Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
His eyes meet mine, and I can’t read what I find there when I can always read Cole. “I need to be alone with my wife,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine.
There are murmurs of agreement and Reese motions to Cat to follow him. Everyone disappears from the kitchen but me, and I quickly pursue. By the time I’m in the living room, Cole is joining me, lacing his fingers with mine to walk us to the couch where he sits down and drags me on top of him. He doesn’t speak, he just tangles his fingers in my hair and says, “I have something to tell you.” But he doesn’t tell me. He kisses me. A deep, dark tormented kiss that says more than words.
He has to tell me, but he doesn’t want to.
Chapter sixty-two
Lori
Cole is still kissing me and I cannot breathe for the emotion in this kiss, the hunger, the torment. It bleeds into me and I feel as if he is bleeding and I don’t know how to make it stop. I want to ask questions. I want to demand he tell me what is wrong before I explode with fear of what it might be, but that’s not what he needs in this very moment. I sense this, too. He needs me to wait. He wants to tell me. He’s said he’s going to tell me what this is, and I trust this man, with all that I am, I trust this man.
His fingers tangle in my hair, his tongue licking, stroking, and I slide my hand under his T-shirt, pressing my palms to his warm skin pulled taut over hard muscle. He reaches behind him and pulls it over his head, and already he’s stripping mine away as well. I’m left in only my thin black lace bra and his gaze lowers to the swell of my breasts over the lace and then lifts. “You aren’t going to ask what I want to tell you?”
“Are you ready to tell me?”
“No,” he says, his voice a rough timbre. “I’m not.”
“Then why would I ask?”
He slides his hand behind my neck and kisses me, a deep slide of tongue before he says, “God, I love you, woman. You are never what I expect.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I married you, didn’t I?”
“Yes which means whatever it is, it’s ours to deal with now. You know that, right?”
“But I didn’t want it to be yours,” he says. “I didn’t.”
“I know, but—”
“You don’t know,” he says, and then he is kissing me again, a drugging, intense possession, and I don’t even know where he begins and I end. I sink into the moment, into this man that I love so very much, and time sways and shifts. I don’t know anything but his lips, his touch, his taste. I don’t even know how my bra disappears, only that it’s gone and he’s pressing my hands to his knees behind me, as I continue to straddle him. His fingers splay between my shoulder blades, bracing me, holding me, his other hand palming my breast, while his lips, teeth, and tongue tease my opposite nipple. He is everywhere, consuming me, and I want to reach for him, to touch him, and he seems to react, his hand sliding away from my back, forcing me to hold myself up or fall. I’m at his mercy, and I don’t know why, but I am certain that this is what he needs right now. This is about trust, mine in him and his in me. And it’s most definitely about control. He wants it. He needs it. He’s trying to find his way back to it. With me, in this moment, he has it. When we’re like this, he always has it.
He continues to tease my nipples with his mouth, his fingers, even his teeth; he’s relentless in all that he does, his hands roaming up and down my body, my back, my sides, my belly. His mouth the same, and then back to my nipples, until I’m panting out, “Cole,” in desperation, a plea that I don’t even know how I want answered.
He drags his mouth to the hollow between my breasts, his lips pressing there, lingering for eternal moments. His eyes lift to mine, and in that breath, and the beats that follow, he is somehow dark, edgy, out of himself, and yet, so very tender at the same time. There is love in this look, in this touch of his lips. There is torment. There is regret that I want to understand. I want to take away his pain and there is so much pain that I never knew was in this man.
I am lost in everything he is, and we are lost in this moment when he drags me to him, his hand on the back of my head again. He kisses me, a tease of his tongue against my tongue, before he sets me on the ground in front of him, his hands on my hips. “Undress,” he orders softly.