17. Cole
Cole
I couldn’t keep myself away from her. Certainly not now, not after what I’d gone through and after what she’d seen. Maybe not ever. I didn’t know, and I didn’t fucking care.
All that mattered was her mouth on mine and the raw ache at the base of my core. Maybe I’d misjudged before—maybe it wasn’t alcohol I had been craving but her .
No. I still craved booze.
But it was enough to keep me satiated. It was enough to drag my thoughts away, to keep me clean, to keep me centered.
I shoved the master bedroom door open, the wood clanging off the wall, and forced her backward into the space.
Half of her clothing had been discarded on the way up to the second floor, lost somewhere in the grand foyer or on the stairs, and she stood before me in just her bra and underwear.
The little black set at any other time would have been my undoing.
But she was ripping me apart with just her presence.
I’d felt how warm, how slick she was through that little black set.
I’d felt how much she wanted me. It had almost been surreal, after all, what kind of woman would still want me after witnessing what she’d seen tonight?
What kind of woman would see me at my absolute lowest and still ache for me?
She hadn’t gotten that wet last time and it made all the more sense now.
Her fingers worked at the button of my jeans, fumbling and frantic, and all I could think to do was help her. She gratefully accepted and went up on her tiptoes, hooking one hand behind my neck, kissing me again. And again. And again.
I freed myself from the stiff material, my cock aching instead against the soft cotton of my boxers and kicked the jeans off behind me as I led her to the bed.
It took everything in me, absolutely everything, not to take her the moment she laid back on the plush comforter, her lips tilted up in a soft, far too sultry grin.
Maybe I was shifting from one addiction to another.
Maybe she was salvation.
Grabbing the back of my shirt with one hand, I pulled it up and over my head, leaving myself bare except for my boxers. I wanted her in any way she’d give me. I wanted to taste her, devour her, sink myself inside of her and never leave. I wanted to worship the fucking ground she walked on.
She lifted up on her elbows and stretched her neck up to me, her mouth searching for mine, and I gave it to her on a silver platter.
Something bloomed in my veins as I kissed her, changing me, shredding me.
I begged time not to shift like it did earlier that evening and plucked her bra from her body, mumbling an apology as the fabric grazed her sensitive nipples.
Her neck tasted of vanilla, soft and warm, but I was aching to taste her between her thighs.
I wanted every inch of her that she would allow, and from the way her body was responding, I knew she’d give it.
My breath caught when her slender fingers wrapped themselves around the base of my cock. I didn’t think I could get any harder but fuck , the way she touched me, so gentle yet so fucking needy, only made me swell more. I needed her. I needed to be inside of her.
I pushed my boxers down over her hand and let her work at me while I sucked at the side of her neck, something primal screaming at me to mark her.
I felt like a goddamn teenager, not caring who sees a hickey from an intense make out session on the football field.
With her free hand she removed her own underwear, and within seconds, I had my fingers buried inside of her warmth.
“Do you want the lube this time?” I mumbled, eyeing my dresser where I kept it stashed. It didn’t feel like she needed it, but I was playing by her rules, taking this at the speed she was comfortable with.
“Does it feel like I do?” she laughed.
“No.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
Pushing her legs up by her breasts, I removed my fingers and pressed the tip of my cock against her entrance.
I could already feel the burning at the base of my throat ease just a little, but I had to have more.
“Watch me,” I rasped, dropping my forehead to hers and staring down at where we connected over the bridge of her nose.
“I want you to fucking see how perfectly I fit.”
The moan that broke through her as I buried every inch of me inside of her made me quiver. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I didn’t need to, like she was the only thing I needed. No air, no water, no food, no sleep. Just her, and this.
I kissed her and the fucking world shattered around me.
I fucked her and she came undone.
Every kiss, every cry, every whimper she made felt like more than what it should have. She was just a woman I’d met last year, just someone I’d slept with a handful of times, just someone I’d destroyed a potential relationship with because of my drinking.
Just someone who’d appeared back in my life, just a woman who’d truly lived while I drowned.
But the connection we’d had last year hadn’t gone away.
If anything, in that moment, it felt like it had grown tenfold.
When I kissed her, it wasn’t out of want but desperation.
We were connected in ways I couldn’t comprehend.
It was as if she had been the only one I could count on to show up when I needed someone, like she had done everything in her power to make sure I didn’t drown again.
I didn’t deserve any of it.
But I was going to lose myself with her.
“You’re everything,” I rasped, my lips against her ear, my chest against her breasts, my cock so far inside of her I didn’t think I’d ever leave.
She whimpered a little moan as I touched her, my fingers thrumming against her clit with every drive of my hips.
I wondered what she’d been worried about, there wasn’t a single thing about her that felt wrong.
It hadn’t changed her fundamentally to have a child.
It didn’t make her any less worthy of feeling so fucking good.
Her head turned, seeking out my lips again, but she didn’t kiss me. “Cole,” she whispered, our heated breaths mixing. I could feel the way her body began to tremble, the way her walls started to close in on me. “I…”
Her hand sought out mine, her fingers wrapping around my wrist, and slowly, shyly, led me to her breast. She’d pushed me away the last time I’d gone for them.
Gently, I ghosted a finger across her swollen nipple, watching in fucking awe as the tiniest bead of white prickled to the surface. She moaned louder, and I did it again, taking it between my fingers and rolling it.
Every part of her stiffened before breaking, a shriek rippling from her throat.
I covered my mouth with hers, drinking in the reverberations of her noises as she came around my cock, her walls trembling and clenching around me.
It was the sweetest fucking thing I’d ever felt, and it dragged me closer to joining her.
“Fuck, oh my god,” she cried, the overstimulation forcing her wild eyes to lock onto mine as I moved down her body.
I didn’t even think about it. I just did it.
Closing my lips around her nipple, the intensely sweet drop of milk hit my tongue. My hips stuttered, my mind went fucking numb, and oh god, I was close. I was so goddamn close.
“Cole, you don’t have to?—”
“I want to,” I rasped, and as if by magic, my tongue moving against her produced another little drop, and then another.
Her fingers knotted in my hair, her trembling body taking all that it could from me.
Just a little more, a little longer, I could hold out.
I could make it last. I could take her, I could claim her, I could fill her up then do it again. I had to. I didn’t want to stop.
I lost all control and rocketed over the edge, emptying everything I had inside of her, shaking as I fucked her, as I claimed her. I wouldn’t recover from it this time. I knew I was ruined, ruined for every other fucking woman.
I didn’t want anyone else.
————
The warmth of the sun on my bare back coaxed me gently from sleep. I hadn’t slept so well since she’d last been in my bed, and even then, it wasn’t like this. I felt rested, satiated.
Reaching across the sheets, I searched for her. But I came up empty, my eyes peeling open, only to find nothing more than a blank space where she’d been before.
My stomach dropped. Not again.
The panic in my gut forced me from the bed. There wasn’t a single part of me that had fallen asleep worried that she’d leave again but here I was, my throat aching, boxers in hand, heading out my bedroom door to look out the front window from the top of the stairwell.
Her Camry was still parked outside.
The realization that I was standing in the middle of my hallway completely naked set in as the panic slipped away. I wasn’t that concerned about Bobby stumbling across me, but I wasn’t exactly one to show my cock to anyone that happened to pass by.
I pulled my boxers on and checked the guest room, then the gym, then the upstairs living area.
In each space I came up empty. It was when I stumbled into the bathroom two doors down from my bedroom that I finally found her, hunched over the bathroom sink with two devices stuck to her breasts and one of my button-ups around her shoulders.
The words almost left my mouth.
I thought you’d left.
She gave me a soft little smile and held up the controller for the device. “Sorry,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep. “Remembered it this time.”
Something about seeing her like that, in my house, caring for her child even without him there, made my chest feel full. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I offered, stepping past the threshold. I glanced at the machine but I didn’t want to stare at it, so instead, I watched her eyes, her lips.
“A glass of water would be amazing,” she grinned.