Chapter 60
Chapter sixty
Hendrix · Now
Fall For You – Secondhand Serenade
Cole mumbles in his sleep, his face rolling on the pillow as blue moonlight seeps through the blinds. Rain patters against the window, a light wind rustling the open curtains.
I shiver but don’t stop my perusing as I trace my nail along the black and grey dragon adorning his skin.
The tattoo is huge. It curls around his shoulders, covers his whole back, then dips into the waistband of his boxers.
I’ve always found body modification attractive. Can’t deny that. But something about Cole's in particular has me feeling all kinds of fluttery things.
There’s so much of him now that I don’t know.
Ink I’ve never seen, metal I never even knew he wanted.
Somewhere along the way, the boy I knew grew into this man I’m only just meeting, and I missed it all.
Tears prick my vision and my hand trembles.
I blink, choking down the lump in my throat.
I kiss his shoulder blade and breathe in the scent seeping off him. It hasn’t changed from the one I remember. I wonder if he’ll still smell the same after another ten years.
The duvet rustles, shifting when he rolls onto his side.
My hand glides along his warm, muscle-hardened skin.
His eyes crack open. “What time is it?”
My chest tugs at his gravelly, sleep-filled voice.
“About two,” I tell him, finding his wrist and curling my fingers around it.
His pulse thumps as I roll my thumb along the inked Hummingbird. “Why are you awake?”
“Can’t sleep.”
He snakes his arm around my back and pulls me into his chest. “You should try.”
“I will.” I press my cheek above his heart and close my eyes.
I relish in every beat as my mind drifts.
“Hey Cole,” I whisper.
“Yeah, baby?”
“I really like them.”
“The terror twins?”
“Yeah.”
His breath fans my forehead as he plants a kiss to the centre. “They really like you too.”
“What if Carter was right to keep them from me?” Guilt gnaws at my gut for the missed years. Not just with the girls, but with my family. My people. “What if I end up hurting them too?”
Cole doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
I peek up at him, half expecting him to be asleep again, only for the air to kick out of my lungs as honeyed eyes lock with mine.
Emotion swills in the depths, like a wave lost in the sea, reckless in its chaos.
“Maybe you will,” he says, his fingers coasting my cheeks as he brushes my hair out of my face. “But you’ll never do it intentionally or maliciously. We all hurt the people we love at one point or another in our lives. It’s what you do after the hurt that matters.”
He catches a stray tear as it rolls over my lashes. “What is it Saint always says?”
“Hold on,” I whisper.
“That’s all you have to do, Rixie.” He presses his forehead to mine. “We’re a family. We fight, we fall, we hurt. But through it all, we hold on. Because life is better with each other than without.”
“What if I don’t know how to hold on?”
“Then I’ll hold on tight enough for both of us.”
A short breath chokes me and I curl my arms around him, eyes fluttering closed. “I missed you, Rock Star.”
“I’ll never not miss you, Rixie Moore.” His mouth slants over mine and he claims a sweet, gentle kiss.
I melt into him.
Goosebumps flicker to life across my skin. His fingers brush my spine, his tongue swiping languidly over the seam of my lips.
I know I have a choice to make.
Face the past I’ve been running from and finally step into the future. Or keep hiding away and never confronting the broken twenty-one-year-old who only ever wanted love but ran from it because she didn’t know what it really meant to love and be loved.
But it can wait a few more hours.
For now, I just want to feel him.
I want to feel us and live in the memory of what we were and the dream of what we can become.
I run my hand down his back, heat searing my icy skin. He rolls me onto my back. I gasp as he presses down, and he slides his tongue in my mouth.
It’s different from in the studio.
His movements are slower, less frantic as he rocks his pelvis against mine.
He’s doing exactly what he promised when he pressed me into that piano.
Savouring.
His lips trail over my jaw and down my neck, soft kisses claiming every inch of me as his.
As if I could ever be anybody else’s.
I’ve belonged to one person, and one person only my whole life. The boy I met in Mr Prescott’s form room, the same one I fell in love with before I even realised what was happening.
He slides a hand beneath my baggy T-shirt and peels it from my body.
His eyes glimmer under the moonlight, never straying from mine as he eases my bra straps down my shoulder.
My skin hums, embers sparking through my veins at his gentle touch. He rolls his thumb over an aching nipple and steals my breath with a devastating kiss.
His free hand glides across my jaw and into my hair.
My clit pulses, need surging through me with every press of his pelvis.
“I need—” I gasp as he tugs at the metal stud.
“What do you need, baby?” he asks, his thumb moving to the other nipple.
His erection hits my clit and my back arches off the bed.
“You.” I wrap my legs around him, dragging him as close as possible. “I just need you, Cole.”
Always you, only ever you.
He rolls his hips before gripping my thighs.
Fire licks at my skin, searing every inch of me as he thumbs the lacy waistband of my underwear and peels them down. He doesn’t look away from my face, his eyes burning into mine, as he drags a knuckle down my cheek.
“You have me, Rixie.”
He shoves his boxers down and lines himself up to me. I lift my hips, eyes fluttering closed as the tip slips inside me.
“Eyes on me, baby.”
They shoot open at his gentle command, a sharp breath tearing my lungs.
He inches down so fucking slowly. I feel every pulse, every vein.
Air thickens around us, the rain falling heavier outside as he sinks to the hilt.
His hand curls around my wrists and he pins them above my head. He doesn’t quicken his pace, just rocks painstakingly slow as if he’s memorising every inch.
I cry out when his barbell hits my G-spot. Sweat beads down my neck. I cup his cheeks and bring his forehead to mine.
Our breaths blend into one as he grips my hip.
He kisses me again, the sweetest press of his lips and blood rushes my ears as pleasure ripples through me like a wave.
I dig my nails into his back.
He places open-mouthed kisses on my cheeks, my jaw, my neck, then he bites down, suckling the skin and I’m swept away as the wave crashes over me.
“Cole,” I whisper, burying my face into his neck.
He stills, his breath puffing as he pulses, coming undone with every flutter of me.
My heart thunders as I try to catch my breath.
He drops down, rolls onto his side, and plasters my back to his chest.
His arm drapes over my stomach, warm, heavy, and right at home as his breaths even out.
I thread my fingers through his, watching the swaying curtain as my vision swims.
The boxes I tucked away in my mind crack open one by one.
The memories, the choices, the missed life. All of it swells inside of me, building like a haunting crescendo before smashing into a thousand pieces and tearing through every defence I’ve ever made.
Silent sobs rack my body.
I cry for the girl I was, the girl I never got to be, and the woman I became—the woman who locked her dreams away and dulled herself because she believed she wasn’t worthy enough to shine.
Cole squeezes me closer.
I twist in his arms, curl my arms around him, and bury my face into his chest. He says nothing, just holds on tight as I fall.