Bound Temptations: Stories of Temptation and Submission (9 page)

"Well, technically, this
isn't a date." She smiled at him as she lifted her glass. "We were
both hungry. So we're eating."

She took a drink and then
set her glass down, staring at him. "I'm sorry. Regardless of
whether you still love Mara or not, I can tell it bothers you. So
I'm sorry." Then she wrinkled her nose. "Even though I don't much
care for her."

"Hell. I don't much care for
her these days," he muttered. Then, he shot Rocki a quick look.
"The woman I fell in love with...I don't think she exists anymore.
I don't know what happened to her, but she's not the one I've been
living with the past few months."

Silence fell over the table
for a few minutes, broken only by the rest of those in the crowded
pub. Rocki, her appetite all but dead, tried to figure out just
where to start. She needed to tell him. Even if he didn't ask, she
realized. She needed to talk. But…

"You ever going to tell me
what was going on earlier?"

Slowly, she lifted her gaze
from her plate, staring at him in the dim light. That light managed
to make him look even more beautiful than he already was,
flickering across the planes and hollows of his face, making that
gilt hair gleam like burnished gold.

"Eleven years ago, I had a
stalker." She stared at him, watching the way his lashes flickered,
watching the knowledge flash through his eyes. Slowly, he leaned
back in the seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

His eyes, thoughtful,
considering, narrowed on her face. "Eleven years...that's a long
time."

"Seems like it was just
yesterday." She sighed, leaning forward.

It wasn't always the most
demure posture in a corset. Especially if one
had...assets.

To his credit, Cole's eyes
barely dipped below her neckline...at least for longer than a
second. Rocki chuckled. "You know, I wore this thing wanting to
look nice for you."

"Ah..." He closed his eyes.
"You succeeded. Although I'm trying to concentrate and I'm having a
hard time reminding myself I'm not a twelve-year-old
boy."

She grinned at him. Then,
still grinning, she eased back from the table, although she was so
damned tired, all she wanted to do was rest.

Against something. Or, in
this case, someone. "Yesterday," she reminded him, steering the
conversation back to the unpleasant topic at hand. "It could have
been yesterday. It was just postcards at first. Then the flowers
started, although they weren't so...interesting then. It wasn't
until the phone calls began that I told anybody."

She licked her lips and
looked down, absently studying her hands.

She'd called somebody then.
But even then...She closed her eyes. "I knew who it
was."

"You knew?"

She lifted her gaze to his.
"Yes. It was an ex-boyfriend. One who didn't want to be an ex."
Lifting a hand, she absently touched a hand to her chest. "One who
would have had ten different fits if he'd seen me wearing something
like this. It wasn't just the way I dressed, though. It was
everything. If I didn't get home when I said I'd be, he got angry.
If I wanted to go out for a movie with friends, he freaked—shoot,
he used to follow us. Once, a girlfriend started flirting with
these guys and he came rushing up…"

She sighed and shook her
head. "I got tired of it. I broke it off. He..." Rocki turned her
head. Shit. Why was this still so hard? She knew all of this, damn
it. She knew it. She hadn't grown up in an abusive home, and she
wasn't one of those women who'd been made to believe she was just
supposed to take abuse.

"The day I broke it off,
Dwayne acted like everything was fine. We'd still be friends. I
packed up my things, took it all over to Lacey's. Went to work...I
worked part-time for a theater company, then—did the costumes, that
sort of thing. I was working on designing some of my own stuff, but
it was a private thing. Never made anything, never showed anybody."
Her hands were sweating. Damn it. He wasn't going to do this her
again. Not again.

Swiping her palms down the
front of her jeans, she looked back at Cole, making herself look
him straight in the eye. "I was leaving work when he attacked me.
He knocked me down, wrapped his hands around my neck, started
screaming at me."

She could
still hear him.
No fucking bitch leaves
me.

"I tried to fight him, but
then, I just didn't know how. I kicked, I screamed as loud as I
could. But I passed out. Somebody from the theater heard me,
though. Called the cops. There was a beat cop close by, and thank
God for that...because if they'd been a minute or two
later..."

Rocki shuddered.

A hand touched her shoulder.
Tensing, she looked up and realized Cole had left his seat at the
booth and was now crouched by hers. She scooted over on the bench,
disturbed by how desperately she needed that contact. As he settled
down next to her, she rested her head against him. A strong arm
came around her. Rocki groaned, sinking into the warmth of his
embrace. She'd missed this...just having somebody there to hold
her.

Somebody she could trust.
Somebody she liked and had a connection with.

And God help her...she had
it with Cole.

"The cops showed up while he
was still trying to get my clothes off," she said, needing to get
the words out. "He took off running when he heard the sirens, and I
woke up with my shirt ripped open, my jeans unzipped. I hadn't been
awake, but I swear, I could feel his hands all over me."

She swallowed and then
looked up at him. Cole lifted a hand, brushed her hair back from
her face, then stroked his thumb over her lip.

"Then what? You knew who it
was, right?"

"Yeah." She looked away.
"But I wouldn't press charges. Not then. The notes started coming
next. Then the flowers. Then he started calling and I knew I had to
do something, or he might try to kill me next time. I warned him
that I'd press charges if he kept it up. He just laughed, said I
hadn't done it before, I wouldn't this time."

"So did you?"

"I went to the police
station. Filled out the report, did everything I was supposed
to...and the officer in charge was an ass. Told me they couldn't
promise they'd get results. I'd need to be careful of my
whereabouts. And maybe I should dress differently." She made a
face. "I had on a fucking T-shirt and jeans. Damn, I was furious. I
stormed out of there, so mad I could barely see...and crashed right
into Brant."

"Brant. Your
husband."

"Yeah. Although, not then."
Absently, she plucked at a loose thread on his sweater, then let
her hand fall to his thigh. When the muscles under her hand
bunched, she felt a blush settle low on her breasts. But she didn't
move her hand. "Brant...ah, well, he was a gentleman, through and
through. Saw that I was upset. Asked around. Had another officer
take the report again. Then he walked me to my car."

"But that wasn't
it."

"No." She smiled. "A few
days later he showed up at the theater and asked me how I felt
about dating cops, mentioned he'd almost taken my case himself but
that wouldn't have been right...because he had every intention of
asking me out. We were married within six months."

"One of those
love-at-first-sight stories."

"Pretty close." She lowered
her gaze, staring at her hand. The muscles under it were still
tense. She really should move. But she couldn't.

Just couldn't.

"What happened with the
ex?"

"I chickened out. Couldn't
press charges. A few more cards came. Two more calls. Then they
stopped." She closed her eyes. "I won't ever know, but I suspect
Brant paid him a visit...scared the shit out of him. Dwayne never
was good at standing up to anybody who proved they could dish it
back."

"Possible ethical issue
there." His hand rested low on her spine.

She shivered as his fingers
grazed the scant bit of flesh left bare on her back by the
corset.

"Abuse of power...hell, I
might have bought him a drink." Cole rubbed his cheek against her
hair. "You should have pressed charges, though. Bastards like that
never stop until you make them."

"I know. Now, I could. Then,
it was a different story." She sighed. "It may or may not be him
now. I just don't know. The cards started a few weeks ago. I've
gotten four—they aren't the same. It's just pictures of me, no
notes or anything. The flowers today...that was a
first."

"If it is
him...?"

"If it is, if it isn't, no
matter...once they have a name, anything I can go to court with,
I'll press charges." She stared down, not seeing anything. "I won't
be that victim again. Not again."

He nuzzled her temple. "I'm
sorry. Nobody's got the right to do this to another
person."

"No. And I won't let it
happen to me again." She blew out a breath. Closed her eyes. Then
she smiled. "It feels good to get that out, you know. Not too many
people know."

He remained silent, his hand
stroking her back. Rocki stared at her hand on his thigh and tried
to tell herself she needed to just finish up her meal. Have him
take her home. They could set up their real date and then see what
happened.

Except she couldn't think
about anything but the feel of his hand on her back, of his thigh
under her hand. His warmth. The way his mouth pressed against her
brow.

"Cole?" She tipped her head
back, studying him. "You know, I should probably just get this out.
It's been a while since I've dated and all. But I don't sleep with
men on the first date."

"Ah..." A muscle jerked in
his jaw. "Well, I don't think we'd really even gotten to that
point, right? This isn't a real date."

"Right. So when you take me
home—to either your place or mine-and we sleep together tonight?
Just to be clear...we haven't had a date."

He hadn't heard her
clearly.

Cole closed his eyes,
replaying her words in his head, but they still sounded the same.
Lust did bad, bad things to a man's ability to think clearly, that
was all he could figure out.

"Okay, at the risk of
sounding like an idiot...what did you just say?"

That smile of hers—oh, hell,
it did bad, bad things to his ability to think at all. She
tightened her fingers on his thigh, her nails biting lightly into
his skin, even through the sturdy denim of his jeans. "Oh, come on
now, Counselor...that's what they call lawyers, right? I think you
heard me."

"I heard you." He dropped
his gaze to her mouth—that wide, sexy mouth—and thought he just
might die if he didn't get to kiss her, seriously kiss her, and
soon. "The problem is I think I heard something completely
different from what you just said."

"And what do you think I
just said?"

"It had something to do with
the two of us going back to your place, or my place. But that
couldn't be what you said."

Rocki scraped her nails
along his jeans. "But it was." She curled her free hand around his
neck. "So. Which one sounds better to you?"

In reply, Cole reached into
his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Blindly, he pulled out
some money and glanced at it. Without bothering to do another
thing, he threw it down on the table. "Please tell me you're ready
to go now."

The smile on her face had
nerve endings exploding. Cole stood up and hoped to heaven, hell
and every place in between that his hands weren't shaking as he
offered one to her. She uncoiled from the seat, placing her hand in
his. The firelight danced off the pale skin displayed by the
unbelievably fucking sexy top...corset...whatever it was that she
wore.

Unable to keep from touching
her, he reached out and trailed his fingers along the smooth skin
that rose in a swell above the gleaming black silk.

"You are so damn beautiful,"
he muttered.

Rocki reached out and curled
her hands around his waist. "You're not so bad yourself." She
swayed closer, pressing her mouth close to his ear.

"Can we go?"

"Hell, yes."

Chapter Seven

Earlier, she'd been
cold.

So cold.

But now,
even the heavier fall of snow couldn't manage to cool the burning
in her blood. Part of her brain was whispering,
This isn't smart. You need to just go home.

The rest of her, heart,
soul, and body—oh, damn, her body-demanded,

Go home?
To that empty, lonely bed...again
?

After five years of being
alone, she'd met somebody who made her not want to be alone. That
was what she'd been hoping for. Brant hadn't wanted her to live the
rest of her life missing him. She didn't want to grow old alone.
But nobody had ever reached inside her soul.

Until now…

"Second
thoughts?"