Silent As A Stone: Heart of Stone Series #10

by K. M. Scott

  “Tell Mommy I’ll call her later, okay?”

  “I will, honey.”

  I turned back to focus on everyone else and said, “I hope you can accept what I’m doing. I love you all very much, but I have to live my life like I want.”

  Summer and Tressa smiled, and Killian nodded like he understood. The look in my brother’s eyes told me he still worried about me, so I said, “I love you, Ethan. You don’t have to be scared for me anymore. I promise. Cole cares for me. Don’t worry. I’m okay.”

  He didn’t say anything, but I saw him mouth the words I love you too. Then one by one, each screen disappeared until my father was the only one left. He looked as big as life now staring back at me, but I didn’t see worry filling his eyes. Now he looked at me like he always had with Tressa.

  With pride.

  “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll tell your mother you’re safe and happy and that you send your love.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  The screen turned to black, and I took a deep breath full of old cabin air and let it out in a rush. That call wouldn’t have been important to most people, but I had never felt like anything but a helpless child for the past eight years.

  Not until now. I knew my family would still worry about me, but I had taken the first step to being a normal person again.

  Behind me, Cole walked into the room and said, “It sounded like you did great, but then I got this message from your father.”

  He handed me his phone and I read the message, my father’s deep voice echoing in my head. I’m trusting you to take care of my daughter. If you do anything to hurt her, I’ll make your life a living hell. Please don’t test me on this, for Diana’s sake.

  I smiled. That was my father, through and through, and I loved him for it. Handing Cole his phone, I said, “Don’t worry. That’s just my father giving you a chance.”

  For a moment, he didn’t look convinced, but then he gave me a half-hearted smile. “I guess I better not screw up.”

  “You won’t. I believe in you.”

  Cole wrapped his arms around me and hugged me to his body. Strong and protective, he made me feel safe. And then he said the words that made me sure I’d been right about him.

  “I believe in you too. You and all your perfect flaws.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cole

  Diana curled up against my side as I tried to follow the movie we’d picked out nearly an hour ago. Part western and part mobster movie, it didn’t make much sense to me. Every time I looked down to see if she was enjoying it, I saw her intently focused on the screen, though, so maybe I just wasn’t bright enough to figure it out.

  “Some movie,” I mumbled.

  I squeezed her close to me, hoping she’d look up and start talking. Her father’s not-so-veiled threat continued to rattle around my brain as it had ever since I first read it. Maybe that was why I couldn’t concentrate on the western mobster flick playing on the TV.

  Diana stretched her legs and turned her head to face me. “I’m not sure what’s going on with these people. Are they cowboys or gangsters?”

  I threw my head back and laughed in relief. “Thank God you said that. I thought I was just too stupid to understand just what the hell they’re talking about.”

  Frowning, she shook her head. “Why do you say things like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “That you’re too stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  She’d always been so quick to catch things like that when we were together before. I forgot about that. I turned away, unable to look into her blue eyes staring so intently as she waited for my answer to her question.

  “I don’t know. It’s just how I am. Being smart was never who I was.”

  Diana straightened up so she sat next to me. “You must have been smart. You ran a business. That takes brains,” she said softly.

  I looked at her and smiled. She had no idea how wrong she was. Oh, it did take brains to run a business well. The well part was what distinguished good businessmen like her father from people like me who ended up losing their businesses.

  “The fact that I lost the club is proof that I wasn’t very smart or even very good at running it, I’d say.”

  And then came the moment I’d dreaded since realizing I had to tell Diana the truth about everything.

  “What happened? Why did you lose your club?” she asked in that innocent tone that told me for damned sure she wasn’t ready for the answer.

  But that was the problem. Diana wasn’t ready for any of what I came with. My history. My business problems. None of it. She was sweet and innocent. What did she know about the shady dealings of a New York club owner?

  “You don’t want to know. Trust me, Diana,” I said, needing to keep her separate from that world.

  She grabbed hold of my hand and brought it to her lips. Looking up at me with those blue eyes so full of sweetness and understanding, she kissed my knuckles and whispered, “I do want to know. I want to know everything about you. All I know is the boy I was crazy about and the man I’ve fallen for who makes me think I can be normal again. I want to know the rest, though.”

  Somewhere deep inside, she knew she didn’t want to know it all. The way her voice faltered every so often told me she wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity. I needed her to, though, or she’d learn how unworthy I was of her.

  “That wasn’t my finest moment,” I said, scrambling to find euphemisms that would give her just enough so she wouldn’t ask for more details. “Let’s just say when you lay down with dogs, it’s not surprising when you get up you’re covered with fleas and other people think you’re a dog too.”

  Diana stared at me for a moment and then made a silly face. “That’s not the way that goes,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Well, you get the gist of it. It wasn’t anything I’d ever want touching you in any way.”

  Leaning back away from me, she twisted her face into a grimace. “You’re starting to sound like everyone else in my family. I’m willing to admit that I spent a lot of time away from the world, but I’m not some naïve fool. I know how things work, Cole. You don’t have to shelter me from anything.”

  I pulled her back to me and kissed her, loving how she made me want to be a better man. “What if I want to, though? What then?”

  Cradling my face, she gently caressed the area around my black eye. “I just spent years being protected. I don’t want that anymore. I’m not that fragile that I can’t handle the truth of your life.”

  She had no idea how wrong she was. Or maybe she could handle it. She had a strength I wasn’t sure I possessed. But I didn’t want her to handle the mess of my life.

  “I don’t want you to worry about any of that. It’s all behind me.”

  “Then what’s in front of you?”

  I smiled, loving how cute she could be. “You.”

  “What else? What are you going to do now that you don’t have the club?”

  Inside, a part of me died at that very moment as I knew exactly what my future held. God, the answer I had to give her was so fucking mundane. She sat there looking like something out of a dream, and what was she going to hear? Everyday, common bullshit from a guy who wanted so much more but never quite got there.

  “I have prospects, things on the horizon. I haven’t decided yet which way I want to go,” I answered, swallowing half the words and wanting to choke on them.

  “Like what? Tell me,” she said sweetly, punctuating her command by placing a kiss on the back of my hand.

  There were no prospects or things on the horizon. There was the offer from my brother Chase to work at one of his furniture stores near where we grew up. He needed a manager, and since I’d run a club, he didn’t think I’d have any difficulties sliding into the job of running one of his stores. Those were his exact words when he took pity on me three weeks ago and offered me the job. I was scheduled to start in a few days.

&nb
sp; Manager of a furniture store. I should have let those loan sharks kill me when they threatened to. Death had to be better than admitting to Diana Stone that the man she sat staring up at with stars in her eyes for was nothing more than a common guy who was about to become far more fucking common.

  “I’m considering going into business with my brother on a venture he’s got going,” I said, every word other than brother a complete lie.

  Christ, I didn’t want to lie to her. What choice did I have, though? She was Diana, Tristan and Nina Stone’s daughter. Beautiful, smart, and talented like her parents, she could do anything, if only she could conquer her fears.

  And once she did, how likely was it that she’d want to spend any time with someone like me? When I had the club, the great car, and the incredible Upper East Side apartment, I was someone. Now I was about to become a manager of a furniture store near our hometown.

  Fuck. I didn’t even want to be with me, so why would she?

  “Well, whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll be great at it,” Diana said with a smile. “What do you say to turning off this weird movie?”

  “Yeah. Sure. We can find something else.”

  She shut off the movie and climbed on top of me. “I was thinking of doing something else entirely,” she said before she kissed me.

  I wanted to be with her. God, I’d be a complete fool if I didn’t. But what good was sleeping with her when I didn’t see how we could have a future together?

  Diana sensed my hesitation and frowned. “You don’t want to?” Gently touching my still-swollen face, she shook her head. “You’re in pain, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t feel like doing anything.”

  Sliding my hands down her back, I cupped her beautiful ass in my palms. “Of course I do,” I said with a smile I hoped she didn’t see was forced. “Are you sure you want to do anything with me looking like this? It can’t be very sexy.”

  “I think you’re sexy, even like this. I just figure since it’s only you and me here in this cabin with no one around for miles, except for the wild animals, that it seems like a perfect time to enjoy ourselves.”

  “I didn’t know if you wanted to after the ride here.”

  She tilted her head and studied me for a long moment. “Is there something wrong? Did I do something that makes you not want to do this?”

  Fuck. Now she thought I didn’t want her when I was the problem, not her. I was screwing this all up.

  “No. That’s not it at all. You didn’t do anything. I just didn’t want to push you if you weren’t feeling up to it,” I explained and prayed to God she believed me.

  Diana didn’t deserve to feel like shit again because of me.

  A tiny smile lit up her face, and she leaned forward to kiss me. God, she felt so good in my arms. Why couldn’t this be right? I’d never felt this way with anyone else, so why couldn’t it?

  She kissed her way over to my ear and gently sunk her teeth into my earlobe before slowly dragging her tongue down my neck. My cock didn’t suffer from a conscience and immediately sprung to life. If only my brain could be as single-minded as other parts of my body.

  Leaning back on the tops of my legs, Diana slid her hands down over my chest and abs until she stopped at my pants. With a grin that was equal parts wicked and innocent, she said, “I bet this would feel a whole lot better if you weren’t wearing these.”

  I nodded and hoped I could shut my brain off long enough to let my cock do all the thinking. She unbuttoned my pants and stood up to tug them down my legs as I slid my shirt over my head.

  After she tossed my pants off to the side, she stripped out of her clothes and sat back down on my lap, her naked and beautiful body there for the taking. My brain fought the idea of fucking her, telling me I wasn’t good enough for the likes of Diana, but the rest of me wanted her more. When she slid her wet pussy down my shaft, every thought except how much I needed to be inside her disappeared from my brain.

  I lifted her off me and slid into her body until nothing separated the two of us. She moaned softly against my lips as I struggled to catch my breath. She felt so fucking good on my cock.

  Rolling her hips, she rode me while I held her hips, pressing my fingers into her flesh to keep her from making me come too soon. I barely held on as I watched her so free and innocent fucking me better than I’d ever experienced before.

  “You look so fucking incredible like this,” I bit out as she took every inch of my cock inside her.

  “I saw it in a movie and couldn’t wait to try it with you.”

  I slid my hands up from her hips to her breasts and squeezed her nipples hard when she sat down hard on me, her cunt clenching my cock and making my eyes roll back in my head. “Fuck, that must have been some movie.”

  Covering my hands with hers, she rocked her hips back and forth, inching me toward coming. “It was. I’m just glad you don’t mind acting it out with me.”

  I pulled her mouth down to mine and kissed her hard, snaking my tongue into her mouth as my cock rammed into her wet pussy. “Anytime. You keep watching them, and I’ll keep acting them out with you.”

  Done with having her ride me, I pushed my hips up off the couch and met her movements with my own thrusts. It didn’t take long before I felt her cunt begin to squeeze my cock. Gripping the back of my head, she clawed her fingernails along my neck as I pounded into her, desperate to come. With one last push of my hips, I buried myself inside her.

  She sat down hard on my lap, her body convulsing through her release and making me come hard. I took a deep breath and held her to me as her thighs quivered against my sides. Diana cooed her contentment in my ear, and in the haze of my own pleasure, I wished this moment would never end.

  “I loved that,” she said quietly before she leaned back to look at me. “You look like you loved it too.”

  Kissing her softly, I smiled. “Loved it doesn’t even touch how incredible that was. Thank God for your movie choices.”

  And just as quickly as she’d become the kind of woman who could rock my world, she turned shy again. Blushing, she smiled and said, “A girl’s got to find some way to learn. Firsthand knowledge wasn’t possible, so I did the next best thing.”

  “I love the way you study,” I said with a chuckle, adoring how sweet she could be right after fucking me so well.

  I kissed the top of Diana’s head as she lay next to me and quietly slipped from the bed, unable to stay near her because of the guilt I felt for lying to her again. I just needed some time to figure out how to get a better job than the one my brother offered me. Something would turn up.

  As I stood in front of the sink with a glass of water trying to think of a plan, I heard a call come start to come in. Looking over to the living room, I saw Nina Stone staring back at me.

  This wasn’t going to be good. I could tell by the way her eyebrows drew in toward her nose, something I remembered far too often from all the times Ethan and I got into trouble when we were kids.

  My feet felt like lead as I dragged myself over to speak to her. Christ, I looked like shit, even though the swelling had gone down a little so I didn’t look like the elephant man anymore. A tiny smile broke her expression, so maybe things might not be so bad.

  “Hi, Nina. I mean Mrs. Stone.”

  Christ, I’d called her Nina since sometime in high school, but now that she’d become my girlfriend’s mother, I suddenly didn’t know how to address her.

  “Hello, Cole,” she said as she studied my face, probably secretly horrified at how bad I looked.

  So far, so good. She hadn’t called me any horrible names, but that wasn’t her style anyway. Nina Stone didn’t just go around calling people goddamned assholes or fucking liars.

  I pointed toward the bedroom like it was a million miles away and quickly said, “Diana’s asleep. She’s tired. She’s in there.”

  Never before in my life had I felt so awkward that another human being might think I’d slept with a woman.

  “I didn
’t call to speak to my daughter. I called to speak to you,” she said softly.

  But her lack of aggression since I knew she must be upset about what had happened with Diana only served to make me more uneasy. Nodding, I forced a smile as I waited for what was to come next.

  “Please, sit down, Cole. I want to tell you a story I think you should hear.”

  I did as she commanded, fully expecting her to lay into me for everything from dating her daughter to being the one to drive her out of the city and away from her family. For the second time with one of the Stone clan, I didn’t plan to defend myself. I had no defense.

  “I don’t think you’ve ever heard about when my children were born. Since you’re Ethan’s friend, he may have mentioned it to you, I guess, but humor me, okay? When the triplets arrived, Diana was the tiniest. We didn’t know if she’d make it she was so weak. Her brother and sister were born strong and ready for the world, but Diana took a little time. I’m sure you remember how often she was sick growing up, don’t you?”

  Nodding, I said, “I used to think you just didn’t want me to come over the house sometimes because you said no so often when Ethan asked that one winter when we were in third grade. Then he told me it was because Diana was sick all the time and you were trying to do everything you could to make sure she didn’t get sick again.”

  Nina smiled. “That’s right. Every time we thought she was getting better that winter, she came down with something else. Strep throat, the flu, pleurisy, bronchitis—we couldn’t get any of it under control. Things got better, as I know you remember, after that year, but Diana was always sicker than Ethan and Tressa. It took such a toll on her little body, but she got through it all.”

  “I remember,” I said, hearing the worry in Ethan’s voice every time he said we couldn’t go to his house because she was sick again.

  “And then, after getting stronger and getting back on track in school, we found out that when she didn’t have to miss half a year, she was bright. I’m not ashamed to admit she’s the smartest of the three of my kids. Each one of them has their gifts, and Diana’s is her intellect. She wanted to be a lawyer, and she would have been the best the world had ever seen. But just when she had a chance to chase that dream and no doubt catch it, she and Ethan got into that accident.”