Fast & Loose (25 page)

When he felt himself nearing his breaking point, he tasted her deeply one final time, then cupped her waist with both hands and pulled her delectable ass back toward him, a silent indication for her to climb off him. She turned to face him and started to lie beside him, but he shook his head and smiled.

“On your knees,” he murmured, remembering an especially erotic passage from her journal. He spoke the same instructions to her that her imaginary lover had whispered to her on those pages. “I want you on your knees, babe, shoulders down, cheek pressed to the floor, legs spread wide.”

Her eyes widened when he said it, her cheeks flushing even darker than they already were. Without a word, she turned her back to him and bent forward on all fours. Then she lowered her shoulders and face to the floor, spread her legs wide. Cole very nearly came right there. Instead, he gripped her hips in his hands and knelt behind her. There was something so erotic about a woman’s naked back and ass, something so arousing about such an uninhibited position.

Before entering her, he opened his palms on her back and skimmed them upward, then back again, his cock moving between her legs and against her sex with each forward and backward motion. The next time, he leaned forward even more, catching her breasts in his hands and holding them for a moment, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her stiff nipples, generating a long groan from somewhere deep inside her. When he pulled himself backward this time, he settled one hand on each hip and thrust forward, pushing himself into her waiting heat.

Her groan of anticipation became a moan of satisfaction as he took his time to fill her, and he muttered something hot and profane under his breath, another quote from the lover in her journal, about making her take all of him, even if he split her in two. And as she took him, he told her other things, too, in his own words now, all the things he would do to her before the day—and the night—were finished. His promises seemed to enflame her even more, because every time he thrust his body forward, she cried out louder, uttering steamy words about how good it felt to be so full, and murmuring a few explicit plans she had for him, too.

Cole had never known a woman to speak so frankly during sex, to be so open during sex, to respond with such a lack of inhibition during sex. Lulu opened herself to him in ways no other woman had before—physically and otherwise. She rode astride him, lay beneath him, took him kneeling, sitting, and standing. It was in that last position they finally surrendered to the climax they’d just barely been keeping at bay. Lulu’s back was pressed against the wall, one leg wrapped around Cole’s waist as he pummeled her. They came at the same time, crying out together, their bodies going rigid as they rode out the waves of their orgasms. Then her arms tightened around his neck as the rest of her went limp, and they both eased back down to the floor together.

For a long moment, they lay entwined on the tarps where they had begun, neither saying a word. Lulu opened her hand over the center of Cole’s chest, noting how the rapid-fire beating of his heart mirrored her own. Gradually, it slowed along with hers, too, until both of them were thumping along in happy, contented rhythm.

Only then did Lulu say, “You read my journal, you bastard.”

She waited for him to deny it, to say that was ridiculous, that he’d obeyed all her notes and had never gone near anything he wasn’t supposed to. To do the typical guy thing of sweeping it under the rug and pretending it never happened before changing the subject to something more important, like baseball statistics or the latest thing in socket wrenches.

Instead, Cole told her, “I went through your underwear drawer, too.”

She closed her eyes and wondered why that surprised her. Hadn’t she known from the beginning what kind of man he was? The kind who did what he wanted, took what he wanted, got what he wanted. Case in point, Lulu Flannery.

Not that she hadn’t gone along perfectly willingly, even after realizing he’d read her journal. That was exactly the point. Even knowing he’d violated a trust like that, she’d given herself to him completely. Because she couldn’t resist him. The more time she spent with him, the more of herself she would lose to him. Until there would be nothing of her left that he wanted.

“Double bastard,” she said in response to his underwear confession.

“I ate some of your M&M’s, too,” he said. “And I didn’t replace them.”

“Don’t make light of this, Cole.”

He sighed heavily in the dim light. “I’m not making light of anything, Lulu. On the contrary, I want to be honest with you. I need to be honest with you if this thing between us has any hope of working.”

She battened down the swell of hope that rose inside her at his words. “There is no thing between us,” she told him.

He turned onto his side, pushed himself up on one elbow, and gazed down at her. Even in the sparse light of the torch, she could see his expression was incredulous. “You’re joking, right?”

Now Lulu was the one to be incredulous. “Hey, you hired me to be your
buffer
, remember?” She had hoped she wouldn’t sound hurt when she said it, but no such luck. “I wouldn’t call that a
thing.
”

His expression softened at her words. “The only reason I hired you to go out with me was because I knew you wouldn’t if I just asked.”

She wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. Until she realized the truth in his words. Despite that, she asked, “Really?”

He lifted his hand to her hair and coiled a damp curl around his finger. “What happened here, Lulu…What happened in the car last night…That’s something, all right. Something major. Something massive. Something neither one of us seems to be able to control.”

“Which is why we can’t pursue it,” she said.

“What?” he asked. “Lulu, what’s happening between us is huge. How can we not pursue it?”

“Cole, it would never work. We’re too different from each other.”

“Too different?” he echoed. “Lulu, you and I are more alike than you realize. Or at least more than you’ll allow yourself to admit.”

“That’s nuts,” she said, suddenly feeling defensive for no reason. “We are nothing alike. You’re so…out there. You’re so bold and brash and larger than life. I’m timid and deliberate and smaller than life. You go out and meet the world head-on. I hide from it. You’ll challenge anything or anybody. I don’t want to make waves.”

“You are so wrong.” He shook his head. “Not just about yourself, but about me, too. Look at this studio,” he said. “Talk about bold and brash and larger than life. This place is incredible.”

“That’s my art, Cole, not me.”

“You said your art is an extension of you.”

“That’s not what I meant when I said that.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.” He started to object again, so she hurried on. “Cole, I’ve seen you in action the past two weeks. You’re a showman. You’re always on. You never take a break for a minute. You’re type A all the way.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had to be for the past two weeks. It’s what people expect of me at times like this. But my life isn’t just two weeks a year. It’s not just the Kentucky Derby.”

“No, it’s the Santa Anita Derby, too,” she said. “And the Preakness. And the Belmont Stakes. And a host of other races.” He opened his mouth to say something more, but she continued, “You love the world you live in. You thrive in it. The brighter the spotlight and the more intense the scrutiny, the more you shine. Admit it. You love being King Cole. And you’ve been King Cole so long, you can’t be anyone else.”

She could see he wanted to deny it. But that he knew there was truth to what she said. “I love racing Thoroughbreds,” he said. “I love the people who populate that world. I love the character, the color, the excitement, the risk, the energy, the potential, the life.” He lifted a hand to her hair and brushed a damp curl away from her forehead. “But, Lulu,” he added, “those are the things I…like…about you, too.”

This time Cole was the one to hurry on before she had a chance to respond. “I’m not the only one who does his work under a spotlight,” he said. He pointed at the halogens overhead that were dark now. “Your light is even brighter than mine when it’s on. And there’s more to Thoroughbred racing than what you’ve witnessed this week,” he added. “There’s another side to my world. Another side to me. And it’s a side I love just as much as the other one, a side I thrive in even more. Remember how I said at the gallery last night that you can’t really know a person until you’ve seen them working in the world they love most and where they feel most comfortable?”

Lulu nodded cautiously. “Yeah.”

He smiled down at her, but there was something kind of sad mixed with the contentment she saw there. “I really didn’t come here with the intention of making love to you this afternoon,” he said. “But watching you here in your world, surrounded by your art, creating your art…I couldn’t resist you. Because you’re yourself here, Lulu. Your most genuine, honest self. You’re not the cautious woman who wears the blue jeans and the bland T-shirts. You’re the woman who has a million colors and textures in her closet. You’re the one who writes with such passion in her journal.” He looked at the glass surrounding them, tempered by the darkness, but still vivid and glittery in the waning light. “You’re the woman who creates this incredible beauty. Because you have so much color and texture and passion and beauty inside.”

Lulu didn’t know what to say to that. She told herself he was wrong. That as much as she knew her art was a part of her, it was different from who she really was. But if that was true, then couldn’t what Cole did for a living be different from who he was, too?

He covered her shoulders with his hands and dipped his head until his forehead pressed lightly against hers. “Do me a favor,” he said.

“What?” she asked softly.

“Come out to the farm in Shelbyville. I want you to meet someone.”

The request puzzled her. “Why? Silk Purse is at the Downs by now, isn’t she? The race is only a few days away.”

“Yeah, she is,” he said. “But she’s not who I want you to meet. I mean, I do want you to meet her. Eventually. But this is someone way more important.”

“Cole, I don’t think—”

“Please, Lulu.”

“But—”

“Just have dinner with me the night before the Derby. For luck.”

She expelled a sound of derision. But, as in everything else, she simply couldn’t resist him. “Okay,” she said. “For luck. But not for any reason other than that.”

LULU FOUND THE FARM JUST OUTSIDE SHELBYVILLE
with no trouble at all. Nothing in Shelby County was very far from anything else, and virtually everything was off Highway 60, which ran right through the middle. Mayhew Farms was only a few miles past Claudia Sanders Dinner House, a local landmark for decades and host to one of the most exuberant wedding receptions Lulu had ever attended. The narrow asphalt lane down which she turned wound first one way, then another, then seemed to double back on itself before straightening out again. The landscape around her was rolling green hills broken up by ponds and copses of poplar and redbud, the bright blue bowl of the sky arcing cloudless and perfect over all of it.

She slowed when she saw a groundhog up ahead poking his nose from some brush at the side of the road, then stopped completely when he took his time waddling across. As she waited, she listened to a swaggering blue jay argue with a more pragmatic cardinal, inhaled a great gulp of honeysuckle flourishing fat and fragrant on a wire fence, and loved the way the soft spring breeze wandered through the open windows and danced with her hair.

When the groundhog disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road, Lulu put her car in gear again and inched forward, keeping an eye on the odometer to compute the passing miles between Highway 60 and the Mayhews. She stopped when she began to see horses in the fields to her right, big glossy-coated animals of black and brown, cinnamon and chestnut, cantering and cavorting behind white wooden fences. The late afternoon sun spilled long trails of amber and orange over the countryside, the colors shimmying in the coats of the horses and turning them to gold.

They really were gorgeous creatures, she thought as she slowed the car again to watch them. Such power and beauty, such strength and grace, all of it moving with incredible speed and elegance. No wonder Cole was drawn to Thoroughbreds. He had a lot in common with them.

A sign appeared a little farther down the road, letting her know she’d arrived at her destination.
MAYHEW FARMS
, it read.
EST. 1921. CHAMPION THOROUGHBREDS BRED, RAISED, STABLED, AND TRAINED.

Cole had told her to continue all the way up the winding driveway until she saw the main house, which, he’d told Lulu, she would know when she saw it. She passed barns and outbuildings, a silo and alfalfa field before it came into view, a massive Federal-style house with a broad, wraparound veranda and what looked like floor-to-ceiling windows across the front.

This must be the place.

She rolled to a stop beside the rented Town Car she recognized as Cole’s, then took a few seconds to steady her breathing, collect her thoughts, and shore up her nerve. But before she was anywhere close to doing any of that, Cole was coming down the front steps of the house toward her, looking nothing like the Cole she knew, making it even more impossible for her to get a grip on what she was thinking or feeling.

Gone was the high-powered, flashy business suit in which she’d become so accustomed to seeing him. Gone was the splashy-colored shirt and silk necktie. Gone was the expensive Italian footwear. For Derby Eve, a night when virtually everyone in his line of work and social stratum was dressing in their finest duds to make the rounds of dozens of parties and events, Cole had opted for a denim work shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots. And instead of going out to party, he’d elected to stay in tonight. With Lulu.

She opened the car door and climbed out, smoothing a hand over the yellow and orange batik sundress that fell to mid-thigh. She’d paired it with beaded sandals and chunky beaded bracelet and earrings, letting her hair bounce free around her shoulders. It was an outfit she’d bought two years ago and never worn. Wearing it now, she felt…

That was strange. She would have thought she’d feel overdressed and uncomfortable. Instead, she felt kind of good. The sun on her bare shoulders was warm and welcoming, the balmy breeze caressed her arms, and the long grass by the drive tickled her calves as she began to walk toward him. Instead of making her feel like the center of attention, the bright colors and bold pattern made her feel like…herself. She loved color. She loved bold patterns. Her work and home were decorated by both. So why shouldn’t she be?

Oh, right. Because bold colors and patterns brought unwanted attention. At least, it had been unwanted before. And because indulging her desire for those meant opening the door to indulging other things, too, things she didn’t want to indulge outside her art. At least, she hadn’t before. Before she met Cole. Before he gave her a reason—besides her work—to let herself be herself. Before he entered her life and filled it with colors she’d never even known existed. The colors of passion. The colors of happiness. Maybe even the colors of love. Not that she hadn’t had those things in her life before he came along, but they hadn’t been like this. Never, ever, like this.

“Hey,” he said as he drew near her.

She arched her eyebrows at the greeting. “Hey?” she echoed. “What happened to
Hello
?”

He grinned. “Guess I’ve fallen under the spell of you Kentuckians. I actually used
y’all
this morning, too.”

She grinned back. “But did you use it correctly, that’s the question.”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you talking to more than one person when you said
y’all
?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She uttered a soft
tsk
and said, “You non-Southerners.
Y’all
is plural, not singular.”

“Then I used it correctly,” he told her.

“But you said—”

“I was talking to a barn full of horses at the time.”

“Ah. Is that part of the Kentucky spell, too?” she asked. “Talking to horses? ’Cause I have to tell you, Cole, not all of us are that comfortable around them. Case in point, me.”

His mouth dropped open in surprise. “You’re afraid of horses?”

“Only up close,” she said.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, this is a bit unexpected. But we can work around it.” Before she could ask him what he meant, he hurried on, “I’ve talked to horses all my life.” Then he smiled again. “And I grew up in Virginia,” he added.

That surprised her. “No way. You’re from the South?”

He nodded. “When I left Virginia, I stopped saying
y’all.
I thought it made me sound like a hick. But coming back here and hearing everyone use it so matter-of-factly, I realized saying
y’all
doesn’t make you sound like a hick. It makes you sound like…”

“What?”

“Charming,” he told her. “At least it is when you say it.”

He took the two steps necessary to close the space between them, tucked his hand under her hair and curled it around her nape in the way she loved so much. Then he dipped his head to kiss her, also in the way she loved so much. Not too hard, not too soft. Not too passionate, not too chaste. Just right. The way she felt whenever she was with him. The way she was going to miss feeling after he was gone.

He pulled away, but didn’t let go of her, his gaze fixing on hers. “But then, I think everything you do is charming,” he said softly. And before she had a chance to respond, he tilted his head back toward the house and added, “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

The hand cupping her neck slid over her shoulder, dawdling long enough on the spaghetti strap of her dress for him to murmur, “Pretty,” before skimming down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers. The cicadas kicked up a fuss as they walked, their chatter swelling to a loud crescendo before falling back to a manageable volume. The breeze ruffled the leaves of a huge maple tree in the front yard, and somewhere in the distance, a tiresome woodpecker
tap-tap-tapped
for his dinner. Something warm and contented settled around her heart, and she closed her eyes for a second, inhaling a deep breath and holding it inside, thinking maybe by doing so she’d keep a little bit of the moment inside her forever, too.

Then she opened her eyes again to see Cole looking at her, a soft smile playing about his mouth. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” he murmured.

She nodded, but said nothing.

“It reminds me a lot of the farm where I worked when I was a teenager.”

“In Virginia?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I never would have guessed that’s where you’re from.”

He stopped walking, even though they hadn’t yet reached the walkway leading up to the house. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lulu. Which was why I wanted you to come here tonight. So you could see the real Cole Early.”

“I’ve spent the last week with Cole Early,” she said softly, sobering a little. “I think I’ve seen the real him by now.”

He started to shake his head, then hesitated. “Once,” he told her. “You saw the real me once. When I made love to you.”

She felt her face flame at the reminder. “Cole…”

“You saw more of the real me that day than I show anyone,” he interrupted. “But you haven’t been spending your time with Cole Early for the past week, Lulu. You’ve been spending it with…” He blew out an exasperated breath. “With King Cole. The guy that the fans and the press like to see. Tonight, that won’t be the case. Tonight, you’ll be seeing the real me again.”

She straightened. “Don’t you think you’re presuming a lot here? I mean, just because of what happened in my studio…”

He grinned. “I’m certainly not ruling that out, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that this”—he swept his arms wide and did a slow three-sixty, encompassing the entire farm as he went—“is a lot like the place I call home in California. Yeah, the flora, fauna, and landscape are different, and we don’t have these damned cicadas—” As if insulted by his words, the cicadas’ prattle swelled loudly for a moment, then receded, making him smile. “But for the most part,” he continued, “Mayhew Farms of Shelby County is like Early Farms in Temecula.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “This is much more my life than what you’ve seen this week.” He tilted his head toward a long stable a few hundred feet to the left of the house. “Let me introduce you to the boys and girls, and then we can work our way gradually back to the house.”

The boys and girls turned out to be horses, of course, but no Mr. Eds were these. Some of them, Cole told her, had been insured for millions of dollars. That was because some of them had already earned millions of dollars and still had quite a bit of racing time left. Lulu had never been a big fan of horses, though she did always catch her breath whenever she was driving somewhere near a farm and saw some of the majestic beasts running over hill and dale. Up close like this, she realized they were even bigger than she’d thought. They were enormous, powerful animals, all muscle, muzzle, and shimmering coat…with lovely brown eyes and long, long lashes that tempered her fear a little. Cole was completely relaxed with them, rubbing their noses and talking to them in gentle tones, chuckling when one of those big muzzles nudged his hand, and laughing outright when their heads bumped his.

Lulu could never be that comfortable with them, but neither was she quite as intimidated seeing how affectionate they were with him.

“Ready to saddle up?” he asked when he saw her watching one of the larger creatures.

She wondered if the blood actually drained from her face as quickly as it felt like it was fleeing. “What?”

He laughed even harder at her expression. “Don’t worry, Lulu, I won’t make you ride if you don’t want to. Besides, I sure as hell wouldn’t start you on one of these guys.”

“I don’t want to start on any of your guys,” she told him. “They’re beautiful, but I’m not a horse person.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “I’m not an art person.”

Well, she didn’t know about that. She’d been thinking he was a work of art since the moment she met him.

He buried his hand in the big animal’s mane, and it turned its head toward him in a way that was clearly playful. “Maybe someday you’ll want to learn to ride,” he said a little absently.

Maybe. But she doubted it. “Maybe someday I’ll try my hand at equestrian art,” she said instead. “Or maybe someday you will.”

He smiled at that. “Maybe I will.”

From the stable, he took her on a quick tour of the grounds closest to the house, explaining how a working horse farm operated, starting with the predawn waking to early morning exercising to feeding, grooming, breeding, boarding, and every other thing that happened on a place like this. Lulu learned everything a person could learn about Cole’s line of work in a couple of hours’ time, and it was enough to make her head spin. It was demanding, time-consuming work. But he obviously loved it, and it was obviously what he was meant to do. Like her art was to her, raising and training Thoroughbreds was a part of him. Without her art, she wouldn’t be Lulu Flannery. And without his horses, he wouldn’t be Cole Early.

He was right, though, that the man she was with tonight was different from the man she’d accompanied to the Brown Hotel, the man she’d had drinks with at Felt, the man she’d run into at Eddie’s office two weeks ago. As they sat down to dinner on the veranda—a meal he told her the Mayhews’ cook had prepared earlier, but which Cole put the finishing touches on now, since everyone else was off and gone for Derby Eve events—he was more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Even though he had the biggest race of his career the next day, he wasn’t edgy or anxious or tense. Instead, he seemed…happy. Untroubled. Content.

By the time they carried their dishes back into the house, the sun had set completely. Cole poured them each another glass of wine and led her back out to the veranda, and, as if by mutual agreement, they took their seats in a white wicker swing at one end. The crickets had taken up the chorus from the cicadas, accompanied by the occasional croak of a frog and the leathery flutter of bat wings. The moon crept over a trio of oak trees in the distance, and one by one, stars winked on overhead, until the black velvet sky was lit by diamonds. Cole toed the swing into slow motion, its leisurely creaking and the occasional jangle of its chain backing up the crickets nicely. When he stretched an arm along the back and dropped it over her shoulder, what else could Lulu do but lean into him, tucking her head into the curve of his neck and shoulder, and feel like she was right where she was supposed to be?