Chapter 11
Eleven
Cole
I go through the motions of making coffee and toasting bagels, but my mind isn't on the tasks. I know there's more to tell me, but what else could it be? There's an inkling deep down in my subconsciousness, but I don't think I'm brave enough to face that idea unless I have to.
Part of me is in just as much disbelief that that just happened as it sounded like Lacey is in.
Like, I can't quite grasp as real the fact that Lacey Gray Fascinelli—yes, I obviously checked out her ex—is in my home, in my bed, naked.
That I got to touch her. Make her come. That I got to have that sweet mouth on my cock, those absurd tits in my hands.
I mean, of all the unnecessary surgeries, Lacey Grey getting a boob job is right there at the top of the list, because she already had a fucking fantastic rack, especially on her otherwise svelte frame. But, that said, understood, and accepted as true…damn. Just damn.
Shallow of me, I know. They look incredible, but she just didn't need it. And even if she hadn’t already said as much, I could probably guess that it wasn’t her idea, which just makes me madder than hell—or more so than I already am.
I scrub my face with both hands while the coffeemaker finishes burbling and hissing. I fucking want her. I want to kiss her and never stop. I want to fuck her so hard she can't walk. I want to make slow, soft love to her all night. I want to know everything that happened to her.
But it sort of sounds like she regrets what just happened, and it also sounds like whatever else she has to tell me is going to further upend my life.
And why is she so sure I'm going to break her heart?
I fix our coffees and bring those and the bagels upstairs.
I find Lacey exactly where I left her—in my bed, posed and fucking sexy as hell.
The elegant curve from foot to hip to breast to shoulder makes my mouth water and my cock tingle.
The drape of her breasts leaves me breathless.
The golden shine of her hair in the early morning sun sends cracks of awe through my calcified heart.
The sadness and arousal and worry and fear in her eyes? Well, that twists me into knots.
Her eyes, as I enter the room, fix on my dick, watching it move as I walk. Then they slide up my abs, linger on my chest and arms, and her teeth seize her lower lip, and her eyes betray her arousal.
It is gratifying as fuck, seeing how affected by me she is. Makes all the time and effort I put into staying fit worth it.
I set the tray on the foot of the bed. "I brought breakfast, too."
Her eyes are still on my dick. “Yeah, you did."
"Lacey."
She smirks, shrugs. "Sorry, not sorry. You have a truly magnificent penis, Cole. I'm not going to apologize for appreciating it."
My stupid face burns, and I can't help a self-conscious grin. "Thanks, I guess. It is nice to hear."
She drags her gaze away, finally, and meets my eyes. "As much as I'd be game to just stare at your naked body all morning, if we don’t put clothes on, we won't do anything productive."
"It's Saturday, babe. I'm on call, obviously," I point at the radio on the charger base on top of my bureau beside my alarm clock. "But otherwise, I've got nowhere to go and nothing to do."
Her eyes flutter as she blinks rapidly, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "Cole." She sits up, tugging the flat sheet up around her chest and tucking it under her armpits. "We need to talk. You know we do."
"I have no intention of breaking your heart," I say.
"You did hear me, then," she says, eying me with a cautiously shuttered expression.
"Yeah."
"I know you don't intend to, Cole. And I don't intend to break yours. But I'm just…I'm worried the circumstances may not leave us much choice."
"We can't control circumstances," I tell her. "But we can control our reaction to those circumstances."
She sniffs, hanging her head nodding. "That feels like a thinly disguised dig."
I frown, blinking. "What? No."
"Oh, c'mon. Be honest. You don't think I responded to circumstances all that well, fifteen years ago."
I let out a breath, slowly at first in a sigh and then all at once in a chuffing, sarcastic laugh. "I don't know, Lacey, because I still don't know what the circumstances were."
She nods again and then half-covers her eyes with one hand. "Put on shorts, please. I can't have a serious conversation while you're naked. All I can think about is—" She blushes, covers her face, shakes her head. "Nope, nope, nope, nope. Ignore me."
I sidle closer to her, stand in front of her so my dick dangles in front of her face. "All you can think about is what, Lacey?"
She drops her hand and looks up at me, her eyes once again wide and feigning innocence.
"All the dirty, sinful things I want to do with this lovely penis of yours.
" She cups the back of my thighs, runs her hands up to clutch my ass cheeks, clawing her fingers into the muscle.
"Fuck, this ass is so tight. I swear to god you're hotter now than you were at eighteen.
" Her tongue flicks out and touches the dangling tip of my dick.
"Is this what you were hoping would happen? "
"Literally every moment of every day,” I answer.
"Me specifically, or just in general?"
"Both things can be true."
My cock is unfurling as she stares at it, toying with my ass cheeks. Lacey rests her forehead on my stomach. "Cole, please. Put it away. We need to talk."
"I don't want to talk. I want to fuck that pretty mouth again."She lurches off the bed and staggers away from me, bracing against the door much as I did earlier. "Cole, fucking hell. I am trying so damned hard to do the right thing, and you're making it so fucking hard."
“You're making me so fucking hard."
"COLE!" she whirls. "Shut the fuck up with the jokes!
I know you're scared of what I have to say, but for the love of god, man.
Just listen to me. Please. It's taking all the courage and self-control I possess, which isn't much, to not let you distract me with sex.
" She slaps both palms against my chest, hard enough to sting.
"All I want is to pretend nothing happened, Cole.
I would seriously love nothing more than to just stay in bed with you, playing happy couple.
I would suck you off until your eyes roll permanently into the back of your head.
I'd fuck you six ways to Sunday. I'd beg you to spend an hour eating my pussy until I physically can't handle coming anymore.
I'd love to just ignore reality and do nothing but catch up on all the sex we haven't had for the last fifteen years, Cole. But we can't do that."
I grab a pair of workout shorts that feature a built-in liner and step into them.
Yank open my closet and grab a white button-down off a hanger and toss it at Lacey.
She catches it and shrugs it on, buttons it up just enough to leave a torturous amount of cleavage bare.
She rolls the sleeves up to her elbows and then takes a mug of coffee and a bagel and saunters out of the room.
"We can’t have this conversation in your childhood bedroom, Cole. And no matter what else happens today, we are moving you into the primary suite. You're almost forty, for fuck's sake. It's time to take the big boy room."
I have no choice but to follow her with my coffee and bagel down to the den; she curls up in the corner of the couch with a throw blanket over her lap, and pats the spot beside her.
I slip under the blanket with her; she stretches her legs out over mine, and I work one hand under the blanket and grasp a smooth, warm thigh, exploring the length of her leg from hip to knee while sipping coffee with the other.
I wait for her to speak, and she does, after a good two minutes of silence. "Background first, or just drop the bomb?"
"Just drop the bomb, I guess."
She rests her mug on her knee, stares into the middle distance for another beat, and then turns her gaze to mine. "I left the night of November ninth, 2008.”
I nod. "Correct."
"I was ten weeks pregnant. That's why I left."
"You didn't tell me," I murmur, a complex barrage of feelings welling up in my gut. "You just left."
Her eyes mist over. "I'll apologize for everything when I'm done, Cole." She sips and stares away, then turns wet eyes back to me once more. "Just…try to let me get it all out."
“Okay," I say. "Floor is yours."
She spends a moment thinking before resuming. "You remember what my parents were like, right?"
I roll my eyes. "Yes, I do."
"Do you, though? Church on Sunday mornings, youth group on Wednesdays. No cursing. No skirts above the knee. No cleavage.” She laughs.
“I used to dress for their approval and then change at school.
They never approved of you, and you were the most upstanding boy in our grade.
Literally a straight-A student who was never in trouble, and you still weren't good enough for them.
Nothing I did was ever good enough for them.
" She shakes her head, sighing. "Do you have any idea the conversations we had about purity, Cole? From the time I got my first period, Mom hammered on me pretty much every day how important purity was, how important it was to save myself for marriage, to be holy, to be the bride of Christ and not defile myself with pleasures of the flesh. Dad was worse. He made me watch this documentary about teen moms over and over and over. I had to watch it with him.”
I snort and splutter is disbelief. "He did not."
"He absolutely fucking did, Cole!" she points at me. "When I told you I had to stay home and study Hebrews Thirteen-Four?"
I frown. "I thought it was weird that you had to study that one verse literally every week."
"It was code, babe. I was too embarrassed to tell you that I was being forced to watch a show about teen pregnancy with my father because he felt it would help me understand the value of abstinence and the dangers of sex outside of the sanctity of the marriage bed."