Chapter 16 Cole
sixteen
Cole
The tears stopped ten minutes ago, but she hasn't moved.
Her weight presses into my chest, warm and solid, her breath finally evening out against my shirt. The damp spot from her crying spreads across the fabric over my heart. I keep my hand in her hair, stroking the same path through the strands again and again.
There's nowhere else I need to be. No contingency plan for this moment. No strategic framework that applies.
I never saw this coming, her trusting me with the truth.
Tissues litter the coffee table where she grabbed them. Mascara smudges under her eyes, and the lamp throws shadows across her face, softening the sharp lines of Judge Castellano into someone younger. Vulnerable in a way she never allows herself to be.
This is not the woman who sentences criminals without flinching. This is Angelina. The one I left twelve years ago, the one who just showed me every scar she carries and waited to see if I'd flinch.
I didn't
"You're still here." Her voice comes out muffled against my chest.
"Where else would I be?"
She pulls back and looks at me with those brown eyes searching my face, gold flecks catching the lamplight. Her gaze moves over my features like she is reading me for tells.
I let her look. Let her see whatever she needs to see. I have nothing to hide from her. Not anymore.
"Most men would have run by now." Her throat works. "I have a lot of baggage, Cole. A daughter. An ex-husband who—" She stops, jaw tightening.
"Everyone has baggage." I keep my voice pragmatic. "Different shapes, different sizes. Some people are lucky enough to find someone willing to help carry it."
"And you think you're that person?" Her expression flickers, not quite a smile, but close. Something wry and disbelieving. "No. You're worse. You watched me for seven years."
"I did." I hold her gaze without wavering. "And I'm not running now."
She studies me for a long moment. I don't look away. Don't try to hide whatever she is finding in my face. The guilt, the rage, the desperate need to go back in time and kill Adrian before he ever touched her.
Seven years of watching through screens, thinking I was protecting her by keeping my distance, and the whole time, she was carrying this alone.
Whatever she was searching for, she finds it.
She kisses me, soft and testing.
Different from every other time we have touched. This isn't anger or fear or desperation driving her forward.
This is a choice. Deliberate. Eyes open.
I let her lead. My hands stay where they are, one in her hair, one on her back. I don't grab or deepen the kiss. Just accept what she is offering and wait for whatever comes next.
She pulls back, voice unsteady. "I don't want to think anymore tonight."
"Then don't."
She kisses me again, harder this time, her fingers curling into my shirt and fisting the fabric. I match her intensity without pushing beyond it, following her pace as my heart slams against my ribs hard enough that she must feel it.
Her hands work at my buttons, and I help her strip the shirt off. Her palms land flat on my chest and move across the muscle and scars with deliberate focus, learning and mapping the ways my body has changed.
"You're different." Her fingers trace a scar along my ribs. Shrapnel, Kandahar, a story I'll tell her someday if she asks. "Harder."
"So are you."
Her breath catches at that. Then she stands, extending her hand toward me.
I take it. Let her pull me to my feet, let her fingers intertwine with mine as she guides me toward the stairs.
She's leading me to her bedroom. Not the guest room where I've been sleeping. Hers.
My heartbeat picks up, steady rhythm accelerating into something less controlled. We've been together twice now, but not like this. Not in her space, not with the whole afternoon ahead of us, not after she's handed me every broken piece of herself and watched me hold them without cutting myself.
The first step creaks under our combined weight. She doesn't hesitate, doesn't look back. Just climbs with her hand warm in mine, pulling me into territory I've never entered with permission.
Yatto. Finally.
The bedroom door swings open. Afternoon sunlight pours through sheer curtains, throwing soft golden patterns across the hardwood floor and unmade bed.
The sheets are tangled, pillows askew. In three years of college, she never once left her bed unmade. The fact that it is wrecked now tells me exactly what today cost her.
She releases my hand and turns to face me.
"Cole." Her voice wavers. "This is... different. Having you in here."
"We can go to the guest room if—"
"No." She shakes her head. "I want you here. In my space. I just..." A breath shudders out of her, her shoulders dropping. "I need you to know that I'm choosing this. Not running from something. Choosing."
"I know."
Her fingers find the top button of her blouse. They tremble slightly as she works it free.
"May I?"
She stops. Looks at me. Relief flickers across her face, and she drops her hands to her sides.
I close the distance between us. One button at a time, slow and deliberate. Each one a question. Each revealed inch of skin an answer she is trusting me with.
The blouse falls open. Plain white cotton bra underneath.
"I wasn't expecting—" Her cheeks flush. "This isn't exactly—"
"Angelina." I catch her chin, tilting her face up to meet my eyes. "I don't care what you're wearing under your clothes. I care that you're letting me take them off."
I slide the blouse off her shoulders. It pools on the floor behind her. The bra clasp takes seconds to work open. Cotton straps fall down her arms.
Her arms start to cross over her chest, then stop. Her fingers curl at her sides instead, trembling with the effort of keeping them there.
"Sorry." The word comes out small, ashamed. "Old habit."
Old habit. Meaning Adrian trained her to cover herself. To hide. To believe her body was something to be criticized rather than worshipped.
Rage flickers through me, hot and immediate, but I keep my voice gentle.
"Don't hide from me." I uncurl her fists and bring her hands to my shoulders instead. "Not anymore."
I press my lips to her collarbone. Then her shoulder. The swell of her breast, feather-light. I'm not rushing. Just learning the geography of her skin, tracking every response. The catch in her breathing, the way her fingers tighten on my shoulders, the small sounds she's trying not to make.
The zipper of her pants gives easily and they join the blouse on the floor. Her underwear slides down her thighs until she is standing naked in front of me.
My gaze travels over her. Not judging. Memorizing.
Mine. Every inch. Every scar. Every part she's been taught to hate.
And then I see it. I missed it last night.
The C-section scar cuts vertically down her lower belly, silver-white against her skin. Not the neat horizontal line of a planned procedure, this is an emergency cut, proof of the night everything almost ended.
She flinches when my eyes find it. Her hand moves to cover it, automatic and ashamed.
"It's ugly. I know—"
I drop to my knees.
The hardwood bites into my kneecaps, but I don't care. All I care about is being eye-level with this scar. This proof of what she survived.
"Cole, what are you—"
I kiss it.
Gentle and reverent, my lips press against the raised tissue, and she goes completely still above me. Not frozen with fear, frozen with something else. Shock, maybe. Or the kind of disbelief that comes from someone touching the part of yourself you've been taught to despise.
"This is not ugly." I kiss along the length of it, from the top of the scar down to where it fades away. "This is where you fought back. Where you called Sal. Where you chose yourself and Chesca over everything Adrian tried to take from you."
A broken sound escapes her. Her stomach trembles under my mouth.
"This is where you won, Angelina." I look up at her, and her face is wet with fresh tears. "Don't ever hide it from me, firefly."
She grabs my shoulders and hauls me up, nails biting deep enough to sting. Her mouth crashes into mine. No gentleness left, just teeth and tongue and desperate sounds swallowed between us.
"Off." Her hands yank at my belt. "Get these off. Now."
My belt buckle clatters against the hardwood when my pants hit the ground. Her hand wraps around my cock and strokes, and my hips jerk into her grip. sharp and immediate.
"Bed," she gasps against my mouth.
We crash onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs. She pulls me over her, hooks a leg around my hip, and grinds up so my cock slides through the slick heat between her thighs. The contact drags a groan from my throat.
Control. Maintain control. Let her lead.
"Angelina—" I need to slow down. Need to make sure—
"If you ask me if I'm okay one more time, I swear to God—" She reaches between us, lining up the head of my cock against her entrance. "I'm not fragile. Stop treating me like I am."
She pulls me into her with one sharp roll of her hips, and the tight grip of her pussy swallows every rational thought I had.
"Fuck." The word punches out of me. My arms shake where they are braced on either side of her head.
"There he is." Something fierce burns in those gold-flecked eyes, almost triumphant. "Stop holding back."
I stop holding back.
The first hard thrust makes her cry out, her head tipping back into the pillow. I do it again and her nails rake down my back hard enough that I'll feel it for days.
Good. Mark me. Claim me. Show me you want this.
"Yes—" She wraps both legs around me, pulling me deeper. "Like that. Don't stop."
I fuck her hard enough that the headboard cracks against the wall with every stroke. She is moaning loud and unrestrained and the sounds sink into my bones.
But I want more.
I pull out. She makes a sound of protest, reaching for me, and my cock twitches at the loss of her heat.
Patience. This isn't about what I want. It's about what she needs.