Chapter 23
Ariana
DON’T STOP
Cole won’t stop touching me.
I get that we’re pretending to be a couple right now and couples touch, but it’s getting excessive. First it was having me sit on his lap, where I was acutely aware of his package resting under my ass.
I don’t think he was aroused, which made it that much more alarming how large it felt because that means it’s even bigger when it’s hard.
Which I guess makes sense given the toy he had made for me, but I sort of assumed he was exaggerating the size of it.
That maybe the real thing wouldn’t actually be that big but I was clearly mistaken.
Then when we were in the kitchen snacking on what Layla and her new boyfriend, cowboy doctor Owen, put out, his hand was resting on my hip, his thumb slipping beneath the hem of my top and brushing my skin. It felt…scandalous. He managed to make an innocent touch like that feel naughty.
I know it’s all part of the performance, but my body did not get the memo, and following the orgasm last night, it’s like I’m primed and ready for another one.
All of Cole’s touching is leaving me nothing but worked up and unsatisfied. We’re with my siblings, it’s not as if I’m going to beg him for my first in-person lesson for them all to hear.
Now we’re all about to be gathered in the game room, where there’s a well-stocked wet bar, a pool table, a dartboard, a big projector screen surrounded by a large sectional, and various other games and activities scattered throughout.
According to Gavin, they were all left behind by the previous owners.
Scottie and Elyse decided we should all dress up to ring in the new year—that just because we’re staying in doesn’t mean we can’t all get pretty. And for once, I didn’t mind glamming up a little. Kind of excited about it, actually.
We girls got ready in the primary suite while the guys got ready in their rooms.
Luckily I managed to get out of the interrogation I thought would be waiting for me because Elyse got an alert that her blood test results were in.
There’s a ninety-nine percent chance she’s having a girl.
She won’t know for sure until the sixteen-week ultrasound, but we were all so excited for her I think everyone forgot I surprisingly showed up with Cole.
I’ve already decided I’m going to spoil my new niece with anything she could ever want for taking the heat off me.
I spot Cole first as I’m coming down the stairs. He’s wearing fitted black slacks and a black button-down, the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone.
He looks really good. Exceptionally good, which only frustrates me even more. How am I expected to sleep next to that and not have to keep my thighs pressed together the entire night.
I went with a bubblegum pink dress Layla insisted I buy last summer and that I’ve never had the nerve to wear until now.
It’s fitted through the bodice, with delicate ruching gathering at the center and twisting into a small rosette that draws attention straight to my breasts.
The straps are thick enough to actually support me and the pressed lace fabric hugs my waist before loosening at the hips, the hem hitting mid-thigh.
I thought I’d feel naked being this exposed, but I actually feel pretty.
Cole keeps his eyes trained on me as I make my way to him.
They roam the length of my body, and it’s one hell of a performance.
I might even be convinced he really does find me attractive.
It’s the heat behind his stare, the way his tongue sweeps across his bottom lip before he rolls it back on a bite.
There’s hunger and desire there, and just for a second I let myself believe it’s real because a man has never looked at me like this before, and I may never get this experience again.
“Shit, doll,” he mutters before whistling. “You look—”
“Fancy?” I laugh.
“Sexy,” he drawls with a knowing grin. “Really sexy.” He swallows.
Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, I clear my throat. “Thank you,” I utter, fidgeting with my hands. “You look…nice t-too.”
I don’t understand how I’ve interacted with Cole countless times, yet I’m all of a sudden nervous.
I was nervous when we practiced kissing, but that was different.
That was over the anticipation of an action I’m not very experienced in.
This, right now, is different. I’m nervous to be around him, to say the wrong thing, to embarrass myself.
I’m nervous the way I’m not ever supposed to be with Cole.
He’s just Cole, the guy who’s obsessed with my chocolate croissants and loves to annoy me. I don’t see him like that. I can’t.
I need to keep reminding myself of that because I think he’s a little too good at this whole acting like a boyfriend thing and I’m more gullible than I thought.
“Okay,” Scottie announces, holding up her phone. “We’re playing Heads Up. Everyone get a drink before we get started.”
I finally peel my eyes off Cole and grab a glass of Starlet, Gavin’s newest sparkling wine.
“Someone shuffle the categories,” Shane says, already reaching for the phone.
Scottie pulls it out of his reach. “You don’t get to touch the phone after last time.”
“What happened last time?” Owen asks from beside Layla.
“He kept tilting it to read the word before anyone gave him clues.”
“That’s called strategy,” Shane says.
“That’s called cheating,” Ethan says.
I smile into the flute before taking a sip. I’m significantly less competitive than my siblings, but it’s no secret we’re a cutthroat bunch when it comes to anything that pits us against each other. It’s all with love, of course, but it can get pretty intense for outsiders.
I briefly wonder what Cole’s family is like. While I know them individually, I’m not particularly close with any of them. I’m curious to know what their dynamic is like compared to my rowdy family.
We divide up loosely around the sectional, the wet bar already getting well used, music playing somewhere underneath all the noise. Cole drops onto the couch and pulls me down beside him so our thighs run the length of each other, his arm stretching along the back of the cushions behind me.
Not around me. Just behind me. Close enough to feel the warmth of him.
I pick up my sparkling wine and swallow down the bundle of nerves knotting in my throat.
Ethan and Marisa go first, playing as a team even though it’s against the rules. She’s settled against him, her back resting on his chest as she places the phone on her forehead, the screen facing us.
“Okay, go,” Scottie says, starting the timer.
“It’s a sport,” Dominic offers.
“You play it outside,” says Gavin.
“You need a racket,” Owen adds.
“Tennis,” Ethan says immediately.
The room cheers and Marisa resets, Ethan looking at her proudly as if she was the one who guessed correctly while she holds the phone up again.
This one takes longer. The clues start piling up—something tall, something famous, something in Europe—and Shane, who has apparently decided that words are insufficient, stands up and begins physically acting it out.
He points aggressively at the ceiling. He stretches his arms wide.
He makes a shape with his hands I cannot identify.
“Are you trying to be a chandelier?” Layla guesses, messing with him.
“Or someone drowning?” Elyse tries.
“A sad horse,” Shelby, Shane’s date, says pleasantly from behind me.
Shane spins around and points. “Come on, Shelbs, don’t join them in their bullshit.”
The answer is Eiffel Tower but no one cares that Marisa didn’t guess it correctly because it was way more fun teasing Shane.
There are a few more rounds, mostly tame, until Scottie switches the category to something more adult right before it gets to me.
I place the phone against my forehead and Cole’s face lights up, his smile barely contained, so I know it’s got to be something inappropriate.
My brothers collectively groan.
“It’s something you do while talking,” Marisa says, giving Ethan a playful side-eye.
“You have to use a device,” Elyse adds, making a talking-on-the-phone motion.
“A phone?” I guess.
“Close!” Scottie giggles.
Cole clears his throat, drawing my attention to him. “It’s what we did last night,” he says, cocky grin firmly in place.
Scrunching my forehead, the words fly out when I realize what he means before I remember who our audience is. “Phone sex?”
He nods slowly, silently chuckling.
Meanwhile Shane makes a gagging noise, Ethan mutters a curse under his breath and pinches the bridge of his nose, and Gavin releases a long, defeated sigh.
The timer goes off and Scottie stands. “Let’s all take a little break before the next round, yeah?”
The room shuffles around us, people standing and stretching, Layla already talking at full volume about what category to do next. For a moment it’s just me and Cole on the sectional, slightly apart from everyone else.
I’m laughing and cover my face with my hands, partly because I’m a little buzzed and partly because I cannot believe I let that slip out in front of my siblings.
Cole puts his arm around me, his thumb tracing a slow circle at my waist. Then my hip.
I lean my body into him slightly, which does nothing to help my growing frustration.
I’m on my second glass of sparkling wine, warm from the fire and the room and the nearness of him, and I’ve completely lost track of what’s for the audience and what’s just me wanting his touch. I’m not sure there’s a clean line between those things anymore, and the thought makes me want to panic.
“I have to use the restroom,” Cole says, angling down toward my ear.
“Okay,” I say slowly, meeting his gaze, not sure why he’s telling me.
“I can’t remember where it is.”
I look at him. The layout of this house is not complicated. There are approximately four doors outside this room and one of them is clearly a bathroom. “It’s just down the—”
“Show me.”
I blink. Something in the way he says it makes the back of my neck prickle.