Chapter 9 #2
I leaned against the desk.
“I am not going to vanish without saying goodbye.”
Cole’s face changed.
I had meant all three children.
He heard Nora.
Of course he did.
“If I leave at the end of six weeks,” I said more quietly, “I will not disappear while she’s at school and let her find an empty room.”
Cole looked down for a second.
When he looked up again, there was nothing cautious in his expression.
“Thank you.”
“I can’t promise I won’t leave.”
“I know.”
“I can’t promise what this is going to look like in September.”
“I know.”
Rafe glanced at Gray.
Gray glanced at Cole.
Twenty-four years of male friendship apparently contained an entire silent language devoted to moments when nobody wanted to be the first idiot.
Rafe finally sighed.
“I don’t want to hide it either.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“If we’re out somewhere and somebody thinks you’re with me, I’m not going to act like that’s fine if what we’re doing requires pretending these two don’t exist.”
Cole’s jaw shifted.
Gray stared at the floor for half a second.
That was bigger than Rafe made it sound.
I said, “I don’t want one of you becoming the public boyfriend because explaining the truth is inconvenient.”
“No,” Gray said.
Cole’s answer came more slowly.
“No.”
Rafe pointed at him.
“That pause was emotionally responsible.”
“Shut up.”
“Growth everywhere.”
Gray rubbed a hand over his face.
“We are not deciding the rest of our lives in Piper’s office before Cole buys groceries.”
“Thank God,” I said.
Cole lifted the reusable bags.
“Nora is currently waiting in the truck and judging all of us through the windshield.”
I looked past him.
She was.
Nine-year-old judgment had excellent range.
Rafe waved.
Nora did not wave back.
“Terrifying child,” he said.
Cole opened the door.
Before leaving, he looked at me.
“You’re staying in the house tonight?”
The question was careful.
Not a demand.
Not assumption.
I smiled.
“Yes.”
His shoulders changed by maybe half an inch.
Camera people noticed tiny movements.
Apparently so did women falling for cautious men.
By six fifteen, the house had achieved something I had not believed possible.
Silence.
Nora was at her birthday sleepover. Nico had gone with Dani.
June was with Leah. Rafe had taken a late beginner group after another instructor called out, which he had agreed to cover only after confirming Nico’s overnight plans.
Gray was at the marina finishing a repair a customer needed for Sunday.
Cole stood at the kitchen counter chopping tomatoes.
I sat on the opposite side answering the Raleigh family’s email.
Mango was covered for the evening in the living room but periodically muttered to himself like an elderly relative objecting to television.
“This is disturbing,” I said.
Cole looked up from the cutting board.
“What is?”
“The quiet.”
“It happens.”
“Does it?”
“Rarely.”
I clicked Send on the family-session confirmation.
Deposit paid.
Wednesday evening booked.
Another job under my own name.
The feeling still scared me enough that I wanted to reduce it.
Only a family session.
Only a few hundred dollars.
Only one more client.
I closed the laptop before the words completed themselves.
Cole noticed.
Naturally.
“Booked?”
“Booked.”
“Good.”
I waited for him to say something else.
He didn’t.
No lecture.
No reminder that it counted.
Apparently he trusted me to do that part myself.
Annoying man.
“What are you making?”
“Tacos.”
“That’s suspiciously domestic.”
He looked at the bowl of chopped tomatoes.
“I am cutting vegetables.”
“For me.”
“For all of us.”
“Gray’s at work.”
“He’ll eat when he gets home.”
“Rafe’s teaching.”
“He will also eat when he gets home.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re ruining the fantasy.”
His mouth moved.
“What fantasy?”
“The quiet widower preparing a romantic dinner because the children are gone.”
Cole put down the knife.
My pulse immediately became interested.
He wiped his hands on a towel.
Then he walked around the island.
No hurry.
No smile.
The man did anticipation like a weather front.
I stayed on the stool.
“Was I wrong?”
He stopped between my knees.
“No.”
Well.
My body had questions.
Most of them were answered when his hands settled on my thighs.
“You could have led with that.”
“I was cutting tomatoes.”
“Excellent priorities.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
“Still want me?”
The question was blunt.
Not insecure.
Just real.
I put my hands on his shoulders.
“Very much.”
He kissed me.
Cole did not build slowly.
That was becoming one of my favorite contradictions about him.
He spent hours thinking about risk, then kissed like caution had been physically removed from the room.
His hands slid from my thighs to my hips and pulled me to the edge of the stool.
I wrapped my legs around him.
He made a low sound against my mouth.
There.
That sound.
The one I had remembered from the cabin.
I kissed him harder.
His hand went into my hair, angling my face the way he wanted.
My entire body approved of being wanted that specifically.
Then he stopped.
I opened my eyes.
“Why?”
“Front door.”
I stared at him.
“What about it?”
“Unlocked.”
I started laughing.
Cole closed his eyes.
“Don’t.”
“Captain.”
“I know.”
“You stopped making out with me to lock the front door.”
“Rafe could come back.”
“That would be awkward.”
“Exactly.”
He stepped away.
I caught his shirt.
“Where are you going?”
“To lock the door.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
His eyes darkened.
“Careful.”
“Is that a marine warning?”
“It is now.”
He locked the front door in twelve seconds.
I counted.
Then he came back, took my hand, and pulled me off the stool.
“Upstairs.”
The single word went through me like heat.
“My room?”
He paused.
I watched the decision happen.
“Yours.”
I understood without making him explain.
His bedroom had history.
A marriage.
Hannah.
Whatever happened between us did not need to begin by pretending that history had been cleared for new occupancy.
I squeezed his hand once.
“Okay.”
He noticed that I understood.
Neither of us made it painful by discussing it in the kitchen.
My guest room still looked like me even after half my work equipment had migrated to the cottage.
Suitcase open on the luggage bench. Shoes under the desk.
Charging cable beside the bed. Tank top hanging over the back of a chair because I was a grown woman and Gray did not have jurisdiction over this floor.
Cole closed the door.
I turned the lock.
He watched me do it.
“Safety first,” I said.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Immensely.”
He crossed the room.
The next kiss wiped the joke out of me.
His hand closed around the back of my neck. Mine went under his shirt. Warm skin. Hard muscle. A faint line of scar near his ribs I had not seen before.
I pushed the shirt up.
Cole pulled it over his head and dropped it.
I looked.
He let me.
That mattered.
No posing.
No pretending he did not know I wanted his body.
Broad chest. Sun-browned shoulders. A softer line at his waist than Rafe had, the body of a man who worked physically and ate dinner with children instead of maintaining himself for an advertisement.
I touched him.
His breath changed.
“You’re staring.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You don’t have a camera.”
“Still trained.”
His hands found the hem of my shirt.
I raised my arms.
He pulled it off.
Then he stopped.
Not because he was uncertain.
Because he was looking.
His gaze moved over my bra, my stomach, my waist, my hips.
All of me.
No quick polite return to my face.
No pretending the parts of my body I had been taught to apologize for were invisible.
Heat spread through me.
“Say something.”
His eyes lifted.
“You’re beautiful.”
Simple.
No qualifier.
No surprise.
I reached behind myself and unclasped my bra.
His jaw tightened.
“Better?”
“No.”
I smiled.
“No?”
“Worse.”
His hands settled on my waist.
“You are making this difficult.”
“Excellent.”
He kissed me again.
We reached the bed with less dignity than either of us deserved.
My shorts disappeared.
His followed.
Condom from the small toiletry bag in my suitcase because unlike Gray’s newly renovated seduction cottage, I believed in stocked inventory.
Cole looked at the packet in my hand.
“Prepared.”
“I photograph weddings. Prepared is a survival trait.”
His mouth twitched.
Then his fingers slid between my thighs and every clever thing in my head died.
I inhaled sharply.
Cole watched my face.
He touched me again, slower.
My hips lifted.
“Yes.”
He did it again.
There was something almost unfair about a man who paid that much attention.
He did not rush because he was aroused.
He did not change what worked because he wanted to prove he had options.
His fingers moved with the same concentration he brought to knots, weather, engines, and everything else he considered worth doing correctly.
“More,” I said.
He gave me more.
My hand closed around his wrist.
Not to stop him.
To hold on.
His mouth found my neck.
I turned my face into his shoulder and breathed his name.
“Look at me.”
I did.
That was more intimate than anything else.
Cole’s eyes stayed on mine while his fingers moved inside me.
I came with my thighs shaking around his hand and his name louder than I intended.
He kissed me through the last of it.
When I could focus again, he was still watching me.
“That was smug,” I whispered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“Your standards for evidence are weak.”
“Professional photographer.”
“Biased witness.”
I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him.
Cole’s argument ended.
Useful.
Very useful.
He closed his eyes for one second.
Then opened them.
“Condom.”
I smiled.
“Captain.”
“Now, Piper.”
That tone should have annoyed me.
Instead I wanted to frame it.
I tore the packet open and handed it to him.
He rolled it on while I watched.
Then he positioned himself between my legs.
The humor left both of us.
Cole’s hand slid under my thigh.
“You good?”
I pulled him closer.
“Very.”
He entered me slowly.
My breath caught.
His did too.
For a few seconds neither of us moved.
Full.
Hot.
Close enough that there was no room for pretending this was another kiss we could categorize later.