Chapter 43
43
PAIGE
“You can’t wear that.”
I stopped and stared at Cole just as I walked out of my bedroom. “Why not?”
“Because there’s no way in hell I’ll keep my hands to myself if you're wearing that all night.”
Grinning, I walked to him and laid my hands on his chest. “I’m wearing it, and just so you know, I’ll be really disappointed if you keep your hands to yourself.”
“That so?” He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me tight against his body. “You have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“I have some idea.” I leaned up and kissed him slowly but pulled back when he attempted to deepen it. “Nope.”
“No?” He smirked when I took a step back, and he had to drop his arm. “You sure?”
“No,” I answered honestly. “Which is why we need to leave.”
I heard him chuckle while I walked past him toward the kitchen. “I just need to feed the cats, and then we can go.”
“Already did,” he replied.
I stared down at the kittens all eating from their little bowls and then smiled at Cole. “I thought you weren’t helping with them.”
“I never said that.” He hadn’t, but I just assumed that since he didn’t like cats, he wouldn’t want to help take care of them. I took down their enclosure today so they’d spent the better part of the day exploring the apartment. I had no doubt after they ate, they’d be back in their kitty pile fast asleep. “Besides, they haven’t been too bad.”
“Are you starting to like them?”
“I’m tolerating them,” he clarified.
“Sure, you are,” I teased and watched him grin.
“You ready?”
I nodded, and he wrapped his hand around mine. We made our way downstairs and were in the garage when he paused.
I glanced around the garage before looking up at him. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said, but he didn’t look sure. I understood why when he continued talking. “I can’t remember the last time I had the weekend off, knowing we were on schedule in the garage.” He squeezed my hand and smiled down at me. “Crazy, right?”
I leaned my head against his arm. “You worked hard to get to this point. Now you can relax a little and enjoy it.”
He started walking toward the main door. “That’s gonna take some time to get used to.”
He locked the door behind us, and we headed to his truck, where he held the door open for me like he did every time I rode with him. I didn’t need him to do it. I used to scoff at the idea of someone doing it for me, blowing off those old stereotypes of what a man should do for a woman, but I learned over the past few months that I liked when he did. It wasn’t because I thought he should. It was because he wanted to, and that made me feel special to him in a way I hadn’t with any other man.
Looking out the window, I thought about how much I wanted everything we’d been doing to stay the same, but that wasn’t likely. Things were going to change. I had a townhouse I hadn’t lived in for months but still owned. I didn’t want to think about leaving Cole’s, but truthfully, I needed to think about my next steps, and we had about twenty minutes in the car. Now was as good a time as any.
Clearing my throat, I looked over at him. “I think we should talk.”
He glanced my way, and his smile slowly faded. “What’s wrong?”
I folded my hands in my lap and stared down at them. “Well, I was just thinking now that Lewis is behind bars, things are going to change.”
“What has to change?”
My head snapped in his direction, but his eyes were on the road. “Well, for starters, there’s no reason for me to live with you anymore.”
When he glanced at me, I saw he was scowling. “You wanna move?”
I could be flirty and say something that implied what I wanted, but I wasn’t doing that anymore. The thought of being that frivolous with our relationship soured my stomach. “No, I don’t want to move, but I have a townhouse I’m still paying for, and all my bills are there. Plus, our relationship is new.”
“New?”
“Not new, I guess, but definitely different now than it was.” I glanced out the side window. “When I came to stay with you, I was at the lowest point in my life. I was scared and vulnerable, and for the first time in a long time, I wanted someone to take care of me.” I glanced back at him. “I love that we’re doing this, but I just don’t know who we are in this relationship now. I’ve changed over the past few months. What I want in my life has changed. I guess I’m just not sure where we stand.”
He glanced at me before facing the road again. I didn’t think he was going to answer so I pressed him. “Cole?”
“Hang on.” He made a few turns off the beaten path before eventually turning his truck onto a dirt road that led to nothing but fields. After putting it in Park, he angled his body to face me.
“Where are we?”
“The old farm that Ben bought.”
“Oh.” I sat up taller and looked out the windshield. “This is where Bailey and Chase are going to build their house.”
“Yeah, they showed me over Christmas. Their lot isn’t too far from here.”
“What are we doing here?”
“It was the closest place I could think of to pull off for some privacy. Think we need to clear some shit up, and I don’t want to do that while I’m driving.”
“Okay.”
“Why do you wanna move?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to,” I argued. “It’s just that things have changed, and we really haven’t talked about it.”
“It just happened last night,” he reminded me.
“Yeah, I know.” I shifted on the seat to face him more fully. “I just…I’ve made assumptions before, and that never ends well for me.” I gestured back and forth between us. “ We’ve both made assumptions that turned out to be wrong. I don’t want to do that this time.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “So let me be very clear.” He reached across the center console and grabbed my hand. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time, long before you ever moved into my apartment and long before I liked what I was feeling.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“It means I loved you when we weren’t getting along.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t talk myself out of loving you even when we fought all the time.”
I smiled softly. “You tried to do that?”
He grinned. “Every fucking day. But I couldn’t.”
“That’s why you were so angry about Landon,” I stated quietly.
“Yeah.” He snorted. “I hated that he was in your life.”
“He’s a good person.”
“I know.” He agreed. “Trust me, I’ve heard that from Ben and Jake, but I hated who he was to you, no matter how insignificant your relationship was. It’s as simple as that.”
It was simple. We both wanted to be together, but our own stubbornness and pride kept us from realizing it.
“You said what you want has changed. What’s changed?”
I smiled slowly. “Everything really. I still love going out to dance and have fun, but I didn’t really want to go tonight unless you were going. Lately, watching a movie on the couch is just as fun, and I never would’ve said that a year ago.”
He squeezed my hand. “Then just stay.”
My eyes widened. “Just like that?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “You can sell your townhouse, and we can look for a place so we’re not living over my garage. We’ll figure the rest out as we go. We’ve been doing that for months, and it’s working for us.”
I wanted that, but I’d been impulsive my whole life, and this felt like I was jumping in without a net again. I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I liked who I was becoming. I loved running a business with Cole knowing he needed and valued me. For the first time in a long time, I felt confident and saw a future I was excited about.
But maybe this wasn’t impulsive. The life I’ve been creating over the past few months is the life I want to have. I wasn’t making a rash decision. I wasn’t in this just for fun. I wanted this life, and more importantly, I wanted this life with this man.
Wanting to be close to him, I pushed myself off the seat, climbed over the console, and swung my leg over his lap. He immediately reached down, and the seat moved back to allow room for me to settle on his lap. Grinning, he wrapped his hands around my hips. “Does this mean you like my idea?”
Smiling, I nodded. “On one condition?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s the condition?”
“We can keep Hazel.”
“I knew we were keeping that cat,” he grumbled, but I saw the teasing glint in his eye.
Leaning in close, I hovered my lips over his. “In that case, I owe you a thank-you.”
He groaned when I rocked against the swell in his jeans that was quickly hardening. I loved that I could do that to him so easily. After all the months of assuming he didn’t have any feelings for me, it was arousing to know he'd been hiding it all along.
Skimming my lips along his cheek, I closed my eyes when his hands squeezed my hips. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
Lifting my hands, I wrapped them around the sides of his neck and rocked my body against his just as I whispered the words I felt for this man for as long as I could remember. “I’ve loved you for the last year.” I skimmed my lips along the side of his neck. “I couldn’t stop it either.”
His hands tightened enough to bruise, and he turned his head so he could catch my lips in a wild, uncontrolled kiss. It was as if we’d taken the leash off our feelings and finally felt free enough to show everything we’d been holding back all this time.
Reaching between us, I unsnapped his jeans and yanked the zipper down, desperate to feel him slide into me with the knowledge that he was mine. All the insecurities and doubt were for nothing because he’d always been mine. I’d just been too blind to see behind all the frustration and anger.
He yanked up my dress, shoved my panties to the side, and drove his fingers deep inside, but I wanted more. I wanted him, all of him. After I lifted myself enough to line up over his cock, he pulled his fingers from me, and with our lips still fused, he pushed inside me.
There was nothing else like this. No one ever made me feel the way Cole did every time we were together. Lifting my hips, I moved quickly, lost in my own pleasure. Pulling my mouth from his, I laid my forehead against his. We moved together in perfect rhythm, both chasing the orgasm that felt bigger than anything I’d ever experienced.
This wasn’t the drunken passion from the first night we were together. It wasn’t the slow, sweet lovemaking from last night or the marathon sex we’d been determined to have throughout the day. This was different. It was chasing away all the fears we both still had about what it all meant and where the other one stood. This was real, and it extinguished all our doubts.
“Paige…” He groaned again and hammered himself into me, shaking the entire truck with the force of his thrusts, and I wanted that. I wanted him to unleash it all and show me exactly what I was doing to him because he was doing the same thing to me.
I felt the telltale sign of my orgasm and slammed my lips against his, whimpering when it finally hit. It was just as I thought, bigger than I ever felt, and when he threw his head back and shouted, I knew it was the same for him.
Collapsing against his chest, I tried like hell to catch my breath. It took a while, and I think I even slept a few minutes before I heard his voice and smiled. “I’m glad I pulled over.”
“We should do this again,” I mumbled against his chest. “Maybe after we argue the next time.”
“I thought we were done with that.”
I smiled when I felt his chest rumble while he spoke. “Arguing?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a chance,” I replied with a soft laugh. “But this will keep it interesting.”
“You wanna just go home?” he asked, and I recognized the hope in his tone.
Pushing back a little, I stared into his eyes. “We could, but everyone would be disappointed.”
He shrugged. “Who cares?”
I laughed again and slapped his chest. “I care. Besides, I made a promise to Harper.”
“I know.” He kissed me softly but then squeezed my hip. “If you wanna go, you’re gonna have to get off me.”
Reluctantly, I untangled myself from him and moved to sit in my own seat, but then something occurred to me. “No condom.”
He frowned while fixing his clothes, and I did the same. “We’re going to need to figure something out, considering we keep fucking this up.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, although the idea of having a child with Cole didn’t scare me, and I’d never even been sure I wanted kids.
He put the truck in gear and pulled back onto the road leading us to New Hope, but he glanced at me. “What are you thinking so hard about?”
How did he know? He always seemed to pick up on the things bothering me that I wasn’t talking about. No one else ever had. Maybe because I’d never let them get close enough. “Do you think it’s a good idea for us to work together? I mean, that’s a lot for a relationship.”
“I can’t go back to running that damn office.” He laughed. “And you do it better than I ever did. The ideas you have are going to help me grow this into the business I always wanted it to be. So whatever it takes, we’ll make it work.”
A sense of pride filled me. I’d spent the better part of my adult life struggling to find a place where I felt valued, working to prove I was capable to everyone but especially myself. There were countless jobs and relationships that I wanted to work out, but not for the right reason, only to feel validated.
But I didn’t need to do any of those things.
I only needed to be myself and allow someone close enough to see the real me, not the person I showed to the rest of the world.