Chapter 9 #3
I touched his face.
Cole turned his mouth into my palm.
Then his hips moved.
Slow once.
Again.
The third stroke was harder.
I gasped.
His restraint changed.
Not vanished.
Changed.
Like he had finally accepted that wanting something and taking care with it were not opposites.
I wrapped both legs around him.
He thrust deeper.
“Yes.”
His forehead touched mine.
“Tell me.”
“Like that.”
He gave me exactly that.
The bed shifted under us.
My fingers dug into his shoulders.
Cole’s mouth moved over my throat, my jaw, back to my mouth.
Every time I pulled him closer, he came harder.
Every time his control slipped, I wanted more of it.
This man spent his life checking weather twice.
I wanted to be the thing he stopped checking.
I slid one hand down his back and pulled him into the next thrust.
His breath broke.
“Piper.”
“There you are.”
He laughed once, rough and disbelieving.
Then he kissed me so hard I stopped talking.
Good strategy.
The second orgasm built slower.
Lower.
Every stroke pressing exactly where I needed it because apparently Cole Mercer considered consistency a moral obligation.
I tightened around him.
His jaw went rigid.
“Fuck.”
“Again.”
He did.
I came with my face against his neck and his hand gripping my hip hard enough that I hoped the fingerprints lasted until morning.
Cole followed seconds later, body going tense over mine before he dropped his forehead to my shoulder.
For a while, the room contained nothing but breathing.
No jokes.
No plans.
No future.
Just two sweaty adults on a faded guest-room quilt while a macaw muttered incomprehensibly downstairs.
Eventually Cole moved enough to look at me.
“Okay?”
I brushed damp hair off his forehead.
“Extremely.”
His mouth softened.
He started to move away.
I hooked one leg over his.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
“Eventually.”
“Piper.”
“Two minutes.”
He stayed.
That mattered almost as much as the sex.
Maybe more.
I ran my fingers lightly over the scar near his ribs.
“What happened?”
“Boat trailer. I was twenty-two and stupid.”
“Only twenty-two?”
“Rafe was there.”
“Ah. Group stupidity.”
“Exactly.”
I smiled.
Then I felt him go quiet.
Not tense.
Just somewhere else for a moment.
I did not demand the location.
After a few seconds, he said, “Hannah hated that scar.”
I kept my hand where it was.
“Why?”
“Because I got it after she told me the trailer winch was sticking and I said I’d handle it.”
“Did you handle it?”
“It handled me.”
I laughed softly.
Cole smiled.
There.
A memory of his wife that did not turn the room into a shrine or make me competition.
Just a stupid accident from a life that had happened before me.
“She sounds correct.”
“Usually was.”
“That must have been exhausting.”
“It was.”
He looked at me.
No guilt.
Not none.
Less.
Enough that he could lie beside me after saying her name without acting like one of us had violated something.
I kissed his shoulder.
“Good.”
His brows pulled together.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He shook his head.
Then Mango’s muffled voice carried up the stairs.
“BAD IDEA!”
Cole stared at the ceiling.
I started laughing.
The bird shouted again.
“TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF!”
I laughed harder.
Cole covered his face with one hand.
“The cover is on his cage.”
“Apparently shame travels through fabric.”
A car door slammed outside.
We both froze.
Cole looked toward the window.
I looked at the pile of clothing on the floor.
Then at him.
“How long was my two minutes?”
“Too long.”
From downstairs, Rafe’s voice called, “WHY IS THE FRONT DOOR LOCKED?”
Cole closed his eyes.
I bit my fist to keep from making a sound.
Rafe tried the door again.
Then silence.
Then, much louder, “OH.”
I lost the fight.
Cole looked at me.
I was laughing so hard the mattress shook.
From outside, Rafe shouted, “I AM EXPERIENCING EMOTIONAL COMPLEXITY IN THE DRIVEWAY.”
Cole’s mouth twitched.
I pointed at the door.
“Go support your friend.”
“I’m naked.”
“Practical obstacle.”
“Also I’m not discussing this naked.”
“Boundary accepted.”
Another car door slammed.
Gray’s voice joined Rafe’s, too distant to make out.
Then Rafe shouted, “DO NOT USE YOUR KEY. WE ARE PRACTICING RESPECT FOR PRIVACY.”
Cole looked at me.
I looked at him.
The strange thing was that I did not feel trapped.
I had a cottage with a lock.
An office with my name in my own inbox.
A guest room I had chosen to keep sleeping in.
Three men downstairs, or outside downstairs, who were jealous and saying it instead of making me pay for it.
And one cautious man naked beside me who had just spoken his dead wife’s name without asking me to compete with a memory.
Nothing about this was simple.
For the first time, simple did not feel like the goal.
I kissed Cole once.
“Go unlock the door.”
He kissed me back.
“Put clothes on.”
“Controlling.”
“Practical.”
“Gray is definitely contagious.”
Cole stood and reached for his shorts.
Outside, Rafe yelled, “I CAN HEAR THE SILENCE.”
I pulled the sheet over my face.
This was going to be an extremely long summer.
The thought no longer sounded like a warning.