17. Cole #2
By the time I’d retrieved it and come back, the bottles and the attachments were resting on the sink. Instead, she’d replaced them with her hands, her face scrunched in concentration as she massaged each breast. “Does it hurt?”
“Hmm? Oh. No, it’s just… weird,” she laughed.
I set the glass down in front of her and saddled up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. I watched as she worked at them in the mirror. Each little squeeze and push, each little grunt she made churned something inside of my chest.
She reached for the pump again but I held her back, grasping her wrist gently in my palm and plucking the two little suction attachments from her. Her look of surprise softened as she glanced back at me in the mirror, the smallest little smile tugging at her lips.
Dana guided me, showing me how to place them and what button to press on the device, explaining how she needed to coax more out halfway through to get a good pump.
I took in every word.
I took in every goddamn second.
————
Any other morning I would have opted to go back to bed with Dana or join her in the shower.
But I knew the state of my own house, knew that Bobby had no sense of control when it came to keeping things clean, and I didn’t want her to inevitably end up in one of the living spaces or the kitchen and walk into a disaster.
So instead of taking my time with her, I took the time to impress her.
I picked up every scrap of trash Bobby had left behind and stuffed it into a bag before dumping it in the outside bin.
I washed the dishes, wiped the counters, I even fucking vacuumed .
There wasn’t a single thing left behind, not a single crumb or morsel.
I wanted to prove to her that after last night, I wasn’t too far gone.
I shot a message to Bobby. He still hadn’t come home, at least not that I could tell. A part of me was almost jealous of how much his social life in Boulder had seemed to take off, but I didn’t let it sour me.
Hope you had a good night. I had Dana over.
By the time she finally emerged, taking the steps carefully from what I could only imagine was a good ache between her thighs, I was halfway through making her breakfast.
Still in my button-up shirt but with the buttons actually fastened and nothing underneath, she looked like a goddamn dream.
Her wet, wavy hair hung over one shoulder, dampening the white material and giving me a peek of her breast. The leftover makeup from last night was gone, nothing but her bare, tanned skin and freckles left behind.
The temptation to throw her over the counter and take her again was nearly maddening.
“Smells good,” she grinned. “What are you making?”
“Honestly?” I laughed, reaching out an arm and tucking her into my side. “It’s just bacon. I’m not exactly the best chef in the world.”
“Well, most mornings I barely have time for a bagel before Drew starts up so bacon is a goddamn luxury,” she chuckled. Her face pressed against the side of my bare chest, warming me with her skin while chilling me with the cold of her damp hair. I only pulled her in tighter.
“Then you’ll be even more excited to learn that there are frozen hash browns in the oven.”
“Mmm, I love hash browns.”
“Eggs?” I offered. “I’ve got so many damn eggs. Bobby keeps buying them.”
She lifted her chin, poking me with it in the side of my pec as she looked up at me. “I could go for some eggs.”
I planted a quick kiss against her cheek before slipping out of her embrace. “Scrambled? Sunny side up? Fried?” I asked, fishing out the pack from the refrigerator.
“Scrambled with cheese, if you’re capable.” Her wicked little grin as she hopped her ass up onto the counter had my cock twitching in my pajama bottoms. Don’t.
I grabbed a pack of pre-grated cheddar and dropped it onto the counter next to her. “So picky.”
“Just wait until Costa Rica,” she giggled. “I’m not exactly good with foreign foods. I’ll eat Mexican once in a blue moon, but even then, I’m happy with just a quesadilla.”
Grabbing a fresh pan from the cabinet, I cranked up the gas burner and got started on her cheesy scrambled eggs. “So you’re coming then?”
She leaned back against the varnished wood cabinet behind her, bare legs dangling over the edge of the counter. I couldn’t stop myself from placing an absent-minded hand on her thigh, just enough to feel her softness. “Mm-hm,” she grinned.
The more I considered Dana bringing Drew, the more I found myself excited for the trip.
It would be interesting to see her in her true element outside of work, and I’d be lying if there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to meet the little guy, especially after meeting Brody.
I only hoped he didn’t scream his head off the entire flight. “Does Drew have a passport?”
She nodded. “I applied for one a few days after he was born. Lottie had been talking about a trip up to Canada with just us and our kids, so I got one just in case.” Her little smile tripled in force, almost taking up the entirety of her face.
“You should see the picture on it. He’s just a wrinkly little thing. ”
Shoving my hand into the cheese packet and tossing a load into the pan, I glanced at her for approval. She shook her head and pushed the packet back into my hands. So picky.
“Will the tickets you bought work for him?” she asked. Still unhappy with the amount of cheese I’d given her, she tipped the packet upside down over the pan, emptying the entire contents.
“Tickets?”
“Yeah. For the flights.”
“Baby,” I chuckled, resuming my grasp on her thigh and squeezing it. “You’re not flying commercial.”
She blinked at me, the empty cheese packet hanging limply in her hand. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll fly with me,” I said simply. I took it from her grasp and tossed it aside, creeping my other hand up her thigh just a little more. “You don’t need a ticket for that.”
“Cole.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I cooed, taking the pan off the heat so I could give her my full attention. “A few others are flying with me as well. I doubt anyone will ask questions.”
Her brows came together as I slotted my hips between her knees, for once looking up at her instead of down. “Who else?”
“Just a handful of executives.”
“And no one will find it weird that a tour guide is joining you?”
Her body quivered as my fingers ghosted the warmth between her thighs. “If they do, they can take it up with me.”
“But they’ll?—”
I pressed my lips to hers, preventing her from saying anything else and did my absolute best not to fuck her next to the burning stove.
————
Driving her Camry was like trying to control that goddamn horse back at Lottie’s.
I wasn’t used to the clunkiness of it. I hadn’t driven something in that bad of shape since I was sixteen, occasionally driving my friend’s cars instead of my own.
It didn’t maneuver as easily as my Tesla or my Maybach, but that could have just been a testament to its age.
Either way, I made a note to book her Camry for a full service.
I pulled into her driveway, the quaint little house sitting like a Lego amongst the rest of the identical homes. A few houses back, my driver parked on the side of the road, waiting for me to finish dropping her off so he could take me to collect my Maybach from the liquor store.
“You sure you’ll be okay to get your car?” she asked, her fingers hesitant on the buckle of her seatbelt.
I nodded. “I’d have someone pick it up for me if I wasn’t.”
“Promise me you’ll call your sponsor if you feel even the slightest inkling to go inside.”
I chuckled. “I’ll call her if I need to. If I did every time I felt the tiniest little want, Dana, she’d never be off the phone with me.”
The joke didn’t quite land. Her lips pursed into a fine line, more worry than amusement coating her features. “Cole.”
“I’ll call her if I need to,” I repeated.
It took her a moment, but she finally nodded and pushed the door open. I followed her out, locking the car behind me, and placed the keys into her waiting hands.
I walked her to the front door, not quite ready to let her go just yet, and before she could wrap her fingers around the handle I had her face in my hands, her lips on mine.
One last kiss, one last moment before we had to go back to the monotony of our day-to-day lives.
I could steal as many moments as I wanted at work, but after last night, none of those would even come close to feeling as real as the last twelve hours had. I wanted this part to last.
She chuckled against my lips, her demeanor calming. “I’m still not going to date you,” she breathed, the grin across her cheeks feeling far too mischievous for her own good.
“Keep telling yourself that baby.”
The sound of the latch coming undone made us both jump, and as we turned, the door slowly opened.
There stood a woman a couple of inches taller than Dana, her shoulder-length brown hair wild and her eyes bloodshot. But that wasn’t what stood out. It was the little bundle in her arms.
The smiling, eager little boy giggled the second he saw his mother. Bald head and green eyes, chubby but smaller than Brody. Something about him made the emptiness in my chest ache, made me want to reach out and take him from who I could only assume to be Vee.
I couldn’t take my goddamn eyes off of him.