Chapter 16 #2
"That you wouldn't know an unhealthy diet if it bit you in the iron-hard ass."
He lets his gaze rake over me to make the point. "You haven't exactly let yourself go, either, Sweet Thing."
My gaze drops at this. "Yeah."
He sighs. "Now we get into it."
"No, we don't."
"Yes, we do."
"Cole—"
"I'm sorry to interrupt you again, babe, but yes, we do. What I heard you saying to yourself, just now."
“What, you don’t talk to yourself?"
"Not like that." He shrugs, head tipping to one side.
"If I'm struggling to hit the last rep in a hard set, I may psyche myself up a little.
Like, 'C'mon, motherfucker, you've got this.
'" His gaze is hard and brittle. "What I heard?
That wasn't your voice. That wasn't you giving yourself a pep talk. That was his voice."
My eyes burn. "Cole."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
I shake my head because I can't.
"Help me understand, Lacey."
"Understand what?"
"What you're upset about."
“I’m not upset."
"Lace."
I sigh. "I'm not!"
"Lacey!" he barks, exasperated. "I'm neither blind, deaf, nor an idiot."
"I know that."
"Then quit trying to feed me bullshit and tell the goddamn truth.
" He rips a chunk of soft pretzel free and tosses it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing. “’You're okay, Lace,’” he quotes.
"'Don't ruin it with a freak-out, you dumb, emotional bitch.
' And before that, you seemed to doubt that I meant it when I said I love you.
Like I was just saying it…what? Because I was inside you?
If I was just saying it to get into your pants, I'd have said it before I was inside you so I could be inside you.”
"I know," I whisper.
"And freak out about what?”
When he stays silent after that, I frown at him. "Oh, are you actually asking? Or just ranting at me?"
"Both," he mutters.
I wipe at my face when tears yet again spurt out, the traitorous little bitches. "Dammit. I don't want to do this."
"Do what?" Cole asks, sounding worried.
"No, no, no. Not—no." I snuggle into him.
"Be emotional. Freak out. Talk about more heavy, painful shit.
I'd rather flirt with you. Tease you. Ride you on every surface of this house.
Anything other than dredge up and hash out all the many ways I'm fucked up.
" I eye Cole, who has a weird expression on his face. "Cole?"
He shakes his head. "Sorry, sorry. You've just got me wondering how many surfaces of this house have been christened in the four generations of Mannixes that have lived here." He reaches out and shakes the bedpost. "This bed in particular."
I stop chewing. "Wait, what?"
He laughs. "You didn't know? This bedframe was hand-built by the same grandfather who built the house.
" At my expression, he laughs even harder.
"Oh god, your face. The mattress I'll replace, obviously.
This one?" He punches the mattress with a distasteful grimace.
"Pretty sure it dates back to the Reagan administration. "
I bounce a little. "And it's all springs." I touch the bedpost near me. "Seriously, though? This was handmade by your grandfather?"
Cole nods. "Three great-grandfathers? Four?
Four, I think. Great-great-great-great-grandfather Morton Mannix.
He built the house, the barn, the dining room table and chairs, and the swing on the front porch.
He was a carpenter by trade. In fact, I think he built the town library's cupola, too. " He shakes his head. "Anyway."
"We can talk about your grandpa. really. I much prefer it, in fact."
"Why are you so dead-set on avoiding this conversation?" Cole asks.
I sigh. "Because I just want to enjoy the afterglow for a bit, okay?
I feel incredible. I feel close to you. I had a shocking number of orgasms. I…
I just don't want to get into the stupid emotional baggage aspect of everything just yet.
I just want to enjoy the feeling of being well and thoroughly fucked by a man who actually gives a shit about me.
" I groan, covering my face with my hands.
"See? There it is—the emotional baggage. "
Cole takes my can from me and sets both of our cans aside on the floor beside the bed, and then wraps me in his arms and tackles me to the bed, pinning me with his weight. "It's not baggage, Lace. It's just emotions."
"You said you're not good with emotions either."
"I'm not."
"Neither am I."
"Okay, so let's be bad at the emotions together, then."
I nod into his shoulder. "Okay."
Bracing his weight on his elbows, Cole brushes my flyaway hair out of my eyes. "Talk to me, sweetheart."
"I don't know where to start."
"At the freak out."
“I’m just scared, Cole. Eddie really fucked with my self-confidence. He was critical of me. Nitpicking things about me was his favorite hobby, even more than golf and adultery.”
"Like?"
“You're really gonna make me repeat the nasty shit he said to me."
“Yes." Cole nuzzles my jaw with his nose. "So I can build you back up for all the shit that fucking pathetic turd-licking shit-for-brains cheating lying pissant son of a bitch made you feel bad about."
I huff a laugh. "Sorry, I didn't catch all of that. Pathetic what-now?"
"I believe what I said was fucking pathetic turd-licking shit-for-brains cheating lying pissant son of a bitch." He pauses. "To start with. I've got more. I can be very creative with the insults."
"Beta cuck?" I suggest.
He wrinkles his nose in obvious disgust. "That's toxic manosphere bullshit. There's no such thing as alpha and beta males—that's made-up nonsense, and it's not even how wolfpacks work. And he’s not a cuck, he’s worse—he’s the one who does the cuckolding. So no, not beta cuck.” He glances up and to the right.
"How's aboo-oo-oot..dickless, brainless fumble-cunt. "
I burst into breathless laughter. "Cole!"
"Am I wrong?" he smirks at me.
I do not smirk. "No, you're not. His penis is barely this." I hold up my index finger. "And he definitely does a lot of fumbling."
"So it's not that my dick is all that big," Cole says. "It's just that your frame of reference is skewed toward micro-peen."
I splutter, hiding my laughter in his bicep. "No, no, your penis is fucking enormous. The enormity of it is merely accentuated by the fact that my frame of reference is skewed toward micro-peen."
"Fucking enormous?"
"And so thick," I breathe. "And so hard."
He groans. "Lacey, c'mon. We're supposed to be talking."
"We are talking." I reach down and worm my hand under the elastic of his shorts and find said enormous organ.
"Lacey," he growls. "Quit."
I stroke his length, index finger and thumb sliding downward first. "What?" I ask, innocently. "You want me to stop?"
He moans. "Fuck, that feels good."
"Talking is overrated."
He rests his face on the upper slope of my chest as I caress his cock to full hardness. "Babe."
I cup his hard, cool ass, pushing his shorts past the swell, and then hook a toe in them and drag them all the way off.
I notch him at my seam and curl my fingers into his ass.
Cole rumbles in his chest, rising on his hands braced in the bare mattress beside my face.
His eyes stay locked on mine as he lengthens his body above mine, and then he tilts his hips and pierces me, entering me in a long, slow slide that has us both groaning in breathless unison.
He arches as our bellies meet, his cock buried to the hilt inside me, and his hand carves up the back of my thigh, lifting my leg.
I take the hint and rest my heel on the shelf of his ass, and then hook my other heel around the first at the small of his back, and I bury my fingers in his hair and cradle his face in my breasts.
He clutches the back of my thigh where it curves to become my ass, and he pushes a slow, gentle thrust into me.
"Cole," I whisper.
"Heaven," he breathes, his voice raw and hoarse. "You feel like heaven, Lacey."
I scour his body with my hands, caressing him everywhere I can reach—hair, ears, cheeks, shoulders, back, sides, ass, writhing with him as we move together in slow, sinuous rhythm.
His thrusts are unhurried and gentle, full-length drives of his cock, tip to root, and each thrust seems to last a delicious eternity.
I whimper into his ear as we move together, his thrusts splitting me in two from stem to stern, filling me to an aching glut, and yet I want more.
I feel him everywhere—his weight crushing me beautifully to the bed, his arms beside my ears framing the world with his strength, his cock inside me so thick and hard and long that each thrust comes with a pinch of pain—but god, that pain is delicious. It's just enough to be perfect.
"Sweet Thing," he growls, leaning further over me, lifting my left thigh higher yet. "Fuck, you're incredible."
"Cole," I gasp, the heat of his body and the sweetness of his voice and the wrecking, wracking crush of his thrusts ruining me, utterly and totally—I can’t breathe, can’t do anything but cling to his broad back and take his loving.
He hunches above me, his hand now pressed into the tender fold behind my left knee, pushing my thigh back until it presses against my belly, and the slow delicacy of his thrusts becomes rougher, harder, faster.
He groans against my breasts. "Lace, baby.
Fuck. I…I'm tryin' to be gentle, Sweet Thing. But you feel too fucking good."
I shake my head, shove his face out of my cleavage so he has to look at me, and I slam my hips up to meet his. "Don't," I whisper. "Never hold back, Cole. Give me all of yourself, every time."
"You said you were sore."
“In the best way, CoCo. And not enough to stop this from feeling fucking amazing." I cup his cheek in one hand and grip his ass in the other, pulling him against me, encouraging him to give me more.