by Ana Gabriel
Cole follows my look then scoops me up, my feet barely touching the floor as he sweeps me across the room and onto the bed. His eyes rake down my body then he’s kissing me, hot and fast, his weight on top of me. I arch my back into him and he groans, his cock hard against my stomach. “I want you,” I say. It’s all I can think, it’s in every vein, my heart pulsing with it, sending heat and pressure into every nerve.
His hand moves down my body, between my legs and I gasp. His eyes go dark as his thumb runs down my clit. I’m so wet I push up to meet him and all at once he comes undone, desperate to get inside me, lifting my ass up off the bed and sliding into me. I can’t stop the moan that bursts out and it drives Cole wild. He’s all bunched muscle above me, tight gasping breath and hard thrusting and I don’t want him to stop. I’m making noises I’ve never made before, my hands clenching in the cushions piled on my bed as Cole’s breathing gets frantic. He doesn’t let up, like three days without this has been just as bad for him as it has for me.
I rock my hips up, so close, so close and everything is tightening to the point I can’t bear. Cole fingers dig into my hips and pull me upright into his lap, one hand on my jaw, tilting my head up, looking into my eyes so he can see what he’s doing to me. His breaths are ragged, his cock is so hard I know how close he is, but he wants to watch me come. I can see how much he needs it. And I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. It’s pouring through me, making me moan until I can’t take it anymore.
Cole jerks, pulsing, swearing, and I come and keep coming, wave after breathless wave as he grips my hips, thrusting into me three more times, each one pushing me higher. I drag in a breath and bite my own lip hard until it slowly begins to ebb. Cole relaxes under me, his body shuddering then going slack.
I hold him tight and he strokes my damp hair away from my forehead as my heartbeat slows. Eventually, reluctantly, I pull away. He looks so vulnerable and unsure again I can’t stand it. But I have to say it. I brace myself. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Sixteen
“This sounds ominous,” Cole says.
The insecurity in his voice pecks away at my confidence, and I fight the urge to reassure him, tell him it’s not what he thinks. But I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I’ve been avoiding the hard things—telling myself that I was okay with a purely physical relationship, just so long as I had a part of him, lying about my feelings, burying my insecurity and doubt and jealousy even as they piled up inside me—and it’s time that I face my problems head on.
“I want you,” I start. I—” I think of Cole’s declaration in Weatherston’s, and my reply is on the tip of my tongue. But fear rushes up at me, and I can’t make the words come out. I clear my throat. “I feel the same way about you,” I finally say. “But what you did—that role.”
He sits up straighter. “I’m so sorry about that Rose.”
I shake my head. “I know. I know you were just trying to be nice, and I’m sorry too for the way I reacted. But I worked really hard, and then you just walked in and waved your hand to get me a role, and it made me feel like all of that effort was a waste of time. I don’t want to be your charity case.”
“You’re not,” he hurries to say. “It won’t happen again. I can promise you that.”
I nod. “There are other things too. Me working for you and dating you at the same time—it could never work. I mean, it’s fine now, but after a while it’s going to start wearing thin. I’ll get sick of doing your chores, and you’ll feel strange ordering me around, or else you won’t and I’ll start to resent you.”
“I’ll hire someone else,” he says. He sees the look on my face and adds, “A man.”
I let out a tinny laugh, looking into my lap. “That’s another problem. You have attractive women fawning all over you all the time, and I hate the way it makes me feel.”
“You think I don’t get jealous too?” he says. “I see the way other men look at you and it drives me crazy.” He takes my hand. “Please come back with me, Rose. I need you. We can work all of this stuff out.”
My heart melts at the pleading tone in his voice, and I long to climb into his lap, curl into his warmth and tell him yes, of course I’ll come back. But it’s not that easy.
“I can’t go back to L.A.,” I say. Cole stiffens, and I plow on before I lose my confidence. “My family needs me. My dad’s in the hospital. He—He had a heart attack.”
Cole’s eyes fly open. “Oh, God, Rose. Why didn’t you say anything earlier? Is your dad okay?”
I swallow and nod. “I think so. But all of this—it’s made me realize that I’ve left things in a really bad place. If my dad had died”—my voice cracks on the word—“I could have never lived with myself for letting things get so bad.”
Cole’s face is unbearably sad. I know he’s thinking about his dad, and how badly he wanted a real relationship with him. There’s no great retort or clever plan that will make this problem go away, and he knows it.
“What about the role?” he finally asks.
I shrug. I can’t lie and say I don’t want that role. Want it desperately. It’s the only job I’ve landed in way too long, and my first movie. But I need to focus on what’s important, and right now, it’s fixing my family. Making sure they’re all right.
“Please don’t tell me this is over,” Cole says, and damn it to hell, his eyes are shining.
Hot tears sting my eyes. I pull him to me, and he buries his head in my shoulder, holding onto me like he’s worried I’ll disappear. I dig my fingers into him, press his body close. His breath is hot on my shoulder, tingling my skin, and God, it feels so good. He feels so good. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I need to focus on my family right now,” I whisper. Cole stiffens beneath me, and a sob chokes my chest. He disentangles himself, and then slowly, so slowly, he gets up.
He looks like a wounded animal, his shoulders stooped, his head low, his eyes shadowed with pain. He takes his time pulling his jeans on, as if he’s waiting for me to tell him to stop, wait, I don’t mean it, I made a mistake. Instead, I dress too. He turns away and swipes a hand down his face, and I almost lose it right there. His back is to me when I say, “I’ll drive you to the airport.”
We’re quiet in the car. Though I watch the road, I can feel Cole’s eyes sliding to me over and over. Tension radiates in the air, thick with words unsaid. We get to the airport too fast. When I shift into park and climb out of the truck, I finally meet his unswerving gaze. Cole is backlit in the deep blue Illinois sky, impossibly handsome in jeans and a T-shirt that fit closely to his lean muscle. I still can’t believe he’s here. That he’s mine, and I’m letting him go.
A strong breeze ripples my dress around me, and I twist my fingers together.
Cole reaches into his pocket and hands me a piece of paper. I glance down at it. A phone number is written in his familiar scratchy boy handwriting.
“If you change your mind about the role,” he says, shrugging limply.
“Thanks,” I say, pocketing the paper.
Silence stretches out.
“I’ll wait for you,” Cole finally says.
And God, that breaks me. Shatters me into a million pieces. I crush his lips to mine and kiss him so hard, so deep, that there’s no way he can’t know how I feel about him, the hot metal of the truck searing into my back, a gust of air sweeping a tornado of hair around us. I never want this moment to end. But it does.
I let go. And then I watch the love of my life walk away.
~
After a few hours of watching T.V. in dad’s room, Mom catching me up on all the town gossip, Dad falls asleep. The lazy sun sinks into the cornfields on the horizon, casting the sky into orange and gold hues. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful sunsets were here. I guess I’ll be seeing a lot of them.
Mom suggests I go home for a rest, but the thought of being in that house, in the place where I just made love to Cole before driving him away for good, is too much to bear. So w
e go down to the cafeteria for coffee instead.
The place is deserted, row after row of fold out tables stretching across the huge space. It’s hard to believe it’s the same room that clamors with voices and laughter in the day.
Mom sits across from me and takes a sip of her coffee.
“So. I heard you had a visitor today,” she says.
My cheeks heat and I drop my gaze to the table. Of course Mom knew.
“He must really care for you to follow you all the way out to the sticks,” she adds.
Shock flares inside me, but I don’t allow myself to think that she approves of Cole. She’s made it only too clear what she thinks of our relationship, even if Dad’s illness has kept us from speaking about it again.
“Well he’s gone, so you don’t have to worry about it,” I say. “I’m here now.”
You got what you wanted, I almost add.
Tense silence falls between us. I press my hands into the coffee mug, feeling the last of its warmth slip away. In the kitchen, a dishwasher whirs to life. Somewhere far away, a floor buffer trundles down the hallway.
“Rose . . .” Mom starts. She opens and closes her mouth, as if searching for words. A nervous hand flutters to her hair. Finally, she sets her coffee mug down. “Rose, I was wrong.”
My eyes snap up to meet hers.
In the twenty-five years of knowing her, I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother say she was wrong. Which is why I think I must have misheard her.
“I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did after the pictures got out. I should have supported you, and instead I judged you. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what to say. Luckily, she keeps speaking.
“It seems that not supporting your choices has been a habit of mine.” She sighs heavily. “I thought I would be happy if you came back home with your tail between your legs, but I wasn’t. There’s so much light in you, Rose, and that light is snuffed out here.”
Tears flood my eyes.
“Gosh, I’ll never forget the day I first saw you act,” Mom continues wistfully. “When that curtain peeled back . . . I just knew we would lose you. And that scared me, Rose. I was scared you’d get hurt, and scared you’d never want to come back. I didn’t want to lose my baby. But I realize now that I started losing you when I didn’t support you. I never should have let fear get in the way of making the right choices.” She leans forward, locks me in her gaze. “But it’s not too late to fix my mistakes. And that’s why I’m telling you that you don’t belong in Illinois, Rose. I don’t want to see you manning the cash at Weatherston’s. I want to see you on the big screen.”
“Thank you, Mom. I—I don’t know what to say.” A few years ago—hell, a few weeks ago—Mom’s words would have delighted me. But things are different now. “I really appreciate you saying all that, but I’m here now. I’m here to help.”
Mom shakes her head adamantly.
“We’re grown adults, Rose. It’s not your job to fix our problems.”
“But how will you live?” I ask. “Dad’s too young to retire. Is the house even paid off? And what if they don’t take you on at the garden center and—”
“These aren’t your concerns,” Mom interrupts. “We’ll be fine,” sweetie. You don’t need to worry about us.”
“But the store is your dream,” I say.
“Exactly,” she answers. “It’s my dream. And we pursued it, and we were happy. And now it’s time to do something else. To have other dreams. And you,” she says, laying a hand over mine. “You need to be where you can keep pursuing your dreams.”
Two Weeks Later
I was the first person at the gate, and now I’m the first person on the plane, already buckled into my seat while the rest of the passengers compete to move as slowly as possible toward their seats. We’ll never get out of here.
My nerves skitter with reined in tension as I wait. Mom had to practically force me to leave, but now that I’m here, I can’t wait to be back in L.A.
Dad got out of the hospital a week ago, and he’s already back out on the lawnmower, greeting passersby with the same enigmatic smile as always, and Mom’s back to commanding the shop. They found a buyer after all. Next month, Weatherston’s will belong to someone else. Mom says they’re happy, that they’ll be all right, and I shouldn’t worry about them. I don’t know if I believe her, but Mom’s trusting me, and so I guess I have to trust her back.
Finally, finally, the plane takes off. But I don’t relax. My heart thuds deep in my chest, my muscles bunched up tight with pent up adrenaline. And not just because I have a relationship to fix.
On the other end of this flight is my first acting role.
By the time the plane touches down, I’m so eager to get where I need to be that I don’t even care that paparazzi stalk me through the airport as I sprint for a cab, snap pictures that will surely be on the cover of every unseemly tabloid known to man. All I care about is getting to Hollywood Hills, and getting there as fast as I can.
The cab winds through the lush green hills of Los Feliz. When we reach the huge wrought iron gate the stretches up toward the sky, my stomach summersaults. Will I even be let inside?
But the gate guard recognizes me and waves me in with a smile, and soon, the house looms up over me, all glass and steel and sharp angles. I remember the first day I arrived here. Val’s rapid-fire speech. The moment I learned I’d be working for Cole Dean. How scary the whole thing was.
It’s just as scary now.
I drop my bags at the door and ring the doorbell, wiping my damp palms on my pants as I wait.
It won’t be easy. There will be hard times. Uncertainty. Tears. I don’t know if we’ll survive as a couple, or if he’ll be just another ex, albeit a famous one. But Mom was right when she talked about fear. I can’t let it get in the way of making the right choices for me. And Cole—Cole is definitely the right choice for me.
I hope it’s not too late to fix my mistakes either.
The door swings open and then he’s there. Cole’s eyes flash with so many emotions—surprise, confusion, pure, unadulterated bliss—and I smile.
And then I say the words that I should have said that night in my bedroom.
“I love you, Cole Dean.”
Enjoyed HARD & FAST? Look out for SPARK & BURN, the next book in the Rules to Break series, coming Summer 2015.
Kate Macintosh follows the rules.
She was valedictorian of her high school class. She got an Ivy league education, and works a 9-5 job that pulls in great benefits. Even Kate’s relationship is perfect. Because when you follow the rules, things just have a way of turning out.
And then Kate’s boyfriend dumps her for some hussy at his office. Kate is shocked. Humiliated. Depressed. Worse, she’s now dateless for her best friend Rose’s upcoming wedding to megastar Cole Dean. As if her life doesn’t suck enough, her mother is remarrying the following Saturday—yet another wedding she has no date for—and she has to spend the whole weekend schmoozing with his kids, who are flying in from all over the world for the ceremony.
So when Kate meets a guy at Rose’s wedding who is the exact opposite of her straight-laced ex—unpredictable, impulsive and oozing with bad boy appeal—she decides to break the rules for once. That night is hot, wild, and exactly what she needs to get over her ex. The best part is, she’s sure she’ll never see him again.
Until the next day, when she puts on the conservative dress she bought to meet her mother’s new family and her fling is sitting right there on her mother’s living room sofa. Because that unpredictable and impulsive man oozing with bad boy appeal? Is her to her soon-to-be stepbrother.
Kate knows she should stay away, and she tries—especially when her contrite ex shows up determined to win her back—but now that she’s discovered the thrill of breaking the rules, can she ever go back to the planned life she thought she wanted?
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