Chapter 26
“Cole,” she suddenly says, sitting up violently, making the water slosh up the sides of the bath, her hands curling over the rim.
At the tone of my name on her lips, alarm, I’m throwing myself into standing, shielding her with my body from the door, hand automatically going to the back of my shorts to reach for my piece. The gun which I do not have on hand right now because I’m a fucking idiot. I stand on guard all the same, thinking about all of the stashed weapons across the flat and wondering why I never thought to put one in this specific bathroom.
Stupid.
“Cole?” I’m staring at the closed door, Ember’s voice a quiet thing at my back, I strain my ears, alert, listening for whatever made her jump. “What is it?” she whispers, and I hear her moving, the water lapping, then a violent rush of it cascading down her body, sploshing into the tub as she presumably pushes to stand.
I’m thinking about what in here can be used as a defence, as an attack, this room is the barest in the house.And my phone’s in the gym.
Sloppy.
Fucking hell.
And then her words register.
Her question.
Blinking, I turn to look at her over my shoulder, just enough to catch a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye.
Just as I thought, she’s standing in the tub, hands pulled over her chest, a shiver rocking her shoulders, those big eyes wide on mine, pupils blown.
“You didn’t… I thought you heard something,” I say.
She blushes, looking down, her entire body stiffening as she does, realising how she’s standing.
Naked.
Bared to me.
I don’t look, even though I want to.
“Oh,” she says lowly, shifting her feet. “No, I- I didn’t hear anything.” Arms still tucked up over her chest, her eyes dart to the closed door before quickly coming back to mine, a small frown etching between her brows. “Is that what you-” She clears her throat, voice a little louder, “You were protecting me.”
It’s not said as a question, but it almost was, it’s only on the end of her last word that she feels the statement to be true.
I duck my head, brushing a hand over my short hair.
Did she really think I wouldn’t?
Jesus.
Things feel really messy here. This bullshit miscommunication. I’ve never done well with saying things out loud. Shoving feelings and emotions down like I’m strapping them to a mortuary slab.
But this girl…
She’s too quiet, she’s too nervous, too flinchy, and it’s no wonder. Being manipulated, chased, kidnapped, locked up tight in a place she once escaped, only to be dragged back by her brother’s ex-best friend to be his, alongside three other brutal men’s prisoner.
So, really, out of the two of us, it has to be me that says something.
“Ember,” I say her name, a smooth caress of a word that just feels so right drifting off of my tongue. “I’m not really sure what sort of thing you have going on with the other men inside this house, what sort of relationship, if that’s even something you’re doing, or wanting, or thinking about, or like, not doing at all. And I know that I’m…” Not like them. “Different.” Damaged. Scarred. Merely existing. “But I…” my words die off, my hands scrubbing over my head, “fuck, I’m not good at any of this.”
I shake my head, losing all my confidence, turning the fuck around, I take a step closer to the door, ready to just walk out right now.
“You are,” she says at my back, stilling me. “You are good at this, I’m not, but I… Cole, would you mind, maybe, looking at me?”
I hear her swallow, and I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing in here, if she’s going to try and ‘let me down gently’ or whatever. I’m not sure I can handle it if I have to look at her while she says it and see pity in her eyes.
“I want to see you,” she whispers.
Her voice tangles around me like silk ribbon, every limb, every joint, every bone, pulling me back to her.
I swipe a towel from the heated closet beside the door. Shaking it out and holding it open for her as I turn back around, keeping my eyes downcast as her damp fingers brush mine. She takes the fluffy, white bath sheet from me, and when I look up, there’s a small curve to one corner of her mouth as she wraps herself up, lifting her gaze to find my hand outstretched in offering. Fingers sliding into my palm, she carefully makes her way out of the water, my grip balancing her as her wet feet hit the floor.
Even though she’s steady, she doesn’t release my fingers, dropping her gaze to my big hand around hers.
I watch her carefully. It’s what I do, since she’s been here. Watch her. I’m infatuated with her, obsessed with every twitch of her mouth, the soft, gentleness of her voice, the way she scowls at Blaze when he pisses her off. The absent stroke of her fingers over Mars’ little ginger head when she lounges in the corner seat of the couch, the pup in the curl of her thighs. I’ve tried everything to stay away from her. To keep her safe.
And up this close, our breaths mingling as I look down at her, she up at me, her chin tipped. Her eyes are wide, bright, echoey blue, ringed in sapphire, oceanic depths and shallows, shadowed by her thick curl of black lashes, fluttering across the very tops of her cheekbones when she closes her eyes. She has this little scar beneath her left eye, a smattering of tiny, light freckles across the bridge of her nose.
All these things she lets me see now, up close. Like the way I’m studying her, her eyes heavy, her cheeks pink, but she doesn’t shy away, she lets me look my fill. It feels like stepping out of the shade into the sun. Warmth finally replacing the cold.
“I said no,” I tell her, licking my lips, “when Blaze spoke to us about keeping you, all of us… sharing you.” I swallow, my throat drier than sand, “I said no.”
She looks down, her forehead creasing again, “I see,” she says gently, this little loosening in the grip of her fingers in mine, flexing her fingertips against my palm.
“It’s not what you think, though, it’s not that I don’t want you. Well, actually, at the time, it was.”
“Oh,” she exhales, her lashes shuttering her eyes as she glances down at the sliver of space between us, almost like she’s disappointed.
I drop her hand, her head turning to watch as her hand drops back to her side, but I’m cupping her cheeks in my hands and forcing her to look at me. My eyes flicker between her bright blues, the tip of my nose just skimming across hers.
“I was scared,” I confess. “Scared that if I said yes, let you in, that you’d get hurt. That I’d hurt you.” Her lips part, that line still creasing between her brows. “And even though, at the time, I told myself it didn’t matter, that I didn’t want you anyway, it was all a fucking lie, Ember. All of it was a fucking lie I told myself to try and keep you safe. From me.”
“Col-”
“Because when I look at you, see you, hear you, touch you, I feel like a man possessed. And possessed men act on impulse, wild, feral instinct. I don’t want to hurt you.” I’m breathing hard, fast, her breaths coming much the same.
Her hands rise up between us, fingers curling over my tattooed forearms, her pale skin the colour of the moon, mine like the night’s sky.
“We’re like day and night. I thought that one couldn’t exist whilst the other one does, and we’d rotate like that forever. Because it was safer, better. I didn’t want to dim your light.”
We’re breathing heavily, her face soft beneath the scarred palms of my hands. I could devour her. I could kill her. I could fuck her. I could do anything with her right now and no one would stop me, no one would hear her screams. My insides are twisted up like tangled rope even as I think about it.
“I don’t think we’re day and night, Cole,” Ember says breathily. “I think perhaps, maybe, we’re more like light and dark,” she whispers again, her quiet voice lower than normal, like she’s trying to calm a wild animal, stroking her fingers up the insides of my wrists.
I think over her words, wondering, really, what the difference between the two is, but her touch is scorching, and I’m so consumed by it, her willingly touching me, so reverently, so softly, I almost miss the moment she tells me.
“Day and night will always circle each other, one disappearing for the other. Sacrificial in its way. But there doesn’t need to be sacrifice with light and dark. Light is meant to pierce through darkness, appearing through the shadows without eradicating them. They co-exist.” She looks me in the eye then, her hands stilling on my wrists, undoubtedly feeling my pulse hammering beneath her touch in the same way I can see hers pounding in her neck. “So they can be together.”
I move first. My lips crashing into hers, tongue delving between her lips. A whimper echoes its way up her throat, ricocheting around the rumble in my own as her tongue licks into my mouth. She whimpers, her hands shackles around my wrists, nails cutting divots into my inner arms, and it spurs me on. I kiss her so hard I’m sure we’ll both come away from this collision bruised, but she holds me tighter, not struggling to separate from me.
Her back bows as I press forward, holding her cheeks so tight she makes a gasping sound, pulling back, I let her, but her bare feet slip in the puddle of water that”s accumulated from her wet skin, and the two of us go down hard on the tiles.
Grabbing hold of her, I drag her into my chest, spinning us as we fall. Pain rockets up my spine from my coccyx as I land flat on my arse, puddle water soaking into one leg of my shorts, Ember cradled in my lap.
I push her hair back from her face, my arm banded around her lower back. She looks up at me with wide eyes, parted lips swollen from our savagery.
“You okay?” My breaths are hard, but my words are soft, low.
She nods, licking her lips, “Are you okay?” she asks me in return, her little hands balled up in tight fists between us, resting over my heart.
Planting my hand down at my side, I push us up to a better sitting position, still holding her to me with my arm around her waist as I lean back against the pillar.
“Fine,” I huff a laugh, dropping my head back against the post, earning a shy smile from her.
Ember leans in, closing the small distance between us, her mouth hovering just above mine.
“And just so we’re clear,” she breathes, her eyes flick between my own, making sure I’m paying attention, “you’re the light.”
Her tongue slips inside my mouth, slow and gentle, as my hands find her hips. Our mouths move slower this time, her hands coming up to curl around the back of my neck. Her legs are parted beneath the towel, straddling my thigh, and as she nips at my top lip, I rock her over my thigh, and she fucking keens.
Tearing her mouth from mine, she looks down between us, panting softly as I roll her bare pussy over the silk of my gym shorts.
“Oh,” she says, a little puff of air escaping her lips as they part, eyes wide.
You’re the light.
“That feel good, baby?” dropping my forehead to hers, she keeps staring into my eyes as I roll her hips in my hands. “Tell me, Little Spark, how’s that feel?”
She groans, helping me now, moving herself slowly over my thigh, “So good,” she breathes against my lips, her tongue peeking out to wet her lip.
“That’s it, beautiful,” I encourage as she grinds down on my thigh, her knee brushing the steel fucking pipe in my shorts. “Keep going.”
I kiss her, tasting her, exploring her mouth, feeling the hitch of her breath, swallowing her whimpers.
The towel drops between us, the soft thud of fabric landing in my lap, but I keep kissing her when she stiffens, my tongue coaxing her back into the softness she was only moments ago. Then she rolls her hips, grinding down on me harder. Faster.
“Cole,” she breathes as she pulls back, her chest exposed, her belly, the towel parted so I can see the wet slick of her cunt leaving a trail of wetness across my shorts.
“Good girl,” I praise, tracing her lips with my tongue, speaking my words into her mouth. “Keep going. You look so fucking beautiful, all flustered and needy.”
“Touch me,” she whispers shyly, rising up on her knees before grinding back down.
The twitch of her hips as I drag her up and down my thigh has her arching her back. Revealing the smooth plane of her belly, the thick jagged scar carving up from the top of her pubic bone to the base of her navel, up her left side in a gnarled curve stopping beneath her ribs.
I try not to think about it as I move her faster over the solid mass of my thigh.
What it could mean.
What Blaze said.
What he thinks happened there.
It makes my gut twist, the thought of any of it being true.
Almost makes me not trusting myself to be with her seem fucking ridiculous.
“Look at you,” I coo, looking up at her, her movements getting faster. “You going to be a good girl and come for me, Little Spark?”
“Yes,” she pants, her nails digging into my nape.
“Tell me what you are to me,” I order her, her eyes glazed with pleasure.
“I’m your good girl,” she whispers, and then, “your Little Spark.”
I groan, my cock like granite in my shorts, but I don’t give it any attention, not until she reaches down, squeezing me through my shorts.
“Not tonight, beautiful, this is all I can give you for now,” I tell her, her head nodding.
“Okay,” she breathes, “okay, Cole.”
God, I could come just from that, the breathy little cry, my name rolling languidly off of her tongue.
She grits her teeth, throwing her head back as my mouth finds her nipple. One of them still pink with Blaze’s teeth marks. I lash my tongue over the hard peak, sucking as much of her tit into my mouth as I can fit as she pants. My hands working her hips as she starts to come, those blue eyes boring into mine with a sharp cry, I pop off of her nipple, staring up at her as she drops her head forward, her hair curtaining around us.
She breathes in, her chest filling, filling, filling, and then like a rubber band pulled too taut, she snaps.
A groan rolls up her throat, the tendons in her neck straining, she cries out, her hips stuttering, so I pick up the pace, taking over and grinding her lithe little body down over my lap until her hands are slapping weakly at my shoulders, my hands on her hips coming to a slowing stillness. Her lips meet mine in a sloppy, dazed kiss, and then with one final tremor running through her, she collapses onto my chest.
“That’s all I can give you for now,” I swallow, “It’s all I’ve got,” I say, whispering the words into her blonde curls.
There’s a quiet moment as she comes down, her fingers twitching against my pec where her hands are crushed between us. Then she turns her head, still resting on my chest, she looks up at me, one of those soft smiles on her face. One for me this time.
“It’s enough.”
And I hear what she doesn’t say, conveying it with the softness of her eyes,
You’re enough, Cole.