Opening the door to the twins’ room slowly so he wouldn’t wake them up—if they were asleep—Cole held the plate with Rita’s pie out in front of him like a peace offering.
“I come bearing apple pie.”
When he received no response, Cole pushed the door farther open. And then he saw why Stacy hadn’t said anything.
She was slumped in the rocking chair, her head to one side, sound asleep.
Looking at the scene, Cole smiled to himself. “Looks like it all caught with you, didn’t it, Stacy? These little guys can really wipe you out if you’re not careful.”
Once he’d set the pie down on the tray closest to him, he turned his attention back to Stacy. He couldn’t just leave her sitting there like that. If nothing else, she was going to wake up with an awfully stiff neck.
Very gently, he slipped one arm under Stacy’s legs, the other around her back, and exercising extreme care, he lifted her up off the rocking chair. Watching her face, he half expected her to wake up at any second and demand to be let go.
What he didn’t expect was to have Stacy curl up against his chest like a pet kitten. The old pull that had once been so much a part of their relationship was back. In spades.
“Good thing for you, you’re asleep,” he whispered under his breath. Moving carefully, he managed to close the door to the twins’ room, then carried Stacy into her bedroom.
He crossed to her bed and gently laid her down. For a second, he just stood there, watching her. And then he sighed. “You tie me up in knots, Stacy. You know that, don’t you? I’m not sure how much longer I can stay on my good behavior.”
Cole was just pulling the covers over her when, still appearing to be asleep, Stacy caught his arm. The sudden move threw him completely off balance and he fell on her before he could stop himself.
Stacy woke up with a start, pushing him off her and to the floor before she was even fully conscious. Scrambling into a sitting position, she looked down at Cole, glaring at him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Cole laughed drily. He would have thought that the answer would have been self-evident to her. “I’m trying to put you to bed.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“No, really,” he insisted. “Just you, just bed. You were the one who caught my arm and pulled me down on you. I was just about to tiptoe out again.”
Stacy rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you can’t come up with a better story than that?”
“I don’t have to,” he informed her. “It’s the truth.” He got up off the floor and dusted off his jeans. She was on her knees on the bed and he towered over her. “You’ve been here for over three weeks, Stacy. Given our history, don’t you think that if I wanted to go to bed with you, I would have been a little more subtle about it than to leap on you while you were asleep?”
Stacy took a deep breath. It made sense, but she still wasn’t all that sure. She felt her stomach tightening.
“I don’t know. Would you have?” Her heart was pounding in her chest as she asked the question. The next moment, a surge of guilt made her relent. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. But you startled me.” Still on her knees, she looked around the room blankly. “Where are the twins?”
“In their room. Sleeping peacefully,” he added before she could ask. “I just thought that since they were sleeping, maybe you’d like to do the same.” He frowned slightly. “I don’t want to be rushing off with you to see Dr. Dan in the middle of the night.”
She sniffed. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to. I don’t get sick.”
“Ah, I had no idea I was in the presence of a superwoman.” His tone was slightly mocking. He blew out a breath. “Well, I’d better let you get your rest.” He turned to leave, but this time she caught his hand in hers instead of his arm.
Turning back, he looked at Stacy, puzzled, waiting for an explanation.
“Don’t go,” she requested in a subdued voice. “Stay with me for a while.”
That totally disarmed him.
“Okay,” Cole responded cautiously.
He sat down on the bed beside her, not knowing what to expect. He tried to focus on the fact that she’d asked him to stay and not on the fact that she looked so desirable or on how much he wanted her. It wasn’t easy because all he could think of was that last night they had spent together and how warm, pliant and giving she’d felt in his arms. If he took her into his arms now, would she feel that way again?
Get a grip on yourself, not her, Cole upbraided himself.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so surly and difficult,” she said.
That surprised him. In the face of an apology, he relented and forgave her. “You were worried about the twins. We all were.”
“No, I was surly and difficult even before they got sick.” She flushed. This was hard for her, but she had to say it for her own peace of mind. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me since I got here and I’ve been taking things out on you.”
“It’s okay,” Cole began, not wanting to dig up old wounds. It served no purpose, in his opinion. It could only hurt.
“No, it’s not okay,” Stacy insisted.
He sighed. “Stacy, I’m trying to move forward.” He could see by the look on her face that forward wasn’t a destination they would be reaching, at least not soon. Feeling as if his back was against the wall, he tried another, albeit blunt, approach. “What do you want from me, Stacy?”
Her eyes held his. “I want you to tell me what happened.”
That didn’t make any sense to him. “You know what happened. You were there.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged, “I was. And one minute it was the most wonderful night of my life and the next, you were putting enough distance between us to build another continent.”
“You’re the one who left.”
She squared her shoulders. “Only after you did.”
What was she talking about? He’d stayed right here in Forever. She was the one who had taken off. “I didn’t leave.”
“Yes, you did,” Stacy insisted. “You left emotionally.”
“You scared me.”
Her eyes narrowed. Now he was just making things up. “I’m five foot two. You’re over six feet, how could I have possibly scared you?”
“Because of the way I felt about you,” he told her. “I thought we were just having a good time, but then suddenly it turned into something so much more. Something really intense.” His eyes held hers. “Something, I felt, that was going to change the rest of my life.”
“So you disappeared,” she concluded.
“I backed off,” Cole corrected. “I just needed a little time to get my head together, to deal with what I was feeling. By the time I did,” he told her, “you were gone. Gone without a single word.” And it had ripped out his heart. “I had no idea where you went or what had happened to you.” The mere memory of it frustrated him even now. “Your aunt was gone, too, so I didn’t even have anyone to ask.”
She shook her head, confused. “I thought you wanted it that way.”
“No. I didn’t know what I wanted.” Cole shifted so that they were only inches apart. “But I do now.”
He looked at Stacy, knowing that he was taking a big risk, putting his feelings into words. But if he didn’t take a chance, then he would probably lose the one thing that people strove so hard to find. “I want you.”
She felt her heart leap up. With effort, she struggled to put it all into perspective. “Don’t toy with me, Cole.”
“I’m not.” He took her hand in his. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, or even to believe me. But if you could find it in your heart to—”
Cole never got the chance to finish his sentence. His mother and then his father had drummed it into his head not
to talk with his mouth full, and right now, his mouth was completely engaged in something he’d only been dreaming and reminiscing about.
Stacy had sealed her lips to his in a passionate kiss, and all he could think of was that he needed to kiss her back or he’d lose her.
His heart rate accelerated to the point that he doubted any sort of a medical instrument could accurately register it. It was pounding hard against his chest and if he died now, he didn’t care—as long as it was in this moment, a moment he’d been yearning for, praying for, for the last nine months.
Slipping his arms around Stacy, Cole pulled her urgently to him.
The kiss heated and deepened until it completely consumed him. With his pulse racing so fast it made a lightning bolt seem slow, he moved his lips to her throat, to her face, to her eyes, then back to her mouth. The sound of Stacy’s heavy breathing echoed in his soul, inciting him.
He wasn’t sure just how they wound up lying on her bed, sealed against each other’s bodies as passion flared to yet a higher level. Everything seemed blurry to him, happening both quickly and, somehow, also in slow motion.
He began to undress Stacy, eager to feel her, to have her, the way he had that night an eternity ago.
And then he froze.
What the hell are you doing? he silently demanded of himself as he pulled back.
Startled, Stacy looked at him in utter confusion.
“Why did you stop?” she cried. Was he doing it again? Was he pulling away from her? She didn’t understand what was going on.
“You’re vulnerable and I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Cole confessed, even though stopping like this was killing him by inches.
Stacy blinked. “I was the one who started kissing you. How does that make me vulnerable?”
“Because you’re tired—” he began to explain.
“I’m tired,” she agreed. “I’m not in a coma. There’s a difference,” she insisted. “Now, if you’re having second thoughts because you don’t want me—”
This time, she was the one who didn’t get to finish her sentence because this time, struck by the absurdity of what she was about to say, his lips were covering hers. Silencing her.
And this time there was no hesitation on the part of either of them.
It was as if they had suddenly been freed of all impediments, all emotional baggage, and were able to finally act on what they were feeling right at this very moment.
Fire ignited within Stacy.
All the emotions she had struggled so hard to push away and bury, denying what she’d felt for Cole, what she had been feeling for Cole all along, surfaced and burst forward, consuming her and taking her prisoner.
She slid her hands all along Cole’s body, touching him, needing to reassure herself that he was real, that he was here. She wasn’t just dreaming this the way she had during all those long months touring the European cities that her aunt had always longed to see.
European cities that meant nothing to her because Cole wasn’t there to see them with her.
Stacy’s breathing was growing faster by the moment, as if she was racing to some invisible finish line. And yet, she was loath to do so, because once she did reach it this exquisite moment in time would be over.
And maybe permanently.
She didn’t want it to be over, didn’t want him to leave her bed, her room, her life, the way he had the last time. She knew if that happened, she wouldn’t be able to survive it again.
This time, there would be no Aunt Kate to rescue her from the deep pit. There would be no hope, no salvation for her, only a vast feeling of emptiness.
* * *
COLE COULDN’T GET enough of her.
She was just the way she had been before—but, oh, so much more.
It was as if he had a wildcat on his hands, an untamed spirit that aroused so many desires, so many emotions within him that he couldn’t begin to count them. They swarmed around him like the funnel of a twister. He had no choice but to let it take him wherever it was going.
He didn’t want this moment to end.
Cole kissed her over and over again, his lips trailing along her body, reacquainting himself with what he had gone over so many times before in his mind. Everything was both familiar and brand new—just the way she was.
And when he could no longer hold himself in check, when he felt that he was about to explode if he held back for even a single moment longer, Cole worked his way up along her body, nipping her tender skin, branding it with his lips and his tongue. Rejoicing in the way she squirmed beneath him, doing her best not to cry out so that she wouldn’t be heard and possibly bring the moment to an end.
Cole could tell by the way she moved that he’d created several small climaxes for her, working his way up her body and up to the final moment.
And then he was over her, his eyes holding hers as his body aligned with hers.
Just a little pressure from him and she parted her legs in a silent invitation.
His heart racing, he entered her, sealing his body to hers.
Then it began, the dance that would take them to the one place that they both wanted to reach, the summit that loomed above them, calling to them.
As he moved, Stacy echoed his movements, going faster and faster.
The pace stole away their breaths until it became so fast that they all but set her bed on fire.
She clung to him when the final moment overtook them. The fireworks surrounded them, blotting out everything except for the two of them and the mind-numbing sensation that had been created.
Stacy dug her fingers into his back, as if desperately trying to anchor herself to the moment, to him. Not wanting it to end, not wanting to revert to the world that existed just beyond them, waiting to receive them back into its embrace.
He felt her heart pounding wildly against his chest, felt his own matching it, beat for beat.
Whatever might happen from this moment forward, he would have this. Have it and treasure it.
Embracing Stacy, he held her against him and pressed a single tender kiss to her forehead.
“I love you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Stacy froze.
Raising her eyes, she looked at him. Her imagination had to be playing tricks on her, taking a glorious experience and making it into something even more. Something that she knew wasn’t true.
He must have felt Stacy suddenly stiffening in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Well, that was one mystery cleared up. It wasn’t her imagination. “So you did say it.”
“It just slipped out.”
She put her own interpretation to his words. “But you didn’t mean it.”
He raised his eyes to hers, unable to gauge what she was thinking from her tone of voice. So he had to ask. “Would you want me to?”
Oh, no, he wasn’t going to get her to tell him how she felt if he was apologizing for saying the words that she had longed to hear. “I didn’t want you to say anything you didn’t want to say.”
“Oh, the hell with it,” he muttered, giving up and pulling her to him.
“What are you doing?” she cried, startled.
Cole grinned wickedly. “If you have to ask, either I didn’t do it right the first time, or you are seriously in need of a refresher course. In either case—”
He ended his statement with a kiss—which happily began everything all over again.
* * *
SHE WAS GONE from her bed when he woke up.
Dawn was just beginning to paint lighter shades along the darkness on the horizon.
Cole sat up, shaking off the last remnants of sleep. He should have gone to his own room long before now, he upbraided himself. But they’d made
love two more times, and after that, he’d been too exhausted to move. He didn’t remember falling asleep.
Cole quickly pulled on his jeans and shrugged into his shirt before stepping out into the hallway. He assumed that Stacy was in the twins’ room and debated knocking on their door. But if they were, by some chance, asleep again, he didn’t want to take a chance on waking them up. So he finally just twisted the doorknob and eased the door opened.
When he walked in, Stacy was already looking in his direction, having anticipated his entrance when she saw the doorknob move.
“Morning,” he said, smiling broadly at her.
“It certainly is,” Stacy agreed. When she’d slipped out of bed, he’d been sound asleep. “Did I wear you out?” There was a note of pleasure in her voice.
“In the best possible way,” he admitted.
For now, Cole felt it was for the best not to bring up last night. She still hadn’t really let him know, one way or another, how she felt about his having said the three most important words one human being could say to another. He didn’t know if he had frightened her, or if his loving her was just something she had to get used to.
In any event, she hadn’t given him any idea how she felt and certainly hadn’t indicated that she felt that way about him, too. If she didn’t love him, it wasn’t something that he wanted to face right now.
He nodded at the twins, both of whom were awake and kicking their little legs. “How are they?”
“Hungry,” she answered. “I changed them and was just about to go downstairs to get their bottles.”
“You stay here,” he told her. “I’ll go get the bottles.” He left the room before she could argue the point.
Connor was seated at the table, enjoying his first cup of inky black coffee of the day. Seeing Cole walk into the kitchen, he commented, “Well, you certainly look happy.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Cole asked. “The twins are better, we found the runaway horses, the rain is gone and it’s the beginning of a brand-new, beautiful day.”
Connor smiled to himself as he took another long sip of his coffee. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m going to ignore that,” Cole told his brother, taking two bottles filled with formula out of the refrigerator. He warmed them individually.
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