The vision of it came to her in a rush. Cole was all rough edges and tight restraint, but the idea of him holding a baby—a little boy with his shock of dark hair and his deep, black eyes...A pang squeezed her heart until it threatened to burst.
Because he didn’t want that. He couldn’t even fathom it.
“I can’t.” He shook his head, and his throat clicked, his voice stuttering. “She didn’t understand. She didn’t see. I can’t. I can’t bring a child into a world that preys on the weak, a world that’s this ugly, and even if I could...I couldn’t...”
The urge to comfort him swept over her anew. “Cole...”
“I tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn’t listen. I can’t be trusted. When I get angry, I lose control. I’m not...I might...”
Before her eyes, the entire image inverted itself, until he wasn’t a man whose edges were softened by the son or daughter in his arms. He was this man. Lost and floundering and caught in memories of lashing out.
He thought he’d hurt a child.
He thought he’d hurt her.
It was like a bubble expanding and popping inside her lungs. Was that the answer, then? The step she’d been missing in this dance of theirs—the one where every time they brushed too close he pulled away?
If it was possible, he’d flashed even paler, his knuckles bone-white around the handles of his crutches. As he took a swaying step, she finally snapped out of her trance. She unwrapped her arms from around herself, holding her hands up in front of her chest like she could catch him. Like she could do anything at all. “Maybe you should sit down.”
But he just kept pressing on. “You don’t understand.” His voice dipped lower, tearing at his throat, the sound of it raw like blood. Hollow eyes turned to her. “I killed her.”
Everything in her went cold.
Oh God. No. He wouldn’t. She refused to believe it. “You didn’t—”
“I might as well have.”
Relief flooded through her. Whatever he’d done, whatever he was blaming himself for, it couldn’t be as terrible as that. She dropped her arms and opened her mouth.
But he spoke right over her. “She just—she was upset. We’d been going round and round, and I got so angry.” So scared. Unspoken terror underlay every word, making him shake. “I needed to cool down; she knew how I got. She knew and she still thought she still wanted...She pushed me and called me a coward, all because I wanted to keep a child safe, and I lost it. Because I was. I was terrified.” His eyes went red and damp. “So I screamed at her. Called her naïve, idealistic, stupid, when she was only being kind. When she was trusting me. I proved her trust wrong.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and it was like something brittle in him shivering. Cracking. “I should have let her win. I should have stopped myself. I should have stopped her.”
They were nearly at the end of the story now. They had to be, and Serena braced herself.
“She was still sobbing when she got in the car. She was just going to her brother’s house, but it was snowing. Ice everywhere, and I begged her to stay, but she couldn’t—” He gritted his teeth, his pulse beating out of his skin beside his throat. “She couldn’t stand to be in that house with me another second.”
Serena’s own eyes spilled over, hot drops splashing over her cheeks. God, this man. What he’d been through—the guilt he lived with every day. “Oh, Cole...”
His voice went far away, nearly as distant as his gaze. “They said she didn’t feel any pain. She was already gone before I got there, but her car. The blood—”
He cut himself off, choking on the word.
And she couldn’t do this. The distance between them yawned, but she crossed it like it was nothing, and then she was in his space, her hands on his face. His cheeks burned beneath her palms, his eyes flashing wild. The depths of them spiraled out into some unknown, and she was sure he’d tear himself away.
But he didn’t.
“It was my fault,” he rasped. “All my fault. Everyone knew. Her whole family at the funeral, her brother, our friends. And I promised, Serena. I promised I’d never do that to anyone again. I’d never let this”—he let go of one crutch to wave at his own heaving chest—“poison anyone else. I swore I’d never hurt anyone again.” He leaned forward until their brows brushed, his breath washing warm across her lips. “But then I met you.”
Fresh tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at him. She tried to pull them back, but it was no use.
His crutch went clattering to the floor as he cupped her jaw, the rough pad of his thumb stroking softly across her cheek. The intensity to his tone made her tremble. “And you...you make me want things I told myself I could never have. You make me want to try again, but I can’t—I’m still the same person. I’ll hurt you. I’ll—”
Shaking her head, she pressed a finger to his lips. They were plush and warm against her skin, and he was so close. They were so close.
Her voice broke. “The only time you ever hurt me is when you push me away.”
Because that was what he was trying to do now by telling her this story. He was giving her an out. One last chance to walk away.
Heat and hope were twin coils interlacing themselves inside her abdomen. Letting them overtake her, she dragged her fingertip down his lips until it rested on the lower pout. The wet, soft flesh gave beneath that press, and he shuddered, curling his hand around her neck. The contact burned its way straight to her core.
“I’d never forgive myself if I—”
“You won’t.”
Even she wasn’t sure if she believed it. There was so much room for heartache here. Between his temper and his broken heart, the ghosts that lived inside him...the regrets.
And there was that deeper pang within her, too. He might kiss her tonight. He might give her so much of what she wanted, but he’d never give her a family. A good woman’s love could heal so much, but it couldn’t change a man. If his wife’s love hadn’t—if he still blamed himself for saying no to that—
Serena could never even bring it up.
She stomped down on that thought with prejudice. It was a worry for another time and another day.
For now, he was here and he was hurting, and the other things she wished for in her heart of hearts...they didn’t matter. Not as much as this.
“Please,” she said, trembling. “I trust you. And you’re not going to scare me away.”
It was too much.
Helen’s voice still echoed in his ears, the weight of his guilt and the memory of blood on snow too vast for him to bear, but he wasn’t alone. His knees didn’t crumple, because Serena was here, holding him up. Her hands were cool and soft against his face, her skin so warm beneath his palm, and she hadn’t fled. He’d told her everything, had given her the truth that had haunted him for all these years—the story he’d never dared to breathe to another person before—and nothing about her had wavered at all.
And now she was begging him. His heart, that frozen, broken thing lurched to life in a way he hadn’t dreamed it still knew how to do, and it wasn’t the only part of him waking up. His flesh hummed, every point of contact a revelation, and just like that he was starving for it. He needed her—needed her mouth and her touch and her calm that was a balm for his very soul. Needed her to exorcise his demons and bring him to life again.
Leaning hard against his crutch, he staggered that last step forward until her breasts brushed his chest.
“Stop me,” he whispered, their mouths a hairsbreadth apart. She might swear she trusted him, but he didn’t even begin to trust himself. He was dangerous, he ruined everything he touched, and he’d fail her. He’d disappoint her over and over again. The promises he’d made—he’d sworn them for a reason, and if she showed him the slightest sliver of a doubt, he’d go. He’d leave her and he’d never return. It would kill him, but he would.
But the sea green of her eyes flashed deeper, resolve making her mouth go firm. She pulled herself even closer, sliding the damp tip of
her finger from his lip to the line of his jaw, sending fire surging in her wake. When her hand threaded through his hair and pulled, it was a switch being flipped in his gut.
The fierceness of her gaze met his. “Never.”
And he was lost. He was found.
He caught her mouth in a kiss that shot lightning through his veins. Their last time had been so rushed, his body reacting on instinct to the sheer, reckless bravery with which she’d pressed her lips to his. He’d scarcely known what was happening until it was over, until he was reeling backward, horrified at himself for taking something he had no right to want.
His stomach dipped even as he took her now, slicking his tongue along her bottom lip to press inside, mind blanking against the pleasure of that soft, wet glide. He didn’t have any right at this point either, but they were both going into this with their eyes wide open, and when it fell apart—
No. All this time he’d wasted obsessing about the past; hell if he was going to waste even more driving himself insane about the future. Here in the present, she was warm and safe and in his arms. She wanted him, and he wanted her.
Christ, he wanted her so much. She opened to him without a moment’s hesitation, and he scraped his teeth across her tongue to swallow her moan. His skin prickled at every place it pressed to hers, and it was like a well springing open inside him. All this time, he’d been suppressing the animal, male need for touch and contact and sex—he’d missed sex so much. But he’d missed so many things. The lush curves of a woman’s body and the sweet haze of a kiss that went on and on and on, and all of it was even better than he’d dared to dream, because it was Serena. Serena’s sighs and Serena’s taste in his mouth. Serena’s fingertips working magic against his scalp.
Serena’s body pressed to his where he was achingly, shockingly hard.
He shuddered, nearly losing his balance at the fire that roared up his spine. Fuck, but he had to slow down.
“Tell me what you want,” he mumbled against her mouth. He skated his palm down her shoulder, skimmed the curve of her breast to the dip of her waist and gripped her hip—too rough by half but he couldn’t let go. “I want to be so good to you.”
He wanted to take his time with her, but the urgency building in his veins threatened to overwhelm him before they’d even begun. It had been too long; it had been forever.
He’d thought he’d never, ever have this again.
“What do you want?” she countered, gasping as he kissed his way to her jaw and the tender flesh of her throat.
He was babbling. He was drunk on the taste of her skin. “You. Just you.”
“You have me.”
And he did, didn’t he? Every step of the way, she had given herself to him, offering him her time and her patience and a forgiveness so deep it shook him to his bones. It struck him like a whiteout—like a blow to the skull—and he was just that staggered.
He didn’t have much. But this was his chance. He’d give her all he had left in return.
Reclaiming her mouth, he pressed himself into her, urging her backward, and she must have been reading his goddamn mind with how her fist came to curl around his tie, tugging him along, taking him with her as she navigated their way across the room. It was an awkward dance, stumbling and shuffling, and he couldn’t stop kissing her even long enough to grab his other crutch, but fuck it, fuck everything. Nothing hurt as he propelled himself forward. She flung her hand out to the side as they went, feeling along the wall until she managed to get the hallway light.
Christ, she was beautiful, cheeks flushed from his kisses, and the bare skin of her shoulders and neck smooth and pale. He slid his palm up the center of her chest this time, over the racing thrum of her heart to stroke her collarbone with his thumb, fingers stretching out across the swell of her breast.
He groaned aloud when her hand settled over the top of his, dragging it lower until he cupped her fully. She felt ripe, felt perfect where she fit against his palm, and the surge of white-hot need had him twitching inside his trousers.
Together, they staggered through the open doorway to what must be her bedroom. She missed the light switch by a mile, hand thumping against the plaster. She protested against his lips as he drove her on. “I should—”
“I don’t bloody care.”
He needed her now. Under him, legs spread, the soft wet of her open for him, and he’d put his mouth on her for days, until she was screaming and senseless with it, and then he’d drive inside, finally feel her—
The backs of her legs hit the bed, and he bore her down onto it, throwing his crutch to the side as he followed after, climbing on top, cock aching and mouth watering, his skin practically vibrating.
And then he put his weight on his bad knee.
What the—
Serena blinked her eyes open, struggling to fight off the haze of sex and need that had fallen over her with every crushing kiss and brush of Cole’s body against hers. One second, he’d been all over her, pushing her back onto the bed with intent in his gaze, and the next he’d gone rigid, pulling his mouth away with a shocked gasp before pitching to the side.
To be fair, she’d heard longer strings of curse words pouring out of him. But it had been a while.
“Um...” She rose up onto one elbow, reaching out with the other arm. She was still panting, breathless from his touch, but the heaving of his chest seemed to be about something else entirely. She hovered there with her hand a few inches above his ribs for a moment, uncertain what she should do. Touch him? Leave him alone?
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Really, things had been going entirely too well. Even she had no idea how they’d moved so seamlessly from him shaking apart in front of her, recounting the worst day of his life, to them practically mauling each other on her living room floor. It was like all the simmering tension between them had hit a flash boil, bubbling over in a rush of steam and contact, and it had been too fast, too easy. Too good. She should’ve known something would go wrong.
She’d just been hoping that maybe they could get it right this time.
Letting out a groan of frustration, Cole covered his face with his hands. He took a couple of deep breaths like that while Serena’s stomach dropped another fraction of an inch. Finally, he pulled his hands away. His gaze met hers, the tight line of his mouth tilting ever so slightly upward.
“Sorry,” he said.
Her heart stuttered. “For what?”
If he said he was sorry for this, for touching her at all, she was going to...Well, she didn’t know what she was going to do, but it definitely wouldn’t be good.
He lifted one brow, and that wasn’t regret on his face. If anything, it was a smirk. “For overestimating my recovery.”
With that, he captured her wrist and tugged her toward him, getting his other hand on her waist. She shrieked, taken completely off guard as he hauled her along. The next thing she knew, she was on all fours over him, her hair falling everywhere, her breasts ready to spill out of this dress, and it was the best kind of whiplash.
Oh. It struck her all at once. His cry of pain and his sudden recoiling. They were about his knee—not about her. Not about this.
Her face just about burst with the force of her smile.
The curve of his mouth echoed hers, and the happiness on his face took her breath away nearly as thoroughly as the heat of his palm curling around her side again. He raised his other hand to graze her cheek, and she chased it, shy and adoring as she pressed her lips to the backs of his knuckles.
He cupped her face. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
And it was dark, their faces both in shadow, the only light in the room that which filtered in through her blinds or seeped in from the hallway around the corner. But it was enough.
“Hi,” she repeated, and then she dipped down and kissed him.
She’d loved the way he’d taken charge out in the other room, the way he’d propelled them here seemingly by the force of his wil
l alone. But this, with her on top, with the chance to control the pace was good, too. She opened for the sweep of his tongue, letting the kiss go wet and deep, but she kept her body above his. She kept it slow and lingering as the hot spark from before got the time to spread and grow, more a smolder than a blaze. A warmth that made her insides bloom and glow.
His having two free hands to touch her with was a pretty great thing, too.
“Mmm.” A soft sound got knocked out of her lungs at the heat of broad palms skimming along her sides. He smoothed all the way down her hips and over her thighs, and she was so open kneeling over him like this. She clenched inside, slickness gathering at the catch of rough fingertips on the hem of her dress.
Ever so slowly, as if giving her time to tell him no, he slipped his hands just underneath. She exhaled into his mouth, scraping her teeth over his lip, everything tensing inside her. He pushed the fabric up, and she moaned, shifting her hips into his touch.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Bolder now, he stroked his hands along that bare expanse of skin, thumbs pressing into the tenderness of her inner thighs, so close to where she wanted him. He drifted higher and higher, and her body was a live wire. Was just the wet need and the aching tips of her breasts, the fire zipping up and down her spine with every pass.
He grazed the center panel of her underwear, and her arms gave out beneath her.
“Fuck,” he breathed, rasping. “You’re soaked.”
His hot touch pressed in harder, choking another noise from her, and she dropped her head, closing her eyes. Burying her face in the solid muscle of his shoulder as she rocked into the petting of his hand.
His voice dipped even lower. “You like me telling you that? Like me telling you how good you feel?”
And what could she say to that? It was filthy, really; it made her all hot and squirming inside, and she loved it. She nodded, and his breath caught, the sound of his swallowing echoing through the space.
He swirled a circle around her clit through the fabric. “Pretty little knickers all wet for me.”
Confessions in the Dark Page 15