Chapter 11 #2
Let me find out all I needed was a man to kiss me and suddenly the world made sense again.
Within seconds, the kiss was a deep, groaning frenzy, his hands in my hair, fingers tangling in the curls I’d just freed. I grabbed fistfuls of his t-shirt and pulled it up, needing to feel him under my palms. I found warm, smooth skin and the rapid thump of his heartbeat.
Cole’s hands moved to my blouse, working the buttons open. He pushed the fabric off my shoulders and let it flutter to the floor. Then his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone, trailing heat everywhere he touched.
“Cole, we haven’t—”
“I know.” He was already reaching for the zipper to my skirt. “This is not what you came over here for. If you want me to stop, I will. But if you don’t want me to stop, then let me take some stress off your shoulders. Then we can talk about what we do next.”
I was a sucker if I ever saw one, but I didn’t care.
We shed clothes fast—my skirt hitting the floor, his jeans following, items discarded in a trail from the kitchen to the living room and eventually the large, plush couch.
This wasn’t like the desperate fuck in the supply closet at the hospital. This was need and release and two people trying to forget the outside world for just a little while.
His hand slid down my body, fingers hooking into the waistband of my panties. He paused, looking up at me with a wicked grin. “If I have to take these off, I’m adding them to my collection.”
“Oh, hell no,” I managed to say, though I was rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thought. “You cannot keep all of my expensive unmentionables, Cole.”
I lifted my hips and pulled them off before he could confiscate them. His hands trailed over my thighs as the fabric slid down my legs. Then he was kissing lower—my ribs, my stomach, my inner thighs.
When his tongue ghosted my clit, I couldn’t hold back the guttural moan that tore from my throat. His hands gripped my thighs firmly, holding me open and exposed to him.
Every time I got close to the edge, close enough that I could feel my orgasm building like a wave about to crest, he’d slow down or change rhythm. He kept me hovering on that knife’s edge between pleasure and release for so long I wanted to cry.
“Cole, please!” I begged, my fingers gripping his skin.
“Mmmhmmm,” he hummed, and I felt the vibration all the way up to my core.
Finally, mercifully, his mouth sealed over my clit, sucking with steady pressure while his fingers pushed inside me. They curled to hit that spot deep inside that made me see stars and practically levitate.
I came so hard my vision blurred, my body shuddering in his grasp. I heard myself crying out, his name tangled up with a string of words that barely sounded like English. Cole held me through the aftershocks, his mouth gentling, then kissing light as rain along my trembling thighs.
Only when my breathing slowed did he move up to lie beside me, cradling my head against his chest. His heart was hammering as loud as mine.
I realized, a little dazedly, that he hadn’t even taken himself out of his boxers.
I dove for him and, before he could stop me, pulled him free, wrapping my hand around his thick length, marveling at the flush of it, the velvet heat, the way he shuddered when I stroked him.
He let out a ragged groan as I took him. I craved that sound, the tremor that ran through him, the way his whole body tensed, as if he was fighting to keep himself from losing control.
I loved being in this position, asserting this much power over his body and this moment.
His hands fisted in the couch cushions, his jaw locked against whatever sounds wanted to escape, and when I ran my tongue along the underside of his dick, he exhaled a shaky groan that felt like a little victory.
He tried to gently guide my rhythm, one hand on the back of my head, but I ignored it, taking him deeper, working him with my mouth and hands until he bucked, beginning a slow, rhythmic roll.
I wanted to taste his surrender, wanted to make him come. Hard.
“Hey,” he whispered, pulling me from him. I thought I’d done something wrong until I saw the hunger in his eyes. “Not that this isn’t mind-blowing, but I want to be inside you when I come. You ready for me?”
I was ready for him in ways I didn’t even have words for.
My body was still pulsing from the aftershocks of the orgasm, nerves alive and skin hypersensitive to every point of contact between us.
“Yeah,” I whispered, lying back, fingers clutching at him to come near me, needing the feel of him, the weight and heat and everything.
He grinned, then stripped off his boxer briefs and sank between my thighs. The solid weight of him pressing me into the couch was so intense I thought I might shatter. His hands gripped my hips, anchoring us.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice pitched low, rough.
I opened my eyes and met his gaze. The intensity there stole what little breath I’d managed to recover.
“I’ve got you,” he said. And then his hips rolled forward in a slow, deliberate thrust, followed by long, deep strokes that hit every nerve ending like he’d studied a map of my body.
I clawed at him, my nails digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks. He groaned at the sensation, his movements quickening, deepening, driving into me with an intensity that tore his name from my throat with each breath.
“Don’t…stop…” I chanted, my voice breaking into a staccato rhythm. I could feel myself climbing toward another peak and I needed more. Every muscle, every cell was electrified, driven by a single animalistic need.
Cole curled his hand behind my knee and lifted my leg, bracing my calf over his shoulder. The motion was a counterpoint to the wild, relentless force of his hips, but when the new angle let him sink even deeper, I let out a sound that would have scared me if I didn’t realize it came from my body.
“It’s good, huh? You like that? You like how I fuck this pussy, Harper?”
It was all I could do to nod, my mouth falling open as Cole’s teeth grazed my collarbone, and then he was kissing me, open-mouthed and wild while he drove into me with a punishing rhythm. I felt myself unravel, the wave rising again, higher and higher. I was close, so close, and he could tell.
He slowed, then snapped his hips in a hard thrust that made my whole body convulse. “I need to feel you come.”
“You already know me well enough to know what I need,” I shot back.
He grinned, clearly enjoying my sass, and slipped a hand between our bodies. His thumb found my clit and the added stimulation was too much. My eyes locked on his face, watching every shadow that crossed his features.
“Cole! Oh my God! Oh, fuck, I’m gonna—”
“Yeah. Me too, gorgeous. Come on, girl. We’ll go together.”
With a guttural cry, every muscle in my body went rigid, fire streaking through me as I pulsed around him. I couldn’t speak, only gasp his name over and over, barely enunciating the syllables.
Cole shuddered, a long, drawn out, “Yessss…” spilling from his clenched teeth. His thrusts turned into hard, quick bursts like he was chasing a high. I forced breath into my lungs, still trembling, the aftershocks still making me shiver.
He buried himself deep and released with a groan that was all surrender. He chanted my name against my neck, the tension arcing through his body until he was spent.
Cole grew limp and collapsed, his body a large, hot, heavy blanket I never wanted to kick off. He immediately pulled me against him so that I was draped across his chest.
I giggled, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest. I looked up at him, propping my chin on his sternum.
“When are we projected to make it to a bed?”
* * *
“I heard you earlier,” I said quietly.
After we actually made it to his bed and enjoyed each other again, we rested in a tangled and sweaty heap. I lay across his body, head on his chest.
“When?” Cole mumbled.
“You know, before you grounded me with a good fucking.”
He snorted. “Had to calm them histrionics, girl. Get your head on straight.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, landing a light slap to his skin. “I’m serious. I want to protect you—I need to protect you. I don’t know how.”
Cole’s hand stroked slow paths up and down my back. “You don’t have to protect me. You need to protect yourself.”
“It’s not fair to you to focus on myself.”
“Life’s not fair, Harper. You know that better than most people.”
I did know that. But I didn’t have to like it. And I didn’t ever think I could live by it.
This put Cole and me at the softest, most gentle of impasses.
Finally I sat up, kicking the sheets off my legs. “I need to go.”
“Harper.” Cole sat up too, reaching for me. “Are you mad at me? Because I don’t want you to risk your job for me?”
“No, I’m not mad.” I looked at him, really looked at him in the dim light filtering through his bedroom window. “I’m not mad at you, anyway. I need some time to think about how I can do my job without sacrificing you in the process. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
Cole watched me for another moment, then nodded and got up. He pulled on a pair of cotton lounge pants and walked with me back to the kitchen, where he picked up my scattered clothing, item by item, and I pulled each piece back on. My blouse. My skirt. My bra.
Everything except my panties, which Cole had managed to confiscate.
“I reiterate that you don’t have to go,” he said, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his bare chest. “I can make you a hell of a protein shake. I got some chicken in the fridge. I could throw together some pasta.”
I chuckled, buttoning the last button on my blouse. “I thank you for the hospitality. And by hospitality, I mean that vibranium dick. I don’t know where you’ve been hiding that particular asset, but I’m about to take out an insurance policy on it.”
“You’re silly.” He pushed off the door frame and pulled me into his arms. “Come back when you can stay longer.”
“Don’t play with me, Cole.”
He kissed me then, slow and sweet, in a way that said he really didn’t want me to leave. His hands cupped my ass, pulling me close enough to feel him hardening again.
“Wait until you find out I’m really not playing with you, Harper,” he said against my lips. “Text me when you get home.”
I drove home through streets as empty as my thoughts were crowded, possibilities and strategies stacking up in my head. By the time I swung into my parking spot, I realized what I’d decided already, somewhere between Cole’s place and mine.
Ridgeway Medical Center was going to set Cole up as the fall guy. That was beyond my control. So was whatever Rice, Webb, or Legal decided to do with him.
But I could make sure Cole was ready for that meeting. And not just ready—incredibly, painfully over-prepared.
I headed inside, dropped my bag by the door, and went straight for my laptop, setting it on the kitchen counter. I made a pot of coffee, changed into a pair of sweats, then perched at the counter and opened a blank document. My fingers hovered over the keys for a second, then I started typing.
There was something I could do.