As my tears continue to fall, he kisses them away, whispering between the brushes of his lips. “I sent you upstairs because I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to fuck this up, and when I’m with you… Dammit, Danni, I want all of you, in every possible way.”
“I’m making it worse.” I grasp his tense neck, holding our foreheads together. “I’m not good at saying no, especially when I’m dying to say yes. I’m failing—”
“No, baby. The person failing here is me. I’m impatient and selfish and demanding. I make mistakes and lose my temper.”
“You’re passionate and impulsive and yeah, sometimes you get out of control. But if I can’t handle your worst moments, I don’t deserve your best ones.”
“Jesus. I must’ve done something right to have been given a chance with you.” His voice rasps, deep and throaty. “You have such a beautiful mind. You’re incredibly understanding and gracious. And those qualities are shaped into a stunning flesh-and-bone work of art. I only have to look at you to know I have something special and rare.” He releases a breath. “Sometimes you feel like an unattainable dream.”
“I’m just a girl, Cole. And I’m right here.”
“You’re everything, and I want more.” He palms my backside, fitting our hips tightly together as he speaks against my lips. “I want you to belong to me. I want my ring on your finger, my babies growing inside you, and your future welded to mine. I want to watch you teach our kids how to dance and see you swing on that pole when you’re ninety years old—”
“Gross.”
“Never. You’ll always be beautiful.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I had my grave marker removed from the cemetery yesterday.”
“You did?”
“I’m going to buy a larger plot. When you die, I want you buried beside me.”
The air whooshes from my lungs. “That’s kind of morbid…in a really romantic way. Now I feel all glowy and mushy.” I grin a soggy, hot mess of a grin. “Is that weird?”
“No.” He trails kisses over my face, tingling an electric thrill through my body. “Not at all.”
“I’ve felt this before, right outside, when a sexy hunk of a man rolled up on his motorcycle.”
“I was right there with you, baby.” He touches his smile against mine. “But now I feel it more.”
He’s right. There’s a powerful charge in the air, like the stirring of energized matter, seeking and fusing into a cocoon of untamed chemistry that only Cole and I can create. It’s an unexplainable connection between us, one that bridges the gap between lust and love. I can’t see it or hear it, but I feel it, feeding light into a flickering moment, making it shine brighter than all the hours that haunted me in the dark.
In the sheath of glowing heat that envelops us, I anticipate a hard fall into a feral kiss. His hands bite into my backside, and his hungry breaths spin around mine. But he doesn’t attack my mouth, seemingly fighting an internal war. A war that eventually ends with him backing me out of the stairwell and leading me to my bedroom.
My pulse kicks up, and my legs wobble. Is he going to fuck me against the wall? Bend me over the bed? Take me on top of the dresser?
He does none of those things as he tucks me beneath the covers. He digs for the sheet beneath the blanket, which has been kicked to the foot of the bed. I help him, but it gives me pause. The bedspread is so tangled up… This isn’t how I left it two days ago.
“You slept in my bed.” I stare at the sheets, glad they’ve been washed since last time Trace slept here.
“It used to be our bed.”
“But I wasn’t here.”
“Your scent is.” He pats the pillow and pulls the bedding over me. “It’s one of the countless layers that will always be a part of you. When we’re wrinkled and toothless and fucking like arthritic animals, you’ll still smell like you.”
I burst into laughter and sink onto the mattress, clinging to the thread that connects us. “I never stopped missing you.”
“I’ll never stop loving you.” Switching off the light, he leans down and gives me a lingering kiss. “Sleep well, my beautiful girl.”
When he slips out of my room, I’m not sure I’ll sleep at all. It hurts to watch him walk away, and he’s only going downstairs.
There’s no way I could watch him walk away forever.
The next morning, I wake with the sunlight from the window warming my face. My muscles feel rejuvenated, and my mind is clear. By some miracle, I conked out quickly last night and slept straight through.