CHAPTER TEN
Lori
I’ve barely had time to straighten after picking up my skirt, and somehow Cole is already walking back into the room. “Don’t even think about putting that on unless you just want me to take it off of you.”
“We don’t have a condom,” I remind him.
He sets the bag in his hand on the table and steps in front of me. “We have lasagna and my tongue, sweetheart,” he says, removing my skirt from my hand and kissing me. “And I have yet to prove my skills in that area.”
“I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
“Because you’re a virgin and so am I?”
“You’re funny,” I say.
“Not usually and not now. I’m quite serious, and adding to that, I can say with definitive certainty that my meal will taste better with you in that robe, naked beneath it.” His lips curve ever so slightly as he adds, “and so will yours. I’ll show you.”
My God. Somehow this man and his piercing blue eyes have turned lasagna into the promise of an orgasm. He snags my hands and moves us toward the couch. I don’t argue. How can I? I’m wet and my nipples ache. I’ve never wanted lasagna so badly in my life, and according to my nose, there is deliciousness in that bag that will extend beyond the food.
We sit down, and he glances over at me, smiles and kisses my cheek. It’s cute and sweet and sexy and just so many things I don’t expect, especially after he just promised to show me skills involving his tongue. The man must keep a jury seduced, confused, and seduced all over again, and in spades.
“You okay with wine?” he asks. “I have water in the fridge under the bar.”
“Wine is fine,” I say and reach for my glass.
He opens the bag. “I have them bring my food in take-out containers,” he says, setting two foil-wrapped bowls on the table, along with a bag of bread. “Otherwise their obsession with picking up the trays becomes incessant.”
Which tells me he’s a private person, focused on his work when he’s here. Or whichever woman is with him, and maybe I’m a fool, but that doesn’t feel like Cole to me. Despite his “I fuck when I want to fuck” comment, I really don’t believe he’s a manwhore any more than I’m easy because I came here tonight.
He offers me a fork. “Try the lasagna.”
“Thank you,” I say, accepting it. “For dinner.”
“Thank you,” he surprises me by saying.
“For what?”
“I needed to slow down. I needed tonight, too.”
He needed tonight, too.
His words seem to hang in the air between us, a confession of sorts, when I don’t think he’s a man of confessions or apologies. I don’t know why he’s allowed me this intimacy, but then, he is intelligent and instinctive. He has to know I’ve allowed him much tonight that I allow no one else. He motions to the food. “Try it,” he says softly, and it’s almost as if he’s not talking about the food, though I don’t know what else he could be talking about.
I nod and take a bite, and an explosion of delicious spices, cheese and tomato sauce awakens my taste buds. “It’s wonderful,” I say. “Amazing, actually.”
“It’s something to look forward to when I’m here,” he says, taking a bite himself.
I want to ask how often he’s here, but it feels like that’s a request to see him again that I can’t afford to make. I need to finish climbing my ladder, so for now, I focus on his career. “How does an asshole you won’t defend get your personal cell phone number?” I ask, thinking of his call earlier, and sipping my wine.
“Another asshole gave it to him,” he says, finishing off another bite of his food.
“And how does that asshole have your number?” I ask, rolling cheese around my fork.
“He works in my firm and saw dollar figures and nothing else.”
“And you don’t?” I ask, taking a bite.
“Expensive as fuck, sweetheart,” he assures me, refilling his wine glass and then topping off mine.
“I assumed from this place we’re in right now,” I say. “And I assume that means you’re worth it.”
“Yes,” he says. “I am. Are you going to call me arrogant again?”
“Have you won the cases to back it up?
“Yes,” he says again. “I have.”
“Then it’s fact, not arrogance.”
“And you?” he asks. “How good are you, Lori?”
He’s hit that nerve I’ve been avoiding and I cut my gaze, reaching for the wine and downing a big swallow. “I really don’t want to talk about my career.”
“You lost a case,” he assumes. “Is that what brought you here tonight? You can talk to me about it. I get it. I know this world. I’m a good choice.”
“Tonight isn’t about my career,” I say, but isn’t it? Haven’t I just lied without meaning to lie? What is tonight really about for me?
“What are you trying to escape tonight?” he presses, as if reading my mind.
I down my wine and look at him. “Am I on trial, counselor?”
“If you’re never going to see me again, keep using me. Sex isn’t all I’m good for.”
“We weren’t supposed to get this personal.”
“I don’t even know your last name,” he says. “You don’t know mine. Let’s call it therapy. Quid pro quo. I’ll even go first.” He shoves his plate away. “Ask me anything.”
“I don’t want to play this game,” I say.
“Ask me anything,” he insists.
“How many women have been in this room?”
“None, not with me. My turn. How many one night stands have you had?”
“I already answered that,” I say. “None. Ever. Just you.”
“Why me?” he asks.
“No one else ever made me think I wanted to,” I say honestly, without hesitation. “My turn. Who burned you?”
His eyes narrow. “Who says I was burned?”
“You hate cheaters.”
“Good observation and accurate. My father fucked around on my mother and pretty much ruined her. I was engaged when I was right out of law school and she fucked my best friend. Now they’re married with three kids.”
I sink back onto the cushion, and pull my legs to my side, wondering if I dare ask what I want to ask. He leans into the cushion as well. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
I decide to dare. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he says easily. “I knew that even then, and so did she, but fucking around with my best friend—that was the wrong way to handle it.” He studies me a moment. “Your turn. Who burned you?”
“In the romance department? Me. For being stupid and probably young and infatuated.”
“An older man?”
“Yes,” I say. “And semi-famous, arrogant, and generally wrong for me, but I’m not heartbroken. I wasn’t in love either.” The muffled sound of my cell phone pings a text message. “My phone,” I say straightening. “I need my phone.” I jolt to my feet and round the coffee table to grab my bag, only to run smack into Cole, who’s apparently attempting to retrieve it for me. He catches my arms and gives me a mischievous look. “Always running into me.”
Heat radiates up and down my arms where he holds me, the awareness between us electric, the heat too fierce to have recently been sated. “I am, aren’t I?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” he says, his voice packing a low, rough quality, “you are, but I’m not complaining. I like it.”
He reaches down and scoops up my bag and sets it on the coffee table. “Thank you,” I say, and quickly dig my cell from my bag. I tab to the message and read the text from my mother: I have a surprise for your birthday! On shift, and I won’t tell anyway. Love you!
My birthday, which is only a week away and should have been celebrated with a law degree in my pocket and on my wall. “Something wrong?” Cole asks.
I glance up at him. “No,” I say, stuffing my phone in the pocket of the robe. “Nothing is wrong.”
He studies me, his eyes darkening, and suddenly, chilly. “You sure about that?”
He’s upset. He might even be angry. “What just happened?” I ask.
He doesn’t play those games he favors now. He’s direct. “That message,” he says. “Your urgency to check your phone. Are you married, Lori?”
I blanch, shocked, but quickly recover and his concern is not without merit. “No,” I breathe out. “No. God, no.” My hands find the hard wall of his chest. “I’m not that kind of person, Cole. I’m not a cheater.”
He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t touch me. “And yet you won’t tell me anything about yourself.” It’s a statement, not a question.
I yank my hand back. “It was my mother, who I worry about constantly since my father died, texting me about making me a cake, which is a big deal for reasons I won’t try to explain. I don’t even know why I told you that.” I suddenly feel trapped, and I didn’t even feel trapped when I was laying across his lap. “I should leave. Yes. I’ll leave.” I grab my bag, about to step away from him and he takes it from me, sets it on the table, and pulls me to him.
“Don’t go.”
“You just accused me—”
“I asked. You answered. I know lies when they’re spoken. I believe you. That I do just makes me want to fuck you all over again.”
“Cole—”
His fingers slide into my hair, his mouth slanting over mine, his tongue pressing past my lips. I tell myself not to respond. I tell myself this is the end of the road for this night, but he kisses me with passion, with possessive, hungry passion and he is big and wonderful, and he doesn’t taste of anger or accusation. He tastes of wine, pleasure, and everything right about this night.
“Do I taste like I want you to leave?” he asks again.
“You still taste like trouble, which is why if I had any sense, I would have left before now.”
“But you didn’t. You haven’t, and you shouldn’t.”
He doesn’t give me time to reply. He scoops me up and carries me toward the bedroom, and in a few moments, I’m on the mattress with his big body over me, the heavy weight of him pressing against me.
“We don’t have another condom.”
“I told you,” he says. “I’m resourceful.” He kisses me again and with one delicious lick of his tongue, I moan and forget my objections, and soon without regret. Because it’s not long before my robe is open and his mouth is on my nipple, and then my belly and lower. And lower, until his shoulders are parting my legs, and his warm breath trickles over my sex.
“Cole,” I whisper desperately when that touch of his mouth is just out of reach.
He answers with a lick of my clit, that sends sensations spiraling through me. I arch my hips, and he teases me, his hands at my sides, his mouth pressing to my belly. “Cole,” I plead again.
He glances up at me, his eyes simmering with the kind of relentless passion every woman wants to see in “the” man’s eyes; the one she wants. The one she needs. The one that is trailing his tongue down my belly, and oh God, yes, he closes his mouth down on my nub, and suckles.
I grip the blankets and a panting, wild sound I don’t recognize myself being capable of slips from my lips. He licks, teases, strokes, using his fingers, mouth, and of course, his tongue, until I’m right there on the edge.
Everything fades but pleasure, and I don’t come back up for air until I’ve trembled with release, and Cole has pulled me into his arms. My head rests on his chest and the steady thump of his heart is like a drug mixed with wine, food, and no sleep, I can’t fight. My lashes lower and I just need to rest my eyes a few minutes before I leave.
***
I wake with heavy lids, blinking into a dimly lit room, the sound of a muffled male voice touching my ears. “I need the car here in exactly one hour. Right. Yes. That works.”
Cole’s voice.
I sit up, to find myself under the hotel bed sheets, naked beneath, and alone. The bathroom door is shut, a light peeking from beneath it. Light is peeking through a nearby curtain. It’s morning and I’m still here. I don’t even remember deciding to stay. It’s morning and either Cole and I say an awkward goodbye or we don’t, in which case, I have to tell him that I’m not an attorney. Then he’ll find out what my life is and think I’m now staying for his money. Or I’ll fall for him, I’m already falling for him, and I’ll get distracted, screw up my plans, and end up heartbroken.
I have to leave.
I throw off the blankets and grab my phone from the nightstand, checking for messages that don’t exist, before dashing for my clothes. In a rush of movement, I’m dressed, though I can’t find my panties, but that is just going to have to be okay. I settle my briefcase on my shoulder and stare at the bathroom door, regret filling me. I don’t want to leave, but that is exactly why I have to leave. I need my Cinderella with a spanking fantasy to be fantasy-worthy. I don’t want to ruin it with real life.
Regret settles in my belly; I plan to just leave, but a pad of paper on the nightstand catches my eyes. I walk to it and grab a pen, before writing:
Hello and everything that followed was perfect. I didn’t want to ruin perfect with a bad goodbye.
—Lori
I set the note in the center of the bed right when the shower turns off. Heart racing, I rush for the door, hurrying down the stairs. I picture him exiting the bedroom and reading the note, wondering what his reaction will be. Regret? Relief? Anger? Disappointment? By the time I step onto the elevator and sink against the wall for the ride, my only certainty is that despite my certainty I will never see Cole again, I will never forget him either.