by Lisa Edward
“Nothing happened,” I told her. “We didn’t sleep together, and we have remained friends.”
She looked at Cole with eyebrows raised, hoping for more insight than what I was prepared to tell her.
He shrugged. “I’m not privy to the sordid details.”
“And you never will be,” I told him. “It was a misunderstanding between Marcus and I, and no one else needs to know about it.”
I looked over at Marcus, and he grinned his dimpled grin at me, obviously happy with my reply.
“Although,” I said teasingly, “I can tell you that Nicole is a very, very lucky girl.”
Marcus bit his lip, but couldn’t hide the smile. “Thank you, Tara, for your favourable assessment.”
I gave him a nod to say you’re welcome, and then took a sip of my drink.
“Ah, hang on a minute,” Cole interjected. “In what way exactly is Nicole lucky?” He was looking at me with an amused half smile on his face. “Did you two get naked? Did you … you didn’t, did you?”
I shook my head. “I will never tell.”
“I knew about you two,” Nicole said after a few moments. She looked up at me. “Marcus told me that for a long time he was in love with you, but you were with Riley.”
My eyes darted nervously to Marcus. He was looking down at his lap.
“But I’m okay with that, because I trust that nothing’s going to happen.” She looked at Cole, and a wry grin spread over her face. “Besides, you’ve got enough to worry about with this one.”
The waitress brought the cheque over to the table, and I instinctively reached for my purse. Cole grabbed my hand and asked me what I was doing. I told him that, seeing as this wasn’t a date, I was more than happy to pay my share.
“So this isn’t a date?” Nicole asked, raising her eyebrows. “Sure looks like a date to me.”
Cole winked at her. He seemed to have found an ally in Nicole. “No, this isn’t a date. It’s two people who are mutually attracted to each other sharing food at a prearranged location.”
“Sounds like a date,” she said under her breath.
The guys agreed to split the bill.
“You know, I’m not even going to get laid for this,” Cole teased. “Don’t know why I’m paying.”
Marcus looked out the corner of his eye at Nicole.
“Don’t worry, baby,” she cooed. “You’ll be getting laid.”
WE DECIDED to go to Ice Pick after dinner. By the time we arrived, there was a queue a mile long, and I thought we might have to try somewhere else, but Cole was in the band that played there on a Friday night and knew the bouncers, so they let us straight in.
The guys bought drinks while Nicole and I found a table. I’d been to Ice Pick with Nicole only two weeks earlier, when I had been angry with Cole, but this time we were there together. As soon as the guys came over with our drinks, we had a quick sip, and then Nicole and I went to dance.
We found a spot on the edge of the dance floor and muscled our way in. From there we could see our table, and the guys watching us. Nicole was a great dancer, so it inspired me to dance properly, too. We soon cleared a space around us, as we got lost in the rhythmic beat of the music.
It was getting hot, and I pulled my long soft curls back into a high ponytail. I could feel a drop of perspiration run down my back, and I fanned myself, glancing at Nicole. She nodded and fanned herself, signalling that she was getting hot, too.
We went back over to the table, by which time two of the chairs had been taken, so I sat down on Cole’s knee, and Nicole sat on Marcus’s.
Cole ran his hand down my back, tracing the track that the droplet had taken, and I shivered. He laughed, and then turned me around so my back was facing him, and blew cool air on my neck and down my back.
I closed my eyes while Cole continued cooling me down, and sending little shivers up my spine. I was enjoying the sensation when I felt Cole’s breath change to warm, and felt his lips against my now cooled skin.
I looked over my shoulder at him. He looked lost in the moment, as he continued tenderly kissing me across my shoulders.
One of Nicole’s favourite songs came on and she tried to drag Marcus up to the dance floor, but he wouldn’t go, so she grabbed my hand instead, and we made our way back to the edge of the crowd.
I was getting hot again when I felt a cool breath on my back. I smiled and turned around, expecting to see Cole, but instead it was some guy I’d never seen before.
Giving him my best angry look, I moved away from him as much as possible. He wasn’t deterred. Instead, he took my moving and turning away from him as some sort of signal that I wanted to dance. He came over and started trying to dirty dance, rubbing himself against my leg. I put my hand against his chest and in no uncertain terms told him I wasn’t interested, but it seemed he was on a mission.
Nicole had thought it was funny at first, but I could see her now trying to signal to Cole and Marcus that they needed to come over.
The guy moved away, and I thought he’d finally got the message, until I felt hands on my hips from behind. I knew they weren’t Cole’s.
Turning quickly, I shoved the guy backwards. He stumbled, but then came at me aggressively, like I’d done the wrong thing. He took hold of my arm and started shouting over the music, calling me every name under the sun.
Then, the next minute, he was facing the other way and looking up at a mountain.
Nicole had finally managed to get Cole’s attention, and he had come up behind the guy. With one movement, he’d put his hand on the guy’s shoulder, spun him around, and was now standing threateningly over him.
“Keep your hands off my girl, or I’ll break them,” he roared.
The guy cowered and held his hands up apologetically, before turning and quickly disappearing into the crowd.
“Hey,” Cole said to me, smiling, like nothing had happened. “Do you want to dance?”
Marcus had also come up, and had wrapped his arms around Nicole. I think he finally realised that if you’re going to date a dancer, you at least need to make an effort to dance. They moved into the centre of the dance floor and we followed them.
There were couples everywhere, dancing up close, so when Cole put his hands on my hips and pulled me in close to him I laughed, and went along with it. We danced sexily together, Cole running his hands up and down over my hips, while I ran my hands down his chest and back up around his neck. We were laughing and smiling at each other, and at one stage Cole ran his hands over my backside, so I did the same to him.
The music changed to something a little slower with a heavy drumbeat. I turned around so my back was to Cole, and he held my hips, rubbing up against me.
I closed my eyes and laid my head back onto his shoulder, letting him guide me. I felt his warm breath against my neck, then his lips as they softly kissed from my neck down to my shoulder. I moaned softly and reached my hands up around the back of Cole’s neck.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he whispered in my ear, before I felt him lick all the way up my neck to just below my ear.
It caught me by surprise, and my breath hitched. I could feel him pressed hard against me, his arousal obvious through his jeans. I opened my eyes and looked around at Cole. His eyes were closed as he once again laid a trail of kisses down my neck and across my shoulder.
I’d been focusing so much on the sensation of his lips on my bare skin that I hadn’t felt him move his hands. One was across the front of my hips. The other was on my stomach, just under my top.
“Cole, I can’t,” I said breathlessly.
“God, I want you, Tara,” he growled into my ear. “You make me so hard, babe.”
I turned to face him, and held his cheeks in my hands. He opened his eyes, and looked at me pleadingly. “I want you.” I heard him say over the music. He rested his cheek against my head for a moment before lifting his head, and kissing me tenderly on the forehead, then my cheek. He paused, looking longingly at my mouth
before his eyes flicked up to meet mine for a moment.
I couldn’t breathe. The look in his eyes was so consuming I swooned. His body was pressed hard against mine, every muscle tense. I could feel his heart beating out of his chest, his breath ragged.
His focus moved back to my mouth as he leaned in towards me. I placed my fingertips against his parted lips a second before they would have been pressed to mine.
His body slumped. He lifted his head, and looked longingly into my eyes before resting his forehead on my shoulder.
“Please, babe,” he begged. “I need you. I need to be inside you.”
I closed my eyes as his words swam in my head. At that moment, there was no one else but him. Not in the club, not in the world—there was only Cole.
I ran my hands up his back and held him close. I wanted him too, but it couldn’t happen.
“I can’t, Cole. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
I stepped away from him, and made a beeline for the door.
We left the club, and Cole drove me home in silence. He had come running out after me, and had insisted on taking me home.
He was driving with one hand on the steering wheel. The other arm was leaning up against the car door, his hand repeatedly running through his hair. We pulled up outside my apartment block, and I went to jump out of the car.
“You know, you were getting into it, too,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “I can read girls pretty well, and you were right there with me.” He turned to look at me, his eyes defeated. “Weren’t you?”
I looked at him, feeling just as defeated. “Yes,” I whispered.
My elbow was up on the car door, and I turned my face to rest in my hand for a moment, before angling my head to face him.
“So, what are we going to do?” His look of defeat had turned to one of hope.
“We’re going to take a little break from each other. I need to clear my head, and figure out what to do, and I can’t do that when I’m spending every waking moment with you.”
He smiled sadly. “So not such a good first date, then? Sounds like you don’t want a second one.”
I shook my head, and ran my hands over my face. “That’s the problem. It was a great first date. Probably the best I’ve ever had.”
Jumping out of the car, I went to go into the building. I heard the car door open and close behind me, and knew Cole was following me.
“I’ll just walk you up to your door, then I’ll leave you alone—for as long as you want.” He hesitated. “I have to go away for a couple of weeks, anyway. It’s an annual family thing.”
This was the first time he’d mentioned it, and from the look on his face, he wasn’t looking forward to it.
I nodded and opened the security door, not wanting to get into a discussion now. I just wanted to be on my own to work out how to deal with what I was feeling for Cole, and how that affected how I felt about Riley.
We went upstairs, and I opened the apartment door. I turned to say good night to Cole, and as I was doing so the door swung wide open. Cole stopped dead in his tracks. From the front door you could see the sliding glass door to the balcony—it was wide open. Cole stepped past me cautiously, telling me to stay where I was. He entered the living room, looked around, and then pulled out his phone and called the police.
After Cole had checked every room to ensure the burglar was no longer in the apartment, I went in to assess the damage. There didn’t seem to be much missing, but everything had been pulled off shelves and out of drawers, so the place was an absolute mess.
I went into the bedroom, and I felt sick to my stomach. My quilt had been pulled back, and my underwear was laid out on the bed. From where I was standing in the doorway, I could see there was a sticky substance all over the lingerie and on the sheet.
I looked up at Cole. The expression on his face matched my own. “Sick fucker,” he said under his breath.
I wanted to clean up, but knew I had to wait for the police to come and make a report. We went over to Jason’s and waited for more than an hour before they finally arrived.
They walked through, and took note of anything that I could see that was missing. Apart from a few pieces of cheap jewellery, it really didn’t seem like a burglary at all. I looked down at my ring, and the charm bracelet that Riley had bought me, then instinctively fiddled with my Christmas earrings from Marcus, and thanked God that I always wore them. I would never be able to replace them.
“This is personal,” the Sergeant said, pointing to the bed. “Something like this is typically someone you know sending you a message. You’re just lucky you weren’t home.”
They arranged for swabs and fingerprints to be taken around the apartment, and then stripped the sheets to take for DNA testing. I told them they could take the lingerie, too. I wouldn’t be washing it and wearing it after what someone had done to it, so it would just be going in the rubbish bin.
“I want you to stay at my place, at least until we can get some heavy-duty locks on the doors,” Cole insisted.
I buried my face in my hands, and groaned. This was all I needed. I’d just finished telling him I needed some space to work out my feelings, and now I was going to have to stay under the same roof.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” the sergeant asked.
Nodding, I looked over at Cole, who had already picked up a suitcase off the floor and started trying to find clothes to pack into it.
“Kelli’s rules still apply,” I told Cole in the car on the way to his place. “No late night visits.”
“You can trust me,” Cole assured me.
Yes, but could I trust myself?
I MET everyone at Songbirds the next day, and told them what had happened. We tried to make a list of who we thought it could be, considering the police had advised it was probably someone I knew.
I couldn’t come up with a single person.
“Could be anyone, really,” Kelli chimed in. “Anyone who’s seen you play here and followed you home. You might not know them, but they might feel like they know you.”
Great, that was reassuring. It could be any one of the hundred or more people who came to drink here every night. The possibility that someone had followed me home made my skin crawl. Had someone been standing outside my apartment building, trying to peer up through the windows?
“That’s it, you’re staying with me indefinitely,” Cole decided. It didn’t seem like it was open for debate.
“I can’t move in with you. Riley would be on the first plane back to beat the crap out of you.”
“He wouldn’t be able to get in,” he said with a grin. “That’s the point. No one can get in without going past Phil on the door, and using a swipe card in the elevator. You’re perfectly safe at my place.”
I had to admit he had a point, and when I looked around the table everyone seemed to agree with him.
I slumped back in my chair. This was a really bad idea, but then he did say he was going away for a couple of weeks, so staying there on my own would be okay.
“No one can tell Riley what’s happened, okay? I’ll let him know when the time is right.” I looked at each of my friends individually, and waited for them to nod in agreement. “He would freak out,” I muttered under my breath.
That night as I was playing, I watched the patrons with fresh eyes. Every time a guy smiled at me, or even looked at me sideways, I wondered if he was the one who had broken in and got his jollies off all over my lingerie.
I was driving myself mad.
The slightest noise made me jump, and whenever someone came over to talk to me, which I would usually enjoy, I was on edge, and suspicious. The police needed to analyse the DNA and quickly, so I could stop acting like a basket-case.
Cole walked me out to his car at the end of the night. He had become my bodyguard, and while I appreciated it, I didn’t think he was the best person to be guarding my body.
“When are you going away on your family vacation?” I asked, hoping it w
as soon so I could get some distance between us.
“I’ll be leaving on Thursday,” he paused. “Which reminds me, I need to tell Marcus the band won’t be playing for two weeks.”
He stopped midstride as we were halfway across the car park. “I’d better tell him now before I forget again. I’ll meet you at the car in a minute.” He turned and jogged back to the door, and disappeared inside to find Marcus.
I made my way over to the car before realising that I didn’t have the key to get in. Cole had taken it with him. I was just debating whether to go back inside and get it, when a waft of cigarette smoke assaulted my nostrils.
I spun around, on full alert as another waft of smoke drifted through the bushes at the edge of the car park, before a tall lanky figure emerged.
It was Riley’s brother, Patrick.
My first instinct was to turn and run, but my mind kept telling me it was okay, because I knew him. Sure, he was a horrible person, but he was my fiancé’s brother, so would never harm me.
“What do you want, Patrick?” I asked, trying to sound confident.
“I came to see you, Tara. I need you to give Riley a message for me.”
He had crossed the short distance between us and was only one step away. I could smell the alcohol and cigarettes on his breath. I wondered if he had been inside the bar tonight, and I had somehow missed him.
“Riley’s not here. He’s been deployed, so you’re out of luck.”
He looked at me like what I had just said didn’t make any sense.
“Rebecca left me. She said she was going back to that turd of a brother of mine.” He swayed slightly, and tried to focus. “That doesn’t work for me. If she leaves, she takes all the money my idiot brother’s been sending her.” He squinted at me. “Where is he?”
“I told you, he’s overseas somewhere, on a mission with his unit. If Rebecca has left you, it’s not to be with Riley, and besides, he’s not her meal ticket anymore. There’s no more money, so you’ll have to support your child yourself.”
He stepped closer, and I stepped backwards. I knew I was about as far away from the staff entry door as I could be, and I was wearing heels, so the chances of me being able to make it to the door before he stopped me, were slim.