, clinging to the thread that connects us. “I never stopped missing you.”
“I’ll never stop loving you.” Switching off the light, he leans down and gives me a lingering kiss. “Sleep well, my beautiful girl.”
When he slips out of my room, I’m not sure I’ll sleep at all. It hurts to watch him walk away, and he’s only going downstairs.
There’s no way I could watch him walk away forever.