Chapter 17
seventeen
ISABELLE
I opened my eyes to early morning light, and a heavy weight across my middle. I took a moment to take in my surroundings. The ceiling above me was vaulted, crisscrossed by beautiful oak beams. There was a smell invading my senses that made my head spin.
Him.
I turned my head and found him, finally registering that it was his arm that was pinning me to the bed. His face was soft with sleep. He looked younger than usual, the worries of his dangerous life blissfully absent in sleep.
His tattoos were dark against his skin. All the stories of a hard life lived, risks taken, and scars to remember it all by.
Last night flooded my brain. I might have been able to convince myself that our first close encounter in The Clutch had all been for the sake of the story, and nothing important.
But this was something else. The way I’d felt last night, unburdened and completely safe in the hands of this much older, much more experienced, and much, much more dangerous man wasn’t something ordinary.
I needed to get the hell out of here.
I slipped out of bed, lifting Cole’s slack arm and gently setting it back down.
He was really out of it, and I didn’t want to wake him.
I couldn’t stand the idea of looking him in the eye after last night.
I’d had no idea I could be so shy. It was a strange realization to have at the ripe old age of twenty-one.
But I’d lost control in a way I had never done before.
I felt vulnerable, and laid bare. Seen, for the first time.
I crept across the hardwood floor, hunted for my clothes, before quickly giving up when I couldn’t see them in the immediate vicinity, and opened the door as quietly as I could.
“You do know what happened to Goldilocks when she tried to sneak out without Papa Bear’s permission, don’t you?
” His lazy voice froze me to the spot. My face felt hot, that damn shyness making me awkward.
Yeah, despite my determination to cross scandalous stuff off my bucket list in the last three years, and managing most of it, this man could make me blush like a nun.
My self-perception of how unbothered I was by the opposite sex was really taking a hit around this man.
“What’s the matter, Isabelle? Cat got your tongue this morning?”
His amused tone sent my shyness skittering as annoyance surged. I turned around and raised my chin, giving him as cool a look as I could muster.
“Just ready to go home. I’ve got stuff to do and places to be, you know.”
Cole was lying on his front, his impressive back on display all the way down to his muscled ass, half visible thanks to a low-riding sheet. His skin was tanned, his tattoos vivid against the white sheets. He watched me through half-lidded eyes, his head resting on his arms.
“Is that right? Well, I won’t pretend not to be disappointed,” he said with a half grin that made my heart beat fast.
He wanted me to stay? Get a grip, Isabelle, I scolded myself.
This man was way out my league. I needed to get out of here before I ruined the perfect memory of last night, or he found out what I was really doing sidling up to him at his bar.
I had a feeling that all his slow, sexy smiles would disappear pretty quickly.
“Well, you’ll get over it, I’m sure,” I breezed, backing toward the door. “I really do need to go. I’m super busy today, yep, very busy day coming up.”
“Don’t let me stop you, in that case, Goldilocks,” Cole murmured.
I took one long, last look at the criminally sexy sight he made naked in his bed, and tore myself away with a groan. I left the room and hurried down the stairs, not trusting myself not to go back if I lingered too long.
The house was surprisingly clean and tidy considering last night’s party. It was also empty. Extremely empty.
I walked from room to room, looking for someone, anyone, who could give me a ride back into town. The realization sunk through me that I was alone here with Cole, miles and miles outside of town. Too far to walk.
I pulled my cell from my purse, by the door and dialed Eve. It beeped and the call failed to connect.
“Service is patchy out here,” Cole said, making me jump. He was leaning against the doorjamb to the sitting room, shirtless, low-riding jeans hanging on his lean hips. I stared. I couldn’t help it. His arms were crossed, head tilted, his expression unbearably amused.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know all my friends went and left me here,” I muttered, giving up on my phone and tossing it onto the coffee table.
“Don’t blame them. I assured them I would see you home, personally, since you passed out in a room up here.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You lied to them?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to say you’d been sitting on my face upstairs.”
My face burned. The filthy words fell so easily from his mouth.
“Seems like you’re the kind of girl who would want to keep what happened between us last night secret. I didn’t want to deny you that opportunity.”
I had no idea what to say to that for a moment. My brain scrambled for a response.
“What kind of girl is that?”
He smirked. “A good little law-abiding citizen.”
“More like you don’t want anyone to know you hooked up with your little brother’s friend,” I finally managed. He pushed off the wall and stalked toward me. I backed up; I couldn’t help it. He was a wall of muscle, tattoos, and temptation. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust myself.
“I don’t run my mouth about women I take to bed,” he started.
“Very gentlemanly of you,” I cut in, backing around the sofa.
Cole paused, watching me with narrowed eyes, and then chuckled, turning slightly to walk into the open-plan kitchen.
“Not really,” he called. “I don’t run my mouth, but I wouldn’t lie about it for my sake either, only for yours.”
He switched the coffee maker on, and turned to brace his arms on the large kitchen island between us.
“Meaning?” I wandered closer, lured by the smell of brewing coffee.
“Meaning I don’t regret a damn thing I’ve done since meeting you, Goldilocks. I don’t do things I’m not ready to stand up and take accountability for.” He washed his hands in the island’s sink, slowly and methodically, then went for the refrigerator.
“I don’t fuck around with women I’m ashamed of being with. End of story. Then again, I don’t really fuck around, period.” He kicked the door to the refrigerator shut and came back to the counter, carrying eggs.
I was close enough now to touch the counter. I gripped it to steady myself against the effect of his words. He cracked the eggs into a bowl.
“Are you going to take me home now?” I wondered.
“After breakfast, sure,” he said. “You can stay for breakfast, can’t you?
I’ll make it just right.” He grinned wickedly at me.
He seemed like an entirely different man than the one I’d met at The Clutch.
The one who was always aware of where his men were, and who they were talking to.
The man who carried a gun in the back of his jeans and was ready to step between me and danger in a heartbeat.
I nodded slowly. My chest felt tight, my palms sweaty. Somehow, this felt more dangerous than anything else we’d done up to now. Very dangerous, indeed.
Who’d have thought it? The MC Pres could cook. He toasted sourdough, and topped it with avocado, and eggs, then crumbled chorizo sprinkled on top. The food was sublime, the coffee was just right, and the company was thrilling.
After a breakfast where I laughed too much, ate too much, and felt too much of everything, he took a call.
I cleaned the dishes, setting them in the wrought iron drying rack and wiping down the counters.
The kitchen was beautiful. Hand designed, Cole had told me over breakfast. What kind of man was a criminal mechanic, motorcycle-riding woodworker?
Cole was breaking out of any kind of box I tried to put him in inside my mind, and I wasn’t sure what to do about that.
I took my third cup of coffee out onto the deck.
The morning sun slanted through the trees, warming me, though the pine air remained fresh and crisp.
I walked the length of the deck. It was a stunning spot.
With the way the cabin faced, it was pines after pines, framing a stunning view through the trees of the coastline.
I wandered down the steps at the side of the deck. Cole was pacing, still on the phone, on the other side of the floor-length sitting room windows, and I didn’t want him to think I was listening in.
I shuddered to think how he would feel if he knew I came to his bar carrying a listening device I’d hoped to plant, a device that I seemed to have misplaced somewhere. That was not a conversation I wanted to have.
I walked down the steps, and onto the forest floor. Thick borrowed socks cushioned my feet from pine needles. I was still only wearing the henley, though he’d also given me a plaid shirt of his to put on top. Which reached down to the back of my knees.
In the yard at the side of the house, there was a huge firepit area with seating all around. It looked cozy. I imagined the nights Cole had sat here. Had he been alone? Despite being surrounded by people most of the times I’d seen him, he seemed like a solitary man.
I wandered past the paved area of the firepit, spying a sizeable shed just behind.
The door was ajar, and wood shavings littered the floor.
Call it journalistic instincts, or just being a nosy bitch, but I was pushing the door open before I could stop myself.
I belatedly realized that I probably should’ve been more apprehensive about poking around a dangerous MC president’s house.
What if I saw a body? Crates of guns? Stacks of drugs?
I had barely begun to spiral into those thoughts, before I took in the room.