Home Bound (12 page)

If I was going to feel safe anywhere, it would be here.

I was still trembling as Cole showed me to a bedroom. It was obviously the master, since the panic room was attached. It was decorated with big antiques and lush colors, but I hardly noticed the décor.

“Are you okay?” Cole asked. He’d been watching me a lot, but I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure I was okay, but what else was I to say to that question. I put my bag down on the bed and felt strangely tiny next to the high mattress and huge walnut posters.

“Do you want anything to eat?”

“No. It’s late.” I swallowed and toed off my shoes. “I think I’ll just go to bed.”

“That sounds like a good plan.” Cole nodded toward the chaise under the large window. “I’m going to sleep there. I’m not going to leave you alone. Not even to sleep.”

I wasn’t annoyed by this high-handedness. It was a relief. I didn’t want to be alone. It terrified me. “Okay.”

I went to the bathroom and got ready for bed, sleeping in my panties and the t-shirt I wore under the sweater. Cole went into the bathroom while I was crawling under the covers, and he returned wearing his pants but no shirt and no shoes.

He might look like he was ready for bed, but I didn’t really think he was going to sleep.

I was damned sure I wasn’t going to sleep tonight.

I’d fallen into a strange, blank daze by going through the motions of everyday routines, but the fear hit me again when Cole turned off the overhead light, leaving the big room lit by only the bedside light

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, his eyes searching my face again, as if looking for signs of an impending collapse.

I wasn’t entirely confident the collapse was at bay. It could hit me at any minute.

“If you keeping acting all nice with me, I’ll know for sure the situation is desperate.” I managed a ghost of a smile, although I could still feel chills rippling through my spine.

He gave a soft huff of amusement. “You call this nice?”

“Well, relatively speaking, since you’re usually all mean and snappish.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve snapped my fair share this evening.” He’d stepped over close to me, and I reached to hold onto his arm, needing stability, needing
something
.

“Yeah. But it feels like it’s in a nicer way.”

He smiled faintly, that intensity still holding his gaze with mine, like neither of us could look away. “That’s me. Snappishly nice.”

I couldn’t hold back a little giggle, but even as I was laughing, the vision of those decapitated rats hit me again, and the giggle transformed into a gurgle, that turned into a choked sob.

Embarrassed by the sudden breakdown, I turned away from Cole so he wouldn’t see my changed expression.

“Shit,” he muttered, turning me back around and pulling me against him. “You’re safe here, Evangeline. I promise.”

I clung to him, feeling small and weak and too scared. “I don’t feel safe.”

His arms tightened around me. “What can I do to make you feel safer?”

“Stay with me,” I whispered, stroking his hard back and feeling the strength of him in the lines and muscles. “Stay with me tonight.”

“I already told you I would.” His voice was slightly hoarse, and his body was feeling tense.

It was a tension that spoke to me, though—that I wanted to feel even more, that seemed to hold the nightmare at bay.

“No.” I pulled back enough to look up at his face and deep eyes. “I want you stay with me. All the way.”

He couldn’t fail to know what I was talking about. It was obvious in the way I was touching him, in the way I was gazing up at him. And I knew he wanted it too. That tension was arousal, as much as anything else.

For a moment, a flicker of conflict was visible on his face, but then it disappeared in a wave of passion. He reached down to take my face in both of his hands the way he had before, and he released a soft groan as he leaned down into a kiss.

The kiss was just as hungry as the first one had been, but it felt even needier, more desperate this time. He seemed to need me as much as I needed him.

Our lips and tongues tangled as I pressed my body against his, wanting to feel how big and hard and capable he was by the feel of his body.

I was already turned on, despite the trauma of earlier in the evening, but my need was as much emotional as physical—as if Cole and his strength was the only thing holding off the darkness.

His hands had slid down to cup my bottom, and he pressed me against his groin, which had hardened in an obvious way.

He broke the kiss briefly to mutter, “Sometimes trauma can lead to this sort of thing. It might just be the trauma that’s making you think you want this.”

I groaned in frustration because I wanted to kiss him again. My hands were sliding over the firm skin of his bare back and my fingers squeezed under his waistband to reach even lower. “What the hell does it matter why I want this? I want this. So much. Right now.” I rubbed myself against his arousal until he groaned. “Don’t you?”

“You know damned well I do.”

“So take what you want.”

He groaned again, differently this time, and kissed me again. This time, the kiss took us into the bed, and I wrapped my legs around him as he buried his face against my neck, nibbling and kissing in a way that made me squirm.

When I was fumbling with the button on his pants, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to stop me. “Slow down, sweetheart,” he murmured thickly. He moved my arm so it was lying on the bed beside me. “Slow down.”

I was panting and flushed, wanting to bury myself in the sensations so I could forget about everything else. I moaned in frustration and arched up into his body. “I don’t want to slow down.”

He gave me a wolfish smile. “But it will be better that way.”

Despite his words, his expression and his touch were neither teasing nor playful. They were intense, unexpectedly gentle as he pulled the t-shirt off over my hand and started to kiss and caress his way down my body.

I could see how much he liked my body by the way his eyes heated up. It was thrilling, intoxicating, that this strong, capable man wanted me so much.

His mouth closed over one of my nipples, and the soft touch was almost torturous. I couldn’t keep my hips still as I clawed lines down his back in my frustration.

“Cole, please,” I gasped, fisting one of my hands in his hair.

He lifted his head. “Let me give this to you, sweetheart.”

My mouth parted with a silent cry when his hand slipped in between my legs and found my wet arousal. Then the cry found its voice when he started to pump with two fingers.

I rode his fingers eagerly as an orgasm built up and then broke inside me. I was panting loudly when I came down from the high and my body relaxed a little.

But then Cole was being gentle again, kissing his way softly down my belly.

“Cole, please,” I said again, in a slightly different tone this time.

He looked up again at my words. “I was going to give you more. Especially after everything that’s happened. I didn’t want to be rough. I want it to be...”

He didn’t finish, but I understood what he meant. And it touched me. He was trying to careful, to be gentle, to make sure this was good for me—no matter what his own body demanded.

But he didn’t understand what I wanted at all.

I shook my head and reached up to cup his rugged face. “But I don’t want soft and gentle. I want...I need for you to be...strong.” I saw his expression change, so I repeated, “I want to feel you be strong. Please, Cole. Be strong for me.”

“Damn right, I will,” he said gruffly, the tension in his body transforming palpably. The fire blazed up in his eyes even more, and I knew that, at last, he was going to give us what we both wanted from tonight.

Cole

I
t was wrong.

So fucking wrong.

But for some reason, it made complete sense.

I was a selfish bastard—particularly in the bedroom. Normally, women worked for it a little. I wasn’t necessarily proud of that fact, but it was normally what I had them do. But right now with Evangeline? I wanted to be the one working—the one giving.

And I wanted to give it hard.

I wasn’t sure she knew what she was asking for. I doubt she’d ever been with someone like me. If the tabloids were to be believed, she tended to date guys who seemed a little more, shall we say, metrosexual?

So. Not. My. Thing.

I looked down at her again, her eyes were glazed with passion. Her lips were parted. And she was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. All I wanted was to pound into her. To fuck her until she couldn’t remember her own name—let alone what had happened earlier.

I stood and quickly undressed before reclaiming my spot on the bed on top of her. The feel of her naked flesh beneath mine was both heaven and hell.

Taking her hands, I placed them above her head on the pillow. Her eyes went a little wide, and it made me smile. “Brace yourself, princess.” She stiffened slightly and that made me pause. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You know that, right?”

She nodded. “I know what I want, Cole. It’s just...no one’s ever...been like this with me. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

If I’d been standing, she would have brought me to my knees. “That’s not even possible,” I told her, and I meant it. Just the mere fact that she was here, that she wanted me, and she trusted me was one of the greatest moments of my life.

She squirmed beneath me, and I knew I had to do something now. “Sweetheart, I promise we’ll stop if I do anything you don’t like.”

“Cole?”

“Hmm?”

“Stop talking.”

A slow smile spread across my face before I could even stop it. I loved a woman who told me what she wanted. Rather than answer her, I gave her exactly what she wants.

Holding her hands still, I kissed her. Hard. Her tongue mated with mine, and I heard a small whimper escape but I didn’t stop.

My mouth left hers and nipped at her jaw, her throat, her collarbone—all the way to her breasts. I’d been fantasizing about these more than any man should. She was not as big breasted as the women I tended to sleep with, but she was perfect. I teased first one nipple and then the other, making her cry out. I bit at the tender flesh until she cried out again and arched beneath me.

But I didn’t stop.

Releasing her hands, I let mine begin to follow the path my mouth had just been on. Gently, my rough skin slid along hers, and I marveled at her softness. I don’t think I’d ever felt a woman with silkier skin. I could touch her for days and still not get enough.

I teased at her belly button until my hands were anchored at her waist. “Spread your legs for me, sweetheart,” I murmured thickly. She hesitated, and I lifted my head and met her nervous gaze. It cannot even be possible that no one had ever...

“Cole.”

“I bet you taste sweet, Evangeline. Let me taste you. Please.”

Slowly, her legs opened further, and I could see the slight tremble in her thighs. My hands soothed them as I lowered my lips to taste her.

Heaven.

I heard her low, throaty sigh, and I was almost enough to make me come. I kind of felt like I was corrupting her.

“More, Cole. More,” she panted.

Never say that I don’t aim to please. I feasted on her until she was sobbing my name, and when I thought she couldn’t take anymore, I felt her come apart, my name on her lips the entire time. I soothed her. I gently stroked her thighs, her belly, her breasts as I made my way back up to her mouth and quieted her sobs with my own lips.

She wrapped around me—all long, silky limbs—and I knew I was on the brink. I broke the kiss and reached for where I’d dropped my pants and fumbled for a condom. I slipped it on in record time, a sheen of sweat forming on my body from trying to hold back.

Then I braced myself over her, holding her hands. I was going to ask if she was ready but I already knew the answer. I surged forward and watched her eyes grow wide again—something I was really beginning to love—and buried myself to the hilt.

“You’re so...you’re...”

I knew what she was going to say, and at that moment, I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want her to talk. I wanted to feel. For both of us to just feel. I ducked my head and claimed her mouth with mine again. I didn’t wait, my tongue thrust forward to dual with hers just as I began to move inside of her.

There was no slow build up.

There was no time to get acquainted.

I didn’t do emotional with sex. I fucked. I liked to fuck. And on any given day, with any given woman, I liked to fuck hard. That was what my body was doing, and Evangeline was going wild beneath me—meeting me thrust for thrust and loving it. But my head? My heart? Well, something was going on there, and I couldn’t stop to examine it too closely.

So I let my body do what it does best.

She was so tight around me. So wet. So...everything.

“Come for me, baby,” I whispered against her ear. “Do it for me again.”

“I can’t,” she murmured, her head thrashing back and forth. I pounded into her harder and harder, my grip on her hands near brutal.

“Come on, sweetheart. Do it for me.” I shifted just slightly and hit the spot that sent her soaring. Evangeline screamed my name as she wrapped herself so tight around me that there was no way to tell where one body ended and the other began.

It was fucking awesome.

I did my best to hold back, to let her have her moment, but I couldn’t. The feel of her, the sound of her, the smell of her—I was on sensory overload. This time it was me crying out her name as I came. I couldn’t stop myself. Sex was never personal for me before, but this time it was.

It so fucking was.

***

I
t was about four in the morning, and I was staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t slept at all. Beside me, Evangeline was curled against me with her hand on my chest and one leg thrown over mine. We’d made love several more times over the course of the night—each more explosive than the next.

Turned out she likes it a little rough.

I couldn’t help but smile. The woman was constantly surprising me.