by Sarah Bailey
“I promise not to tell anyone about us.”
She let out a breath.
“I won’t lie to you.”
“And?”
“I’m not going to see or be with anyone else, you know that.”
“Say it, Meredith.”
Her eyes darkened and her mouth set in a firm line.
“You’re pushing your luck here.”
“Say. It.”
She loosened her hold on my arms and dropped her hands to curl around my waist, dragging me right up against her.
“If you earn the right to kiss me, Cole Carter, then I’ll say it.”
The fact she’d initiated contact with me had my body tightening in response. I didn’t want her bolting when she realised the effect she had on me. Couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful and made me ache with need.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Her lips curled up into a slow smile.
“I know.”
“You going to enlighten me as to how I earn your lips?”
Her green eyes sparkled.
“You’re a smart boy, work it out.”
This girl’s mouth really did something to me. And by fucking god did I want to kiss her.
“Fine, be ready on Friday after school.”
“For what?”
“For me to show you exactly why you won’t regret giving me a chance.”
You’re mine, little queen. All. Mine.
Chapter Ten
I had to ask myself repeatedly what the hell I’d been doing when I’d made the promise to my brother not to get involved with Cole. It’d been a stupid thing to do. I knew going out with Cole behind my brother’s back would only lead to trouble. And my justification for breaking my promise? Jonah didn’t get to run my life nor tell me who I could and could not spend time with. At eighteen, I was an adult and could make my own decisions. And if those decisions had led me into the arms of a sixteen-year-old, I’d have to deal with the consequences of my actions. Besides, I was merely giving Cole a chance to prove he was actually serious about me.
I had asked Cole why Friday considering I knew his family had mandatory dinners then. He told me not to worry. And when I had Raphi telling me his parents would love it if I attended again, I had a feeling that boy had played a hand in securing me an invite. Cole knew how to get his way, but I wouldn’t be letting him run circles around me. He had to show me he was worth my time and energy.
The three of us had been picked up by Ash this time. She made small talk all the way back to their house whilst I sat watching Cole sitting up beside her. His smirk drove me insane. He knew I was staring at him. It’s like the moment I stopped lying about my attraction to him, I couldn’t stop seeking him out with my eyes. In the library yesterday, he’d sat on the same table as me a few seats down. My ability to concentrate on my work got completely shot to pieces. It was lucky Raphi didn’t have the same free lesson as me on Thursdays or he’d have commented on me staring at his brother the whole time. He could not find out I’d got involved with Cole.
The minute we got in the house, their mother disappeared, leaving the three of us standing in the hallway.
“You mind if I steal Meredith to help me with my English homework?” Cole said to Raphi who stared at his brother like he’d grown an extra head.
“I don’t get you and your insistence on doing homework on Fridays, it’s basically the weekend.”
Cole shrugged.
“Exams are coming up soon, so, you know, don’t want Quinn on my case for getting bad results.”
Raphi snorted and waved at us.
“Ask Mer, not me. I’d rather not get stuck helping you anyway.”
Cole turned and winked at me.
“You want to be a Good Samaritan?”
I wanted to roll my eyes and shake my head, but I refrained.
“Fine, I guess I don’t mind if you’re that desperate.”
“Just don’t piss her off,” Raphi said. “I’ll be in the games room if you get bored with helping grumpy here.”
He gave me a warm smile before ambling off away down the hall towards the back of the house. Cole had a sly smile on his face when I turned to him.
“This is your master plan? Doing homework?” I asked when Raphi was out of earshot.
“As if we’re actually going to do homework.”
He took me by the hand and pulled me down the other hallway. I stared up at him as we walked. His beautiful profile and the way his hair fell in his eyes but he didn’t push it out of his face. Okay, I had it real bad for Cole Carter, however, he didn’t need to know that.
He shut the door when we got in his room. I glanced around as I hadn’t looked when he’d dragged me in here last time. It was full of posters of cars and motorbikes. He had shelves full of random car parts and models, a desk and his bed sat on the opposite wall to the big bay windows facing out onto their garden.
“Are you even allowed girls in your room with the door closed?”
He raised an eyebrow as he dropped my hand.
“I’m not a child, Meredith.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He was on me the next moment, backing me up against the wall as his very solid body pressed up against mine. His hand was on my side, fingers stroking just above where my t-shirt met my knee-length pale green skirt. I almost choked out a breath when his fingertips curled underneath and brushed across my bare skin. Cole’s eyes darkened when they met mine. He stared down at me with no small amount of smug satisfaction written all across his features. This boy knew exactly what he did to me and I couldn’t lie about it either. He’d made me promise not to.
“You were saying?”
“You’re definitely not a child.”
“No?”
I shook my head. Cole reached up and ran the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. I wanted to lick his skin but I refrained. He leant closer, making my breath hitch. There was no way in hell I’d let him kiss me right now. He knew he had to work for it.
“Cole.”
He paused in his descent, waiting for me to elaborate.
“No.”
His eyes searched mine for a long moment. Then he dropped his hands from me and straightened. I clenched my fist to stop my body bowing towards his as it sought his body heat.
He stopped. Fuck. This only makes me want him all the more.
Despite never having been touched intimately before, my body knew exactly what it craved. And it was Cole Carter’s hands and lips on every inch.
“You look beautiful today,” he murmured as he took my hand and pulled it up to his mouth, placing a soft kiss to my knuckles.
“Thank you.”
He smiled and pulled me away from the wall. My eyes roamed around his room again, wondering if I should ask him about all the car stuff. I did want to get to know him. Then again, there was something else bugging me about how he’d set this up.
“You know, you can’t keep getting me invited around for dinner. Raphi will get suspicious not to mention the rest of your family will keep winding him up about it.”
“Who said I had anything to do with it?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm, and I’m supposed to believe your parents just spontaneously decided Raphi should invite me over again?”
The twinkle in his eye told me he had everything to do with it.
“Perhaps.”
“Cole, you promised no one would find out about this.”
“And no one has.”
I let go of his hand and wandered over to his shelves, brushing my fingers over one of the models of what I thought was a Ferrari sitting there.
“We can’t stay here until dinner since I’m supposed to be helping you with homework. That doesn’t take hours.”
“Are you going to spend the whole time worrying about my brother getting suspicious?”
It did concern me. Keeping t
his from Raphi honestly made me feel worse than I did about hiding it from Jonah. At least my brother was hundreds of miles away. Raphi was right here. That made it all too real to me.
“Can you blame me?”
“Yes, Meredith, I can. I made sure we could spend time together today the best way I could and instead of focusing on that, you’re thinking about Raphi.”
I flinched. Getting called out by him made me want to turn around and give it back. Except if I did that, we’d end up fighting and that would be pointless when I was meant to be giving Cole a chance.
“You going to tell me about this stuff then?”
A minute later I felt him at my back. Leaning over my shoulder, he reached out and picked up the model I’d been looking at.
“I like cars.”
“This seems like more than just liking them.”
He let out a breath.
“Yeah… my parents hate me tinkering with their cars. Quinn banned me from touching his midlife crisis.”
I looked back at him. The smile he had on his face and the softness of his eyes made him look so young. It made me very aware of our age difference. Even if it was only two years, Cole wasn’t even a legal adult yet. I swallowed, realising I didn’t care. Something about this boy got under my skin.
“Midlife crisis?”
“His Lamborghini. Mum and my dads bought it for his fiftieth birthday last year. He won’t let anyone else drive it and I’m certainly not allowed under the bonnet.”
Cole placed the Ferrari model back on the shelf.
“Is that what you want to do? Work with cars?”
“It’s what I plan to do at college or maybe I’ll go for an apprenticeship. Haven’t exactly decided yet.”
I touched my hand to one of the parts on his shelf, finding the metal cold.
“I can see it… you with oil-stained fingers, all sweaty from working with cars all day.”
“I’d rather be sweaty for a different reason.”
My face felt hot. He totally meant that in a dirty way judging by the seductive note to his voice.
“I’ll bet.”
He brushed a hand down my side before leaning his chin on top of my head. The way he casually touched me as if it was no big deal had my stomach tightening. I’d never let anyone outside of my family be so familiar with me. Not even Raphi.
“Can I ask you something?”
His hand curled around my waist.
“Yes, that’s what we’re doing here, Meredith, getting to know each other… isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Then ask away.”
I leant back into him. Being close to Cole made me feel good.
“Why do all of you only call your biological fathers, Dad, when it seems like they’re all father figures to you?”
He was quiet for a long moment. I wondered if asking about his family was off-limits before he let out a sigh.
“Our family is complicated and yet, it’s also very simple.”
He reached for my hand before stepping away and tugging me over to his bed, making me sit down on the end. Cole walked over to his desk a few feet away and took a seat, turning around to face me. He ran a hand through his hair, spreading his legs as his other hand hung between them. The stance was so casual and yet so… Cole.
“Mum has always been very clear about who our fathers are and how their relationship came into existence. I have a relationship with all four of them, but Rory is my father. He raised me for the most part and it’s the same with the others and their dads. We’re still one big family, but we’re not quite like anyone else’s. Does that make sense?”
I nodded. My curiosity about the inner workings of their family was mostly to do with wanting to know more about Cole. There was also the reasoning why Jonah had told me not to get myself too deeply involved. He never explained the whole story to me, but he did mention they were dangerous. So far, I’d seen no evidence to suggest they were anything other than normal. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt since Raphi was my friend and Cole was… well… I don’t know what we were yet.
“Raphi didn’t explain this to you?”
“No,” I shrugged. “I guess I never asked him either. After all the shit the four of you have had over it all, it didn’t seem appropriate. Didn’t want him to think I was judging or anything. I’m not. When I was here last time, it just felt like you were a normal family, you know.”
Cole’s lips turned up at the corners.
“Normal is the last word I’d use to describe my family. We get shit for it because no one wants to understand how my mum could be with four different men at the same time, not to mention two of them are also in a relationship with each other. They’ve been together for a long time. There’s a love between them you can’t manufacture.”
I shifted on the bed, realising what he’d admitted.
“Wait, what did you just say? Two of your dads are also together?”
He rolled his eyes, reaching his hands behind his head and lacing his fingers together.
“I suppose that’s not public knowledge at school.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I wasn’t taking the rest of what you said seriously. I can see how much they care about each other. I just didn’t know about…”
“Eric and Xav? It’s not like they hide it or anything, they’re just not overt about it. It’s why Raphi and Duke are close, or didn’t you notice?”
I had, but I’d never thought to ask Raphi why he seemed to gravitate to his older brother more than his other two siblings. It didn’t seem like a big deal when I was the same way with Jonah.
“No, Raphi spends more time going on about how you don’t like him cramping your style at school than Duke.”
Cole threw his head back and laughed. I couldn’t help smiling as I watched his throat work and his body shake.
Well, shit. Cole is actually walking sex on legs. How is any girl able to resist him?
Then again, I’d never seen Cole pay attention to a girl or hang out with one. It made me wonder if I was the only one who’d never been with anyone before. And if so, he was awfully confident about himself when it came to me.
“I don’t know where he got that idea,” Cole said when he finally settled down.
“You’ve got that whole aloof bad boy thing down to an art.”
He leant forward, placing his forearms on his knees and eying me with a raised eyebrow.
“Do I? You got a thing for bad boys, Meredith?”
I leant my hands back on his bed and smiled.
“No, just a thing for you. And you can call me, Mer, you know.”
The smirk gracing his lips had me biting mine.
“You admitting it now?”
I shrugged.
“Admitting what?”
“You like me.”
I watched Cole stare at my tongue running along my bottom lip with rapt interest.
“If I admit to that, I might get suffocated by your ego expanding to fill the entire room.”
I swear his smile got wider. He rolled closer on the wheels of the desk chair until my knees were between his legs.
“That smart mouth of yours is going to get you in so much trouble,” he murmured, stroking his fingers along the tops of my knees. “You have no idea what it does to me.”
“Oh? Should I be worried?”
His hands flattened against my skirt and he pushed them upwards, making the fabric move with it. My breath hitched and my mind went into overdrive. Cole liked to push the boundaries.
“Very.”
“What are you doing?”
My skirt rode halfway up my thighs with his movement. He didn’t reply, merely dropped his hand to where he’d exposed the skin and stroked his fingers along the inside of my knee. I swear to god this boy was the most brazen sixteen-year-old I’d ever met in my life. Taking exactly what he wanted and right now, that seemed to be me.
“Cole.”
His eyes darkened as they met mine, drawing me into their hazel depths and making me want to keep my mouth shut. Hell, did I want Cole to take control, push me down on his bed and have his wicked way with me. Except I would not let him strip me down and touch me like he wanted to. This wasn’t a casual thing to me. I couldn’t let my walls down and allow him in without trusting he wouldn’t hurt me. Those walls I’d built so high around every part of me after all the shit life had handed to me.
“You really have no idea of your own allure,” he all but whispered. “You make me crazy… I want you so fucking bad.”
I froze, the memory of Owen telling me how he’d never want me hitting me all at once. The thought of his words made my skin crawl. How could this devastatingly attractive boy in front of me want me? It made no sense. Shouldn’t he want a girl his own age? Shouldn’t he want a girl who wasn’t an eighteen-year-old virgin who people took the piss out of for being ginger?
What is wrong with you? Cole isn’t lying to you about wanting you. Stop it.
Before I knew what I was doing, I shoved Cole’s hands from me and scrambled back on his bed so I was out of reach. The confusion marring his features made me want to run away and cry. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t into what he was doing because I was, but my stupid brain had conjured up one of my worst memories.
No wonder boys are never into you. All you do is ruin things with all your stupid insecurities. Why on earth would Cole want your damage?
Chapter Eleven
Meredith looked like she’d seen a fucking ghost. Her face was void of colour and her green eyes were wide like saucers. I had no idea what I’d done wrong or why she’d suddenly pushed me away. Did I take things too far? I wasn’t going to touch her any further than I had. I knew better after she’d told me no when I’d wanted to kiss her earlier.
“Meredith?”
She shook her head, curling her arms around herself.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
Those four words made my stomach sink to the floor and my heart lurch.
“Do what?”
“This. With you. I can’t… it’s too messed up. I’m too fucked up.”