Cole in My Stocking (29 page)

He ground his teeth at hearing her talk like she’d done something wrong or had anything to be embarrassed about. Poor Brian? Shit. Poor Mandy.

She kept talking.

“That time with Brian, it wasn’t the first time. It’s not always second base. Sometimes it’s just a kiss going from sweet and laid back to intense, you know, intentional. Or feeling a guy’s erection. Whenever things start to feel like the guy just stepped on the gas with somewhere specific in mind, if that makes sense. I never know when it’s going to happen, but it always does. And it always blindsides me. I got so tired of it, of hoping the next guy would be the one I could enjoy like a normal adult and then completely blowing it. Finally, I just stopped dating.”

Her face had dipped down. She was talking into her chest.

He cupped her chin and made her look at him, even if they couldn’t see each other in the dark. “What did he do after?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you freaked out. What did your boyfriend do after that?”

Tension straightened her shoulders. “What any decent guy would do. We stopped. He stopped. He was a perfect gentleman.”

He scoffed.

“What? He was. I was a total spaz and he was cool about it.”

“He was
cool
about it?”

“What? What’s that superior tone for?” She was getting angry. He loved that about her. She’d stood up to Tooley a few days ago. She was standing up to him now. If she didn’t like something, she let you know about it. Now that was a characteristic he could believe she’d gotten from Gripper.

“You said you freaked like always when things get to a certain point, that you always blow it. You think you blew it with that guy because a single attempt at second base went poorly. I meant, what happened afterwards? Was there a conversation? A second attempt after you had some time to process what happened? A third?”

“What guy would want to try again after something like that?”

“This guy would.”

She sucked in a breath. “Cole.” Her voice trembled on his name. Jesus, that sound. Vulnerability and hope and a warning all rolled into one.

“It’s not about him,” he said quietly, rubbing her back. “At least not directly. It’s about you—”

“I know.” She interrupted him. “I’ve got PTSD. You’re preaching to the choir here. Counselor, remember. They don’t let you get through the program without making sure you’ve faced your own issues. Nothing I’ve learned has helped with this. I don’t think anything can help.”

Sounded like she’d lost hope. She deserved a hell of a lot better than that.

Gently, he stroked her hair and said, “You didn’t let me finish, hon. I was about to say, it’s not all about the PTSD. That’s part of it, yeah, but with this guy, Brian, you weren’t ready for where you wanted to go. I mean, I don’t know if you ever would have been ready with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t burn for him.”

He felt her gaze on him. She said nothing, so he elaborated.

“I can tell by the way you talk about him. You liked him, yeah, but you didn’t burn for him. It didn’t last, did it? You parted ways shortly after. I bet it wasn’t that hard on you, letting him go. He didn’t break your heart. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Her silence was answer enough.

“You burn for me,” he said. He didn’t date a ton, but he had enough experience to read Mandy’s reaction to him. The way her lips automatically parted ever so slightly when he kissed her, the way she melted against him when he held her, the way she always turned her head toward him when he walked in a room, like she was aware of him on a level beyond the usual senses. This chemistry between them was special. And it sure as hell went both ways. If she had a shot at overcoming what had happened to her, it was going to be with him.

No one else. Him.

Her hand curled into a fist on his hip, but not in a panicked way like before. This time she was gripping the material of his sweats, clinging to him. It felt like an admission, a surrender. The movement gathered his sweats tight across his groin. If he’d been as hard as he was a few minutes ago, that might have been uncomfortable. But with Mandy showing him her heart, her hurt, he wasn’t thinking about sex, at least not in the way that shunted his blood south.

Tenderness filled him from head to toe. Without him telling it to, his body curled around her, gathering her impossibly close. His mouth brushed her cheek when he said, “It’ll be different when I take you to bed, honey. When I take you to bed, it’ll be because you’re ready. And if you panic, we’ll stop and talk, and when you’re ready, we’ll try again. We’re going to work on it, you and me, until it’s everything it’s supposed to be. For both of us.”

Because it was more than just chemistry they had. They had what it took to go the distance. Maybe it was a little one-sided right now. Mandy was going through more than anyone should have to go through. Having a brand new boyfriend proclaiming his love for her was probably overwhelming, but as long as she wasn’t telling him to back off he was going to be there, loving her, showing her he could be the man she needed.

He heard her swallow, felt her breath on his neck. Had he pushed her too far telling her what his body, mind, and heart all knew to be true?

“That sounds time consuming.”

He huffed. “Already told you. I’m in no hurry.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Never been afraid of hard work. My pop used to say the best things in life are the ones you work hard for.” Soon as Mandy powered down her window on the side of Newburgh Junction Road, he knew he’d work his ass off for a chance to be with her. He had a feeling this double-master’s-earning survivor of a woman wasn’t afraid of a little hard work either. He stroked her hair and felt her shiver. Tugging the blanket more snuggly around them both, he vowed, “It’ll be okay, Mandy. You can trust in us. Okay?”

She touched his face. “Okay, honey.”

His heart squeezed. “I like you calling me that.”

“Then I’ll have to do it more often. Goodnight, honey.”

He grinned like a fool. “’Night, baby.”

* * * *

Cole’s breathing grew heavy. So did his arm around my waist. His scent of ocean breeze soap and reliable man wove a spell of security around me. His assurance that we weren’t doomed to a sexless relationship and his easy commitment to taking things slow sent a warm current of hope through me.

But the familiar undertow of fear was there too.

I’d tried to be brave for him tonight, tried to tackle at least one of my fears and stretch my sexual comfort zone. It hadn’t gone well. At first.

I’d let his penis send me into a panic, just like always when penises entered the picture. Whether it was the visual suggestion of one hard and ready behind a zipper or the insistent nudge of one against my hip, the awareness of a man’s penis usually killed whatever attraction I felt for him. Penises were like autonomous creatures demanding attention and driving their owners to mindless acts of gratification.
Feed me, Seymour!
They made slaves of men, victims of women.

Of course, intellectually, I knew those feelings were a result of my past trauma. Penises weren’t inherently evil. Many women loved them. Normal women loved them. I wanted to be a normal woman. I especially wanted that while lying in bed with Cole.

He made me feel safe. I trusted him more than I’d ever trusted a man before. No other part of his body made me feel intimidated. Not his ridiculously built biceps, not his tree-trunk thighs, not his enormous hands or granite chin or stony eyes. When I’d realized he was bent at the waist to keep our pelvises from touching, a sense of longing had gripped me.

I’d wanted to feel all of him, even though I’d suspected he’d be hard. I’d braced myself for it, told myself if he had an erection and it touched me through our clothes, it would be okay because it was Cole and he would never hurt me.

Then I’d felt him.

Something in my head short-circuited. It wasn’t emotion that crashed over me but a sort of mental paralysis. In hindsight I recognized it for what it was, a panic attack, an automatic reaction that bypassed logic and rose up from the same primitive place as the fight-or-flight response.

It hadn’t lasted long. I became aware of Cole’s steady arms around me, his minty breath fogging my forehead, his warmth. His voice had punctured the haze and brought me back to myself.

“It’s not the boss of me.”

He’d somehow known exactly what to say. I’d calmed instantly, and then other sensations had surfaced. Relief. Affection. Arousal.

Instead of stoking that arousal, Cole had led me gently into conversation. He asked me questions, listening and commenting thoughtfully on my answers. Sometimes he stroked my hair and made delightful shivers race all over my skin. Sometimes he gently rubbed his cheek over my head, his stubble catching in my hair. I’d opened up and revealed more to him than to anyone else ever. It felt right that it should be Cole to hear these confessions and insecurities.

He’d handled them with care, and then he’d made my brain short circuit again, but in a good way when he’d said,
“It’ll be different when I take you to bed, honey.”

When,
not
if
. Confidence bordering on cockiness. I’d felt myself smile even as my heart had raced with nervous anticipation.

All the while, his erection rested nonthreateningly against my hip, behaving like a perfect gentleman, seeming to support Cole’s assurance that he was in no rush.

There was only one problem. Lying in the warm darkness with my hot-cop boyfriend being so gentle with me, my body was on fire in a way I’d never known before. A complex need swelled deep and hot inside me.

“You burn for me,”
Cole had said. He was right. And the fire was hot enough to turn my fears to ash. Not instantaneously, not completely, but steadily. Certainly enough that I could recognize my desire and contemplate following Cole wherever that desire led.

As I watched him in the darkness, a shadowy shape as warm as he was large, a heavy, wonderful feeling settled behind my breastbone. My throat closed with a longing I didn’t understand. Cole was right here with me, but the longing echoed with incompletion.

“What are you doing to me?” I whispered.

He didn’t respond. He was asleep.

I already knew the answer. He was changing me with his love, shoring up the weak places in my soul. And I was letting him because I loved him back.

It should be impossible. We’d only been a couple for a few days. But what else could explain this weighty feeling of having been carved out and filled with something bigger and better than self? He was in me. In my heart. In my mind.

What would it be like to welcome him into my body as well?

He was fast asleep. I should go to his big bed in the master suite.

I didn’t want to. It was too good being here with him.

I decided to stay, and a feeling of peace floated over me along with a bone-deep drowsiness. Somehow, I didn’t think Cole would mind waking up in the morning to find me still snuggled up against him.

If I couldn’t bring myself to leave him for a few hours, how was I going to drive away in a week’s time and leave him behind while I resumed my life more than three hundred miles away? It was a problem for another day, I told myself as I drifted to sleep in the warmest, coziest place on Earth, Cole’s embrace.

Chapter 21

The rumble of a powerful engine coming up Cole’s driveway followed by the whir of a garage door opening filled my stomach with excited flutters. Cole was home from work. A peek at the microwave clock told me he was an hour early. It was five-thirty on Saturday, the day after my shopping spree with Stacey. I’d expected him closer to six-thirty, since his schedule was six to six.

I closed the lid of his laptop and practically skipped from the kitchen to open the door. He ducked under the garage door as it started to close and greeted me with a smile and eyes shaded by his new Oakleys. No matter how many times I saw him in his statie uniform, it never failed to make my tummy clench with fierce attraction. He was all broad shoulders and thick thighs. The loaded utility belt managed to make him look dangerous and helpful at the same time.

Jogging up the steps to the porch, he swept me up in his arms and kissed me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him know he didn’t have to make it a quick peck.

He took the hint. Groaning, he lowered me to my feet in his entryway but kept our mouths fused.

I parted my lips, an invitation I’d issued more than once. This time he accepted it.

He pushed his tongue inside to tangle with mine.

Yes!
I’d been waiting for this. An honest to goodness French kiss from Officer Oakley.

One strong arm at my lower back kept our bodies as close as that belt of his would allow. A big mitt of a hand behind my head prevented neck strain as I had to tip my head back to kiss a man so tall. I didn’t miss the fact he held me to one side, likely to keep me from feeling whether he had a night stick growing in his pants.

I felt completely secure and awash with affection. Not to mention sudden arousal. My skin heated everywhere we made contact. A lower, needier heat churned as well. If I did happen to feel his night stick, I didn’t think it would bother me. But after last night, I was content to let him protect me. There were times I felt like pushing myself and times I felt like merely enjoying the moment. This was one of the latter times. And I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Cole was an amazing kisser. Commanding yet questing, offering more than taking. Firm lips, confident tongue. Heaven.

Chest heaving, he nipped my lower lip, pecked the corner of my mouth and straightened. His eyes were heavy-lidded. “Had a surprise planned for you. Was going to take you out. But now I’m tempted to keep you here and do that some more.”

Kissing some more sounded tempting to me too, but going out sounded even better since I’d been cooped up all day. We could always resume kissing when we got home.

“What kind of surprise? Is that why you’re home early? Are we going out to dinner?” I bounced on my toes, excited at the prospect of a traditional date with my hot cop after a day of phone calls and paperwork.