He hissed in a breath. “That makes me insane.”
“I noticed.” She pinched harder, and his hips arched off the bed. “I thought only women had sensitive nipples.”
He laughed, a sexy, throaty sound. Oh God. He simply liquefied her.
“I didn’t realize they were until you did it.”
“I think I was subliminally trying to tell you to do it to me.” She hadn’t had her nipples played with in such a long time.
“I’ll remember that when it’s your turn again.”
How many times would it be her turn tonight? She shivered to think about it. Climbing on top, she straddled him, cradling his erection between her thighs—oh yes—then stretched down over him and captured his nipple in her mouth. Grabbing her hips, he arched, riding her through his jeans.
“Damn, woman.”
“I like it,” she whispered, blowing warm air over his wet flesh, then she went for the opposite nipple, tweaking the other between her thumb and forefinger. He writhed beneath her, hot, hard, and she felt herself making the climb right with him.
He gasped. “You’re killing me.”
Reaching between them, she slid her hand over him, squeezing. “Better than when I had you in my mouth?”
He shook his head, then nodded. “Hell, I don’t know. I want them both.”
So she sucked and pinched again, loving his sharp intake of breath and the way he actually got harder between her thighs. Then finally, she slid down his body, unzipped him, and tugged his pants and briefs down until he was as naked below the waist as she was.
“Do not sit on me again,” he warned, “because I will get inside you.”
“Promises, promises.” Whatever reticence or embarrassment she’d felt was long gone. His reaction to even her slightest play gave her a high. The sight of his gorgeous erection took her breath away.
“I want that,” she whispered, realizing too late that she’d voiced the thought.
“Take me.”
She did. He tasted exquisite, his length filling her mouth. His hair was salt-and-pepper there, too. His body moved, matching her rhythm even as she tried to hold him down. The nipple play had taken him close to the edge, her mouth and tongue tipping him over until he cried out and poured himself into her.
Baby, I’ll find you out there.
He had found her. She just didn’t think he realized it, and he for sure wouldn’t figure it out any easier tomorrow.
* * * * *
Cole held onto the edge of the sink until his knuckles turned white and his fingers ached.
“You don’t have to remember the dream,” he whispered to his reflection. Great hollows where his cheeks should be, deep dark circles beneath his eyes, he didn’t even look human.
He’d woken drenched in sweat, his muscles rigid, his head pounding, and he’d almost screamed except that he couldn’t catch his breath enough to do that. He’d scented Jami in the bed next to him and like a wounded animal, he’d crawled off to the bathroom to die.
He couldn’t remember the dream now, the images fading as he chanted to the mirror. He knew only that it was about Stephie. All his nightmares were of Stephie, but this one, even his subconscious knew it was worse than usual and gave him an out by scrubbing away the memory of it.
“You don’t have to remember. It’s okay to forget.”
He knew if the dream came back, he wouldn’t survive. A part of him didn’t know why surviving mattered anyway, except that Stephie would be angry if he willed his own death.
He didn’t know how long he remained in the bathroom. A matter of minutes...or hours. He’d managed to grab his pants on the way, but that was all. His feet were bare, his chest naked, his heart damn near bursting out of his chest with every beat. He couldn’t face the woman in his bed, not like this.
He shouldn’t have fallen asleep. He should have gotten rid of her right after she blew him, then stayed up all night drinking gallons of coffee to ward off sleep and nightmares. Instead, he indulged in her, tasted her skin, breathed in her scent, and reveled in the feel of her arms around him. It sure as hell cost him now, his subconscious sending him a dream to remind him of all the things he couldn’t have.
Things like Jami in his bed, or his heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cole jerked off the bed, his feet thumping the floor, and only a moment later, Jami had heard the quiet snick of an inside door. The bathroom, she’d thought.
Falling asleep had been a bad idea. He’d probably woken to the uncomfortable feeling of a woman in his bed and wondered how to get rid of her. God, she’d known that’s what would happen.
Her bottom half was still bare, but she wore her bra and T-shirt. After he came, he’d dragged her up his body, wrapped her in the warm cocoon of his arms, and she’d fallen asleep to the sensation of his breath against her hair. It felt like destiny.
Now he was hiding from her in the bathroom.
They hadn’t turned the lights out, and she found her discarded panties, shoes, and jeans on the floor. Why did undressing seem so sexy but putting it all back on felt dirty?
In the hall, the bathroom door was closed, light spilling from beneath the crevice at the bottom. She couldn’t leave without saying something, and she wasn’t going to yell through the wood.
While she waited, she decided to explore the parts of the house she hadn’t seen. Who knew if she’d ever get another chance? Really, she was a nosy person and fully admitted it. She’d seen the family room and the kitchen, so the two closed doors at the end of the hall called to her.
Behind door number one, she found a special prize. Flipping on the light switch revealed his music room. Why did a man need so many guitars? Wasn’t one enough? Some were electric; a white one, a burgundy. Others were the traditional box kind, what was that—oh yeah, acoustic. They were on stands or in cases. Reams of sheet music lay scattered on the carpet, some popular songs, other titles she didn’t recognize, handwritten pieces and plain blank sheets waiting for inspiration. A desk took up one corner, and next to it sat a wooden index-card filing, like they used in libraries before you could look it all on up online. Pulling open one drawer, she found packages of guitar strings.
It was his music room. Duh. Everything in it had one thing in common, a thick layer of dust. The blinds were drawn, and a layer of dirt had turned the white slats to light brown. Her footprints settled into the dust on the carpet, too. There wasn’t a single finger mark in the dusty film on his instruments.
Cole hadn’t touched them in years. Since his daughter died?
She backed out of the room, flipped off the light, closed the door, and turned to the other room across the hall. She got a really bad feeling that twisted her stomach and left it hollow.
Don’t open the door.
The voice screamed inside her. It was an invasion of privacy. It wasn’t her business. Just because he made her come and she’d taken him in her mouth didn’t give her a right to poke around in his life. He hadn’t invited her over; she’d simply shown up, and he couldn’t figure out how to turn her away. And really, what self-respecting guy was going to turn down what she’d offered, what she’d begged for?
The light under the bathroom door was still on, the house otherwise silent. Like a tomb.
She wasn’t stupid. If that room had been for his music, then this was his daughter’s bedroom. If the music room hadn’t been touched, then what lay behind this door...
Despite her clamoring heart, sweaty palms, and the dire warnings going off in her head, there was no way on God’s green earth that she’d walk away without opening it. The answer to everything she needed to know about Cole lay just beyond that threshold. She had to open the door or forever lose the chance to understand him. Jami turned the handle.
Oh God. Pink had been her favorite color. What did Frank say her name was? Jami couldn’t remember, and it seemed almost sacrilege, but she’d been focused on her faux pas—playing Cole’s CD—and neglecting the important details.
A mountain of lacy pillows covered a pink comforter and white bed skirt. His daughter hadn’t favored stuffed animals or dolls, but she’d obviously loved horses. Posters covered the walls, the Lipizzaner stallions, show horses, wild ponies galloping on a beach. Horse statues in ceramic and plastic lined the bureau, shelves with blown glass and crystal horses.
There were pictures of her with horses, with her friends, her dad. Her smile huge, blue eyes, long blonde hair—in pigtails or a pony tail or blowing free—the child stole what little breath Jami had left, as did the love on Cole’s face. Her chest tightened until it hurt even to move. She realized now that there hadn’t been a single picture of the little girl anywhere else in the house. Not in the family room, not in Cole’s bedroom. Everything that had been his daughter was in here.
The state of the bedroom was enough to rip Jami’s heart to shreds. A picture book of horses sat open on the desk, a pink purse on the floor beside the chair. Discarded pieces of clothing—a pair of jeans, a shirt, a windbreaker—lay across a whicker chair. The open closet door revealed two clothes bars crammed with shirts and dresses and pants. She didn’t want to look in the drawers to find he’d never cleaned out his daughter’s things. She didn’t need to measure the thickness of the dust to know.
Cole had simply closed the door and never reopened it. It was sort of sick, as if he’d never forgiven himself, never moved on, no longer had a life of his own. And so heartbreaking. She put a hand to her belly. She’d ached for a child. How much worse to lose one, how much greater the pain you suffered if you believed you’d failed her?
You never forgave, you never forgot, you were never the same.
When Frank told her Cole blamed himself, it had been almost a concept, one she understood but didn’t feel in her guts. His daughter’s room brought it home. She’d found Cole seven years too late to help him.
“What are you doing?”
She turned and almost shrieked. Cole filled the doorway. He was so quiet, his voice so calm, yet he looked like...death warmed over, a terrible analogy considering they were standing in his dead daughter’s room. Yet he looked like a zombie brought back from the dead. His skin was pale and clammy as if he’d been sick, his eyes wild, pupils dilated almost to the point of obscuring his irises. His hair stood on end as if he’d tried to pull it out by the roots, and his eyeballs seemed sunk in his head, the rims red and framed starkly by his dark lashes.
“I came looking for you when I woke up and didn’t find you in bed.” She should have at least admitted she’d been snooping.
He ran his hand down the wall and flipped off the switch. A finger of light crept down the hall behind him, maybe from his room, maybe from the bathroom. She couldn’t see his face anymore, and she was glad.
“I better go.”
“Yeah.” In the hall, he backed up against the opposite door.
She sidled past. “Thanks for the glass of water.” What an idiot. She couldn’t believe she’d said that.
“You didn’t close the door.” He didn’t move either.
She grabbed the handle, her sweaty palm sliding, and shut away his daughter’s room. He expelled a breath with a low whoosh, and she wondered how long he’d been holding it.
“Okay, well, there you go.” She tried to smile and knew it came off as a grimace. “I’ll see you later.” She reached into her back pocket for her keys, and they were gone.
Oh shit. Where had she lost them? All she wanted to do was get out. Get out, get out, get out.
“I must have dropped my keys on—” His bedroom floor when he’d pulled her pants off. Oh God.
Back in his room, there they were, next to his shirt and briefs.
When she came out into the hall again, he was still standing against the music-room door, palms flat on the wood.
“Well, okay, thanks for everything.” She felt as small as an ant. She needed to be squashed to put her out of her misery. She’d wanted to know about his daughter. Had to know. But knowing didn’t change a thing.
“See ya,” she muttered. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done not to simply run from the house. With the effort it had taken, she slumped over the steering wheel when she’d finally made it out alive.
Oh my God, what have I done?
She’d been high on sex, drugged with his taste, giddy with desire. Yet she’d known she’d end up in a hole when it was over.
You couldn’t turn fantasy into reality. You couldn’t listen to a CD you found in a thrift store and believe it would lead you to the man of your dreams. Colton Amory was damaged. She couldn’t fix him. She couldn’t even fix herself. She’d gotten fired from a high-paying job, lost her fiancé to a pregnant woman; now she worked at a fast-food restaurant and rented a room in an old lady’s house.
She was a nothing but a double loser with delusions of grandeur, and she never should have opened that door. He’d forgiven her for playing the CD, but he’d never forgive this.
* * * * *
Cole slid down the door onto his ass.
The house screamed with silence. Even the echo of Jami’s voice had faded into the dirty white walls. He should have cleaned out Stephie’s room long ago. Frank had said he’d help. It was a sick thing to have left it as if she’d come back someday. Not that he’d really thought much about it. He’d simply closed the door on everything. He should have put the guitars on eBay, too. He’d done most of his work in a studio he’d rented down on Pine Street. They’d had the equipment, but eventually, when he didn’t return and stopped paying, they’d sent the remainder of his guitars back here. He’d dumped them inside and closed that door, too.
All her pictures were in the desk in the music room, though he couldn’t remember exactly when he’d taken them down. Long enough that the clean spots they’d left on the walls had faded.
He didn’t feel anything, not even when he’d seen the light creeping across the hall carpet. Nor when he’d stepped over the threshold. It was just a room. Stephie wasn’t there anymore.
Jami had brought him back to life for a little while tonight. For a few moments with her in his arms, he’d thought about a future. He was back to normal now. He didn’t have a future. He didn’t need one. He was better off alone. Jami was better off without him. Tomorrow, he’d simply pretend tonight had never happened.
He put his head back and fell asleep against the door.
* * * * *
Jami didn’t expect the sky to have fallen, but she didn’t expect Easy Cheesy to be quite so normal either. Frank was alternately grumpy then sweet, especially when he dumped Ruby on her desk.
“Can you watch her?” He bent nose-to-nose with the poodle and looked at her cross-eyed. “My poor girl’s got the sniffles.”
“Of course I’ll take care of her.” It never ceased to astonish her when the badass with tattoos made kissy noises at tiny Ruby. She was barely bigger than his palm. All right, that was a slight exaggeration.
When Cole arrived, he smiled at her as he passed the office door. Cole smiled. What’s up with that? She almost stuck her head out the door to make sure he hadn’t suddenly morphed into his alien form. But no, it was just Cole putting on his Cheesy apron and pulling the vegetable bins out of the refrigerator.
The before-lunch rush was the same as usual, the lunch rush itself active, and the after-lunch rush...rushing.
She’d expected something cataclysmic, not...absolutely nothing.
She heard him laugh. She was sure it was him. Peeking around the corner, she found Frank and Cole talking. Laughing. Suddenly Jami was as mad as the moment Denise had said she’d seen Leo in a jewelry store with his pregnant bimbo.
How dare Cole laugh after throwing her out last night? She’d taken hours to fall asleep, castigating herself for what she’d done. She’d woken up with dried tears scratchy on her face.
Ruby sneezed at her heels.
“Get back in the office,” she hissed, scooping up the dog. Fine, so Cole hadn’t wanted her to spend the nigh
t. He didn’t care if she’d been snooping. He had no desire for a relationship and didn’t even wish to discuss what happened between them. Fine. F-I-N-E. How many Scrabble points did you get for that?
The midafternoon school rush started. Jami realized more than half the day was over, and she’d entered less than three-quarters of her normal input. Of course, she’d taken Ruby out to the dog park, and there’d been the Monday morning timecards to deal, but still...she was stewing over Cole. She’d traumatized herself all night over what she’d done to him by looking in his daughter’s room. She thought she’d traumatized him. He’d sure as hell acted traumatized. Yet now, today, it was as if nothing had happened. Last night hadn’t meant a thing to him.
He was an ass. Not as bad as Dick Head nor as cruel as Leo. He was merely fickle. He got what he wanted, an orgasm, and he was done. So. Be. It.
“Hi.” Andrea stood in the doorway, legs spread, hands on either doorjamb.
“Is it that time already?” Jami glanced at her watch.
Ruby bounded over to sniff Andrea’s tennis shoes. The girl plucked the poodle off the floor and nuzzled her.
Okay, that wasn’t normal. Nobody was acting in character today. “Watch out or she’ll sneeze on you,” Jami warned.
“I was wondering if I could have my sketchbook back,” Andrea said over the top of Ruby’s fluffy head.
Seriously, there was a pod of aliens—or whatever aliens were called—that had landed in the middle of the night and taken over Easy Cheesy.
“Uh, sure. I’ve still got it in the truck.”
“And I brought you this.” Clutching Ruby, Andrea wriggled to pull a folded paper from her jeans’ back pocket.
Jami smoothed it flat on the desk.
My list of things to do before I die.
Looking up, Jami found Andrea nodding her head and smiling brightly. “I want to see the Salvador Dali portrait of Mrs. Spreckels’ daughter at the Legion of Honor,” Andrea said before Jami could finish reading the first item.
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