CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Dublin
The turns. The stoplights. The way the city fades from noise to quiet as we leave it behind.
They all zoom past the car’s windows, but all I can focus on is Cole’s voice seeping in through the closed car doors.
“If you’re looking for someone to blame, then look at me.”
No one has ever stood up for me like that. Yeah, sure, he’s stepped up in ways for me that I never imagined since this all went down, but that was nowhere on my bingo card.
And that has left me floored and overwhelmed. Not only am I at an outright loss for words, but I’m drowning in a collision of emotions.
None of which I feel qualified to define.
The car idles for a beat longer than necessary once we pull in his driveway. The engine ticks as it cools, a soft steady sound that fills the silence between us.
Cole moves first, pushing his door open and stepping out like he’s no doubt done a thousand times before. But tonight is different. Tonight he placed himself in front of a swarm of paparazzi and reporters and put himself in the line of fire for me.
My door opens before I even think to reach for the handle. I blink, startled, and look up at him.
There’s no hesitation in his expression, no second-guessing bringing me here, but rather that same steady, grounded certainty he had when he faced down the crowd.
He extends a hand.
“You don’t get to drag her name through the mud to make a better story.”
My throat tightens as I place my hand in his. It’s warm and solid and real and it has me stepping out of the SUV on legs that don’t entirely feel like my own.
“I’m fine.” The words are automatic because that’s what I always say. Because it’s easier than admitting I’m anything but.
His mouth quirks like he doesn’t believe me for a second.
“Of course you are,” he murmurs with a flicker of irritation in his voice. “You always are.”
I should argue and push back. I should tell him that he doesn’t need to swoop in and save me . . . instead I follow him.
Up the short walkway and with the night air cool against my overheated skin, his hand finds the small of my back.
“She did her job better than anyone else could have.”
I don’t even realize I’ve stopped walking until he does too. His hand lingers at my back for a fraction of a second longer before he reaches past me to unlock the door.
Once inside, he shuts the door behind us with a soft thud that feels final, like we’ve stepped out of the world and into something else entirely. Something quieter. Something with ramifications that go well beyond just my career and my reputation.
These deal with my heart.
I drift toward his kitchen, my fingers skimming the edge of the kitchen island, needing to ground myself to something solid.
“You want a headline? Fine. Here it is.”
God.
I squeeze my eyes shut for second, but it doesn’t help clarify what I’m feeling. If anything, it makes it all the more complicated, because now they’re not just his words replaying. It’s the way he said them. How he didn’t hesitate, didn’t flinch, and sure as hell didn’t ask me for permission.
He just took charge.
He just chose.
And . . . no one has ever done that for me before.
Is it weak to admit how good that felt? To not be the one who has to wear it all on her own for once?
“Dublin.”
I turn around and meet his eyes. He’s standing a few feet away watching me.
Not assessing or trying to figure outcomes—but really seeing me.
Like I’m someone worth putting his reputation on the line for.
Those pale blue irises look back at me and say things I don’t think either of us are ready to admit to.
“Cole.” My head shakes and eyes blink.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks.
My breath catches. He thinks I’m mad at him? The thought hits and something in me shatters.
I close the three feet between us without saying a word, pushing him backward until his ass hits the back of the couch that separates the kitchen and the family room, and give him an answer. My fists curl into the front of his polo shirt, gripping tight, and yanking him down to me.
And then my mouth is on his. The kiss isn’t soft. It isn’t careful. It’s everything I’ve been holding in for the past few days poured into one reckless, desperate collision.
Anger.
Relief.
Fear.
Gratitude I don’t know how to voice.
Confusion that’s been clawing at me for weeks since I first saw him standing in that conference room.
Once the shock clears, he’s all in. His hands come up, one fisting in my hair, the other gripping my hip, pulling me closer like he’s afraid I might disappear. Like he needs this outlet as much as I do.
Good. Because I need it. I need him. I need to feel something that isn’t unraveling at the seams. I need to feel something that makes sense. And this—this heat, this pull, this undeniable connection—is the only thing that does.
I connect my tongue with his, needing so much more than just this kiss can give me. My hands roam, up his biceps, across his shoulders, to the nape of his neck.
I kiss him harder. Deeper. Like this alone can erase the noise and the headlines and the damage. Like this kiss can give him back even a fraction of what he gave me with his speech.
My teeth catch his bottom lip, and I tug as a groan falls from his lips.
“Dub—”
“No talking,” I whisper against his lips as my mouth laces open-mouthed kisses down his jawline as I untuck his shirt while doing so and pull the damn thing over his head to give me better access to kiss every dent and sculpted incredibleness of his chest and abs.
His breath hitches as I slide my hands in his waistband and then make quick work of shoving his pants and underwear down to his ankles.
My chest rises and falls too fast, my pulse a frantic rhythm under my skin as I realize this is mine. All of this gorgeous man is mine, and I intend to explore and tease and enjoy every damn inch of him.
Women feel in words. We dissect them. Turn them over. Analyze every meaning until there’s nothing left but overthinking and doubt.
Men—my gaze flicks up to his as I flick my tongue over his nipple—men act. They show. They do.
And tonight? He did that for me.
Now it’s my turn.
“Am I angry with you?” I ask between kisses that lead to his happy trail. I chuckle against his skin as I meet his eyes while slowly dropping to my knees. “No.” I trace the tip of his cock with my tongue. “Far from it.”
My lips close around his tip and I tease it with slow, deliberate licks.
His groan turns rougher, lower, vibrating through his chest as his hand grips the edge of the counter, knuckles turning white, and head falling back. The sight of him like this, of knowing I can do this to him, turns me on just as much as his cock does.
“Fucking hell, Dublin.”
The sound of my name on his lips is intoxicating. Urges me on. Makes me want to make him lose control.
And so that’s what I set out to do. I tease and taunt him. Using my tongue. My hands. My lips. And it’s only when he’s panting, when his hand reaches for the back of my head to tangle in my hair, when his hips are bucking against me, begging me to take him all the way in my mouth . . . I do.
In one quick movement, I take him all the way to the back of my throat and hold him there as long as I can before hollowing my cheeks out as I slide him back out.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, fingers tightening in my hair as I keep going and he gently begins fucking my mouth.
With my hands splayed against his thighs, I glance up at him and meet his eyes.
They’re half closed and drugged with a mixture of desire and hunger.
His jaw’s clenched and the tendons in his neck are pulled tight, chest rising hard with every ragged breath while he watches me.
It’s like he can’t decide whether he wants to lose control or hold on to it by a thread.
And I’m determined to make him unravel.
So I take my time. I tease instead of give. Every slow drag of my tongue over the seam on the underside of his cock. Every time I twist my hand at his base in tandem with me sucking harder. The pop that happens when my lips release him.
My whole body burns at the sight of him. His muscles tensing and body pleasuring. His head falling back and his grip on control slipping.
And just when I think he’s going to snap, to let my mouth take him there, his hands are under my arms hauling me upward, mouth crashing against mine hard enough to swallow my startled gasp.
His hands roam everywhere at once—ass, thighs, waist—like he can’t touch enough of me fast enough as he continues the kiss. And then from one heartbeat to the next, he has me turned around, bent over the back of the couch and is pushing my skirt up as he laces kisses to the back of my neck.
“I need this right now. Need you,” he says as he pushes my panties aside and lines the head of his cock up. With one hand on my shoulder for leverage and the other gripping the side of my ass, he pushes into me, the need vibrating through him and right back into me.
He fills me, stretches me, and the burn melts into a pulse that thunders up my spine and swallows me in sensations. My chest presses against the cool leather while his breath on my neck is hot, each ragged exhale matching the drive of his hips and the roughness of his grip on me.
He’s everywhere at once, grinding and relentless, the tremble of restraint in his every movement. I reach back, desperate for any part of him, and he finds my hand and threads his fingers through mine. The only sound in the room are our moans and the slap of our skin meeting.
We rock together, and my need rises with the friction. The ache. The incredible, sweet burn. I can’t help the sounds that fall from my lips or the way I push back to meet his every thrust as my body chases the edge. And somehow the combination completely destroys me.
And every time I think I’m about to fall apart, he pulls me right back under him when he murmurs praise—there’s my girl, come for me, Dub, right fucking there—and dirty promises—take every goddamn inch of me, fucking milk me dry—in that low, wrecked voice of his.
There’s a shudder, a catch in his rhythm. “Fuck, you feel—” He chokes out and nips the skin on my shoulder as his body blankets mine before pulling me back up some with his.
The change of angle undoes me. My skin prickles with sweat and need and desperation. “Please,” I mewl and welcome his sudden quickening of pace. The urgency that clings to his every movement.
The jagged rock of his hips. The grunts in my ear. The roughness of his hands.
“Cole,” I cry as my body freefalls into the pleasure.
“I know,” he grits out. “I got you.”
And just as soon as those words are on his lips, he comes quickly, hard, his hands bruising as he holds me still and uses my body to take what I wanted to give him.
What I started.
We’re boneless and breathless, and I’m pretty sure I forgot my own name somewhere in the last few minutes.
Cole drags me against his chest and then surprises me by holding me tight and then falling unceremoniously over the back of the couch so that we land on the cushions—him against the cushions and my back against his chest. We’re a tangled mess in a half-undressed state, and we lie there for a beat while our breathing evens out and he presses lazy kisses to my bare shoulder.
This man walked into a firestorm for me tonight and never once hesitated. Then he told me I was staying at his house so that he could protect me.
The independent, very capable part of me bucks at the idea of needing protection. The other part of me who has had her confidence rocked and world upended feels taken care of in a way I never believed I’d like.
But at the same time, how is this going to work? Sure, the sex is great—correction, mind-blowing—and we have a history, but this is a huge change for both of us.
“For the record, Trouble, that was yeah.” He lays his hand on my stomach, sliding it under the fabric and leaves it there.
“It was,” I murmur.
“But?” He chuckles. “I feel a but coming when I don’t really think it has any place in what just happened.”
“No buts, but there is the thought that I should go find my designated room before I completely invade your space that you’re probably so used to having to yourself.”
He tightens his arm around me instantly. “Not happening.”
The firmness in his voice should probably concern me, instead his unexpected response has warmth spreading through my chest. “Cole—”
“You think I’m letting you go? Don’t you feel how comfortable I am as a pillow?” The amusement in his voice is undeniable.
“More like a mattress.” I wiggle my ass against him. “You’re kind of hard though.”
His chuckle is low and suggestive. “I definitely can be. Give me a few more minutes to recover and I’ll get there.”
I roll my eyes. I walked right into that one.
Then again, this new arrangement might just have some great side benefits.