Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cole
Lori and I slide into the hired car waiting on us just outside of Ashley’s building, and neither of us speak, not with the driver present. For me, the silence is both welcome and torture at the same time. There’s an explosion brewing in me and only when Lori covers my hand on my leg do I realize how hard I’m squeezing it. I look at her and her green eyes cut through the shadows, understanding in their depths. She knows that I’m torturing myself right now. She knows that I’m blaming myself. No one in this world has ever known me well enough to know what I’m feeling. There was a period in my life, not so long ago, that I didn’t want anyone to know me this well.
By the time we’re in the thankfully empty elevator, the edge I’d felt in the car is growing sharper, while my thoughts are not. I pull Lori to me, her back to my front, willing this feeling under control. I don’t go dark often. I don’t let myself ever have that little control, but the past two weeks have hit one of my hotspots, caring about people that can end up gone. Lori doesn’t let me escape. She twists in my arms. “Cole—”
I cup her head and pull her mouth to mine. “Don’t talk.” I kiss her with a deep stroke of my tongue, and I feel her shock, her temporary surprise before she moans and melts into me, but she knows. She sees what I’m doing. I don’t want to talk. I want to fix things. I want Ashley back. I want to keep her safe. I want to get this edge off and that means I need my wife, now.
The elevator dings and I take her hand, leading her from the car, toward our apartment. I don’t look at her. I don’t want those pretty, all-knowing eyes to compel me to talk. I open the door and lead us inside and the minute I pull Lori into our apartment, my mouth is on hers again, and it’s not a gentle kiss. It’s a deep, intense, passion that is all about taking, burying, fucking. I want and need one thing right now and it all comes back to her.The taste of her, the sound of her pleasure, the heat of her body next to mine.
I let her know. With my mouth, my hands. The rough, impatient way I tug at her clothes, and peel away my jacket, but outside of unzipping my pants, I’m focused on her. I want her naked and that’s where this goes. Her in her high heels, thigh highs and nothing else. Me turning her to the door, pressing her against it and smacking her backside. My fingers caressing her sex, tweaking her nipple, sinking inside her, and then finally, I turn her to face me again. I’m not even sure which one of us pulls my cock from my pants, but it’s not soon enough. I drag her leg to my hip and I press into the slick heat of her body that is absolute-fucking-heaven. I don’t even think about waiting. I don’t want to go slow or be gentle. I drive into her, thrusting hard and fast. She gasps and closes her fingers around my shirt sleeves, while I lean in and kiss her, a deep, possessive taking that has me lifting her.
Her knees are at my hips, my hand cupping her backside, while the other splays between her shoulder blades. She is gripping my shirt again and I shackle her hips, urging her to lean back, to take more, to know that I will hold her, that I won’t let her fall, to trust me. She does it without hesitation, arching her back even as she leans away from me while pressing into me. We are frenzied, wild, fierce, and when she stiffens, that look of ultimate anticipation on her face, I drag her to me and hold her close. She shatters around me, milking my cock with hard spasms, and I go along for the tumble into release right along with her. She trembles and I quake, and somehow we end up on the ground, me against the wall, and her in my lap, collapsed on top of me.
I hold her and seconds, maybe minutes, tick by before she whispers, “We’ve never had front door sex. That worked for me. How about you?”
I laugh. “Yes, sweetheart. It worked for me.”
She presses on my chest and leans back to look at me. “Did it?”
“Yes,” I assure her, realizing now how much less on edge I am. “No one else could take me from where I was to laughing about front door sex but you.”
“You know this isn’t your fault, right?”
“I’m still inside you. Is this really the best time to have this conversation?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the only way to have this conversation based on how you were in the car.”
My lips curve. “Well, every conversation is better when I’m inside you, but if we stay like this long enough we won’t be talking.”
“You aren’t that fast,” she teases. “Pretty fast sometimes, but—” She sobers. “Cole—”
I pull her to me and kiss her. “I know it’s not my fault, but Ashley has no one in this world. Somehow, when I wanted to have no one in this world, I have you, and with you I seem to have realized I have a richer life in the way of people I care for than I realized.” I kiss her temple and stand up with both of us, my hamstrings burning with the effort to the point I moan.
“You should put me down.” Lori laughs when I start walking.
“I don’t want to put you down,” I say and it’s true. Holding her and staying inside her the rest of the night sounds pretty damn good.
Inevitably though, I do set her down once we’re in the bathroom at the sink where I hand her a towel and grab her robe from behind the door. “How about a pizza?”
“Okay,” she says, slipping on her robe.
I kiss her and help her to the floor. I grab my phone and place our order with a late-night joint we know well. In the process I walk to the bedroom and ultimately the window, overlooking the starless dark city. I’ve just stuck my phone back in my pocket when Lori appears by my side, stepping between me and the glass, where she leans on the clear surface. “I get it,” she says. “A life rich in people means you can lose those people. You know how I feel about this. Death is that thing you can’t control. I can’t control it. It’s terrifying. It’s why I panic when my phone rings, for fear it’s about my mother again.”
“I can’t believe I’ve never asked you about that story,” I say, my hand settling on her waist. “How did you find out about your father and your mother?”
“With my father, I was in the law school library when a security guard came and got me, of all people. I knew when he stopped by my side that it was bad. I knew. They took me into an office and a nurse had to tell me because my mother was incapable of speaking.” She cuts her gaze and I can almost feel her lose her breath before she looks at me. “I had to be strong. She was—she was bad.”
“When did you cry?”
“I don’t remember when I cried, Cole. I know I did, but it wasn’t at the funeral. I found this cold spot to live inside.”
“What about your mother’s stroke?”
She inhales and lets it out. “In the middle of a mock trial. The teacher pulled me aside. The trip to get from school to the city was hell.”
My forehead settles on hers. “You’re never going to be alone again. I promise.”
She leans back to look at me. “You can’t promise that. I can’t promise that to you either, so let’s just promise that we are going to crazy love each other every single second.”
“Yes,” I say, my voice low, rough. “Every second.”
Her fingers curl on my jaw. “Ashley is alone. You’re right. We have to help her. But how?”
“How,” I repeat when a thought hits me.
“Houston.”
“What about Houston?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like an answer. It’s where she’s from. It’s where she met her fiancé.” I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Royce, placing him on speaker.
“Nothing new,” he says.
“I assume you’d looked for details on the fiancé in Houston?”
“Yes. His apartment is empty. It’s a dead end.”
“Her friends in Houston might know something,” I suggest.
“What friends?” Royce asks.
“Hell if I know, but I’m in between cases. I need to go down there anyway. I’ll see what I can find out.” I arch a brow at Lori and she nods. “We’ll go to Houston in the morning.”
“I have a man in Houston. He can meet you.” We disconnect.
“We have a plan,” Lori says. “We go to Houston. A plan feels good.”
“Houston it is,” I say, and for the first time, Lori and I will face one of the reasons I left Houston: My dead father and my past, but I welcome this. Tonight, we’ve proven we still have much to learn about each other and embracing every second together means holding nothing back.