Reckless Mind (20 page)

Cole stood and walked to stand in front of me, stopping to brush some of my hair behind my ear. His fingers trailed over my skin touching every scar he found gently, leaving behind the warmth and heat of his touch. There were a few times where he'd sucked in his breath quickly like he was imagining what had happened to me to leave a scar like that on my body. He unbuttoned my shorts, pushing the waist band down slightly looking for more scars, which were there, and then he buttoned them again. Dropping to his knees, his fingers moved over my legs. There were fewer there, but he still found them.

As he stood he placed his hands gently on my hips and moved me back until I felt the wall behind me. “I want you damn it, all of you,” he said, pressing his body into mine. “I know you didn't mean what you were saying in the hospital, not really. But it broke my heart a little bit anyway. The first girl I ever cared about and in a couple weeks she broke my heart.” His lips were almost touching mine, his shoulders felt so amazing under my hands.

“I didn't mean it, and I'm so sorry, Cole, I really am. I tried calling and texting you so I could talk to you and tell you. I never saw you around campus, and then I'd here Emma talking to Jax about how there was always two or three girls hanging on or around you, so I assumed you didn't care,” I whispered against his lips.

“You aren't a fucking joke to me, pretty girl. I want you to be my full time, all the time, forever girl. I want to claim you as mine over and over again until you calling out my name when I make you come is as natural as breathing for you. You are meant to be mine, I've known it from the moment I laid eyes on you.” Cole grabbed my thighs and lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist and couldn't help but let out a soft moan when I could feel him pressing against me.

“Cole, I have baggage,” his hands cupped my ass and pulled me closer to him, I thought I was going to pass out from feeling how ready for me he was. “I need to tell you things,” but the whole time all I thought was, please, god please don't stop. “I'm not in a place right now where I can be in a relationship. My therapist,” but he started talking over me.

“I know things about you, Kahlen. I know you're wet right now just thinking about the possibility of having me inside you. You're imagining what it will feel like the first time I put my hands on you, slip my fingers inside you,” he breathed all over my neck and my body broke out in goose bumps, I pressed myself into him harder. “When I run my tongue over your body, pretty girl, you know I want to taste you, can't wait to taste you.” Cole's tongue ran up the side of my neck stopping just below my ear. “Close your eyes Kahlen, imagine me inside you moving,” oh god, he was moving his hips now, rubbing against me in the best way.

“Oh, god, Cole,” I sighed in his ear.

“That's right. I'll stretch you, fill you, I'll be all you think about any time you move. Can you feel me inside you, Kahlen. Can you feel my thumb rubbing you while my dick is inside you bringing you closer and closer to the edge? Tell me, pretty girl.”

“Yes.” My mind was going crazy now. Never had I ever been brought this close to coming. All Cole did was talk to me, I couldn't imagine what actually letting him make love to me would feel like. It would blow my mind, it would be everything he said it would be, I was sure of that.

“You are mine, Kahlen, but you have to be all mine. I can't take being your sometimes or part time, you need to be in this just as much as I am.” He took a deep breath inhaling my scent. “So I'll wait. However long it takes, I'll be your friend, and only your friend until you are ready for more. But I'm telling you right now I'm not going anywhere. I told you when I met you that I was the better man for you, and I will be. I'll be everything you'll ever need if you'll just let me.”

Cole slowly set me back down on my feet making damn sure he pushed into me as I moved down the hard bulge in his pants. He pushed my hair behind my ear and kissed me on my forehead, just like he'd always done. It didn't have urgency or raw need behind it like his words, he was being gentle with me, taking it slow with me. He was giving me the time I needed to figure the flashbacks out, and all of the cluster fuck of emotions stuck in my head.

Chapter 17

Even though I left Cole's almost immediately after him pressing me up against the wall, that moment never strayed far from my mind over the next week when we would spend time together. Cole met me after my classes were done for the day, and took me out to do something.

Wednesday he had to go back to work, but he asked if I wanted to come along, and when I said I did the smile pulling at his full lips made my knees a bit weak. The shop was busy, and when we showed up he introduced me to all the other mechanics, most of whom were older than Cole. I smiled and said hello to them all, laughing as they asked me what a gorgeous lady like myself was doing with a guy like Cole.

I shook my head, smiling up at Cole, telling them I thought I was lucky to have a friend like him. He bumped me with his shoulder, pulling his lip ring between his teeth. Then a man walked out of an office looking area of the shop, tall and muscular, with short black hair and sea green eyes. Shit. This had to be his dad. I was meeting his dad.

Cole introduced me as his friend from school, but I watched the way his dad looked at him as Cole gazed at me when he spoke. His dad, Travis, clapped a hand on Cole's shoulder giving him a knowing smile and nodding as Cole continued to tell his dad how we knew each other.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Westwood,” I smiled nervously, extending my hand to him. My palm dwarfed in his as he took it carefully. “Thanks for letting me come over to the shop today, I can't wait to see how Cole spends some of his time.” And it was true, I wasn't blowing smoke up his ass. I had always wondered about the ease with which some people were able to disassemble and put back together things that seemed impossible to me.

Travis told me I was welcome any time, and told me if I was thirsty they had plenty of stuff in the fridge in the break room and to help myself. Smiling and thanking him, I looked at Cole who nodded his head and started to follow him over to what I assumed was his area of the shop. There was a car raised a little off the ground, a huge tool box pushed up against the wall, and a bunch of other things I had no idea what they were.

Everyone seemed to go back to work once Cole moved to his area, but I saw them each in turn glancing our way, watching expectantly. I almost had to laugh, it seemed the shop was filled with a bunch of romantics stuck inside strong, tattooed, pierced bodies. I loved it, and every single one of them I felt comfortable around.

Cole was changing someone's oil and replacing their brakes. He said it like it was no big deal, and as he worked on the car, explaining in layman's terms what he was doing, I could see it was second nature to him. I asked some questions about what tools were what and asked if he went to school to do this. He had, which made me smile.

“I'm going to classes now to get my degree in business management. I want to know what I'm doing when I buy my dad out of the shop and take it all over.” He wasn't looking at me when he spoke, he was under the car, but I was sure I must have misunderstood him.

“You're going to buy him out someday? What does that mean?” He rolled out from under the car, sitting up, he smiled at me.

“I own half the business now, pretty girl. When my dad is ready to retire then I'll buy him out and it'll all be mine. Well, until I have a son of my own anyway,” his gaze dropped to my stomach, then quickly back to my eyes. My face flushed, there was no way he thought about having those things with me. Did he? “So I did technical school and am certified to work on a lot of different cars, and I keep up with that still, going and taking a course every now and then. At U of S.C. I'm getting the degree I want to make sure I don't run the business into the ground when I take it over.”

I knew my jaw was slack, my eyes round like a doe's. Not that I didn't think Cole was ambitious, I just had no idea that at twenty one he had accomplished so much for himself. “That's amazing Cole, really. I'm so proud for you for everything you've done.” He nodded his head, scooted the creeper he sat on over in front of me, and seemed content just to look at me.

My face became hot and I knew it was turning red, but those eyes sucked me in, I couldn't look away. Finally he shook his head, smirking, and laughed low under his breath. He put what tools he had out away and told me he'd be right back, then he moved the car back out to the lot before stopping in the office and hanging the keys back up.

Travis said something to him in the office, gl
ancing my direction, and smiled. Cole looked my way and smiled too, nodding at whatever they were talking about. A couple of the guys in the shop asked me what I was going to school for while Cole was gone, and the conversation was easy. I didn't feel like anyone wanted or expected anything from me, I took a deep breath and let it out, happy that Cole and I were trying to mend the friendship that had almost broken.

He made C
hinese food for dinner once he was done working, but I had to eat quickly and run off to work myself. I told him I'd see him tomorrow as I grabbed my stuff, thanking him for letting me hang out with him and for cooking me dinner, then I left for work.

On Thursday he had class and was done the same time I was, and he never worked Thursdays so that if he had stuff for school that needed to get done he could do it, and today he did. When I saw him he asked if I wanted to hang out in the library with him because he had a business project he needed to get a start on, and since I had a paper to write for English it worked out great.

We sat on some of the sofas the library had in one section of the huge room. I kept shifting on the couch as I read until Cole grabbed my legs and laid them over his lap. Part of his arm rested on my legs, and he continued looking through the book he had without so much as stopping to see my reaction.

The library took a lot longer than both of us thought, so I invited him over, since I lived closer and had leftover lasagna courtesy of Jules in my fridge. I called Emma on the drive home and told her to head over, and to tell Jax too.

We all sat around laughing. Cole and Jax talked about crazy stuff they had done over the years together, and on more than one occasion Brandon's name got brought up. I wondered how he was, and how long he would be gone. I thought about the brief times we'd shared, and sadness came over me.

Everyone must have sensed it, because not long after Emma hugged me bye and told me I was hers Saturday morning for some well needed girl time. I told her that sounded perfect, and Jax gave me a hug as well, both of them leaving together. Hmmm...maybe she has something about the two of them she wanted to talk about on Saturday, and I smiled at the thought. They really were perfect for each other even if both of them kept telling themselves otherwise.

Cole stayed to help me clean up, but seemed a little distant after he saw my mood shift when Brandon was brought up. He placed a chaste kiss on my forehead as he told me goodbye and headed out for the night. I spent the next hour sitting on the couch crying because I knew I'd upset Cole.

My mood had carried over into Friday. When Cole waited at my car after class I barely noticed him. I was preoccupied, and all I kept asking myself since I'd woken up that morning was,
why are you letting the past have any control over your present, Kahlen
? I had been plagued with flashbacks of what my guardians told me I was, but somehow felt like it started to sink through my head that I wasn't what they said I was, and I never would be. But this was just the beginning, and I knew I had a long road ahead of me.

I felt so overwhelmed, and when I stopped at the driver's side door I stood directly in front of Cole. He took one look at me and, frowning, pulled me into his chest, wrapping his strong arms around me he rubbed h
is hand up and down my back, kissing my temple before taking my chin in his hand and making me look at him.

“You okay, pretty girl?”

I shook my head, “I don't know why it's like this sometimes. It's like every horrible untrue thing they ever said to me is on repeat in my brain, and I believe all of it. Deep down I know it isn't true, but times like this I couldn't even tell you for sure.” A single tear rolled down my cheek, but Cole caught it before it fell too far.

“You are nothing like what they said, Kahlen. Nothing. You are a good person, you care for people, and you are tough. Not very many people could plan everything you did, have everything all lined up, to get themselves out of a situation like that. Start believing in yourself, okay? The rest of us who know you do, now it's up to you to know in your heart that you can move past what you went through.”

Tucking my hair behind my ear, holding my face for a few seconds longer than he needed to while his gaze dropped to my mouth, Cole told me to go and get some rest. He worked this afternoon and was going to be really busy at the shop, but he wanted to see me and let me know.

At home I baked cookies. Thinking about the nice things Cole had said to me, I got in my car and drove them over to the shop. When I walked in the way most customers do I came into the office, and immediately looked out the big window into the shop looking for Cole.

And I found him. I also found a girl hanging off his arm, laughing and placing her head down on his shoulder. Cole laughed too and didn't try to do anything to get the girl off of him. Maybe it was too good to believe a leopard could change its spots. Travis walked out to the main waiting area, from his office that was connected to the space, where I was standing.