The launch and the party had been a glorious success, but she knew their heated interaction with his parents lingered, taking some of the shine from his event for him. Long after they’d returned to his condo and showered, he’d lain in silence in their bed. Not even seeking the explosive sex he usually craved.
“Why did you quit?” he asked, surprising her.
She frowned, now considering that her decision was a part of his worries, as well. “I didn’t care for the structured format, and it was so hard to not be here in New York when I didn’t even like it,” she said, easing around his body to stand in front of him, pressing her back and buttocks to the cold glass. “Not that I couldn’t use the money. It was the reason that I took the job in the first place.”
“What?” Cole asked.
“I never told you, but I tried—and failed horribly—at opening my own restaurant,” she said. “After my ego was blown up by social media and being a private chef to celebrities, I thought I was ready. I wasn’t. And it ruined me financially. I was on a quest to rebuild and recover. And that job afforded me that, plus, I could help my parents with my grandmother’s medical care.”
He looked down at her and the light of the full moon highlighted his eyes. “You never told me that,” he said.
She looked away. “It’s embarrassing. Who wants to admit to crippling debt, a horrible credit score and starting over until I thought I had it all?”
Cole used a finger beneath her chin to tilt her face back to him. “So why did you quit?” he asked again.
To be here with you.
Fear kept her from speaking her truth. At that moment, her actions felt desperate, especially when she’d yet to succeed at getting him to proclaim loving her. But that was how she had truly felt. Lost without him. In a way she had never felt with any other man. Not even for her previous husbands.
Am I a fool? His fool?
“Jillian.”
She avoided his electric gaze.
Cole lifted her body against the glass so that her eyes were level with his own. “Did you come back for me?” he asked, his voice so deep. So captivating. So stirring.
“Yes,” she whispered, pressing her hand to the top of his strong shoulders.
The truth wouldn’t be denied. Not any longer.
“You got me,” he admitted, wrapping his arms around her naked frame and pulling her soft body against his formidable strength.
Her gasp was visceral. The first feel of his mouth on hers sent a thrill across her body as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“You got me,” he repeated against her lips as he carried them to the bed. “My Jillian. My beautiful Jillian. You got me, baby.”
He pressed her body down onto the foot of the bed with his own. His hands cupped the sides of her face as he pushed her hair back and examined her as if cementing every detail to memory. His smile was slow and warmed his eyes as he continued to study her.
The look made her breathless. Anxious. Adored.
“My Jillian. You got me,” he kept saying as he pressed light kisses to her forehead then her cheeks, her chin and, finally, her mouth. Slowly. As if to savor.
Never had she experienced anything more exquisite.
Cole deepened the kiss with their eyes locked as she released his sides from her gripping knees to spread her legs and gently thrust her hips upward. A tender urging. To enter her. Fill her. Please her.
He obliged with a slight shift of his hips to find her center with his tip.
“Cole!” she gasped just as he thrust inside her. Swift and deep. So deep.
The lips of her intimacy kissed his hardness and she clutched him with her walls.
His grunt of pleasure into her mouth was her reward.
There, on the foot of his bed, not sure they wouldn’t tumble to the floor, they made love with aching slowness. Like a fine wine or a meal. Savored. Cherished. Needed.
Physically, it was familiar. Emotionally, it was all new. Different. Deeper. A fresh level of connection between them that shook her to her core. This was passion. Truly something she had never experienced before and could only hope to experience once again.
Cole placed his beautiful mouth near her ear. “Jillian,” he whispered. “My Jillian.”
Over and over again, captivating her.
She clung to him with her arms and legs, wanting him thrusting inside her forever. “Cole,” she cried.
And when they trembled as they reached their climax together and their cries filled the air, Jillian knew that she was risking it all for her sexy rebel.
And he was worth it.
NINE
One month later
Cole’s heart thundered as he quickly parked his motorcycle in the lot of the hospital. On the entire ride up on the elevator, he found it hard to stand still. He felt concerned and a need to be reassured that all was well. His stomach had been in knots since he’d gotten the call. As he received his visitor’s pass and directions to the hospital room, he was ready for an update.
Another elevator ride took him to the third floor of the massive structure. As soon as the doors opened, he stepped off and moved to the nursing station. “Excuse me. Room 304, please,” he said.
The nurse didn’t look away from the computer as she held up her ink pen to cease further conversation.
“Girl, look up,” someone said to the nurse whose name badge read “Olive.”
And Olive did, leaning back a little in her seat as her emerald eyes took Cole in before she gave him a warm smile. “I’m sorry. What was your question?”
“Room 304, please,” he repeated, his brows dipping slightly at how nearly all the eyes of the staff were on him.
Cole had no time to be eye candy.
“It’s down the hall to the right,” Olive said, pointing in that direction with her pen as she rose and leaned against the desk.
“Thanks,” he said, turning to head off to where she’d pointed.
“No, thank you,” Olive called behind him.
All thoughts of her and the giggling hospital staff were lost to him as he turned the corner. His steps faltered and then paused as he eyed Jillian and her ex-husband standing by the window. Warren was still in his scrubs and white coat.
Annoyance replaced Cole’s worry. He wasn’t surprised to see the man there at all. He worked in the hospital and, upon Jillian’s return to New York, their friendship had continued. The cavemen DNA in him felt territorial and wanted to club the doctor. The evolved man who tried to respect his woman’s relationships before him tried his best to keep the Neanderthal at bay.
But not successfully.
Cole grit his teeth, easing his hands into the pockets of the dark blue jeans he was wearing with a matching fisherman-knit sweater and brown leather boots. It’s just that Warren’s presence was becoming a norm. He seemed to always be in the mix. At her parents’ house. On the phone. FaceTiming. Messaging funny memes.
He tried to reason that, before their marriage, they had been childhood friends.
Again, not successfully.
Jillian crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her head against the window as she looked out. His eyes shifted to Warren’s tall figure. He frowned as the man looked at her profile with what appeared to Cole to be love and longing. Jillian chuckled and looked back up at him. Warren’s expression instantly changed, keeping his feelings for her cloaked.
For him, his suspicions that Warren wanted to be her next and not just her ex were confirmed.
Jillian glanced down the hall and saw Cole. Her face filled with a light that warmed him as she came to him and seemed thankful for him to be there. He ate up the steps to reach her, wrapping her in his embrace and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “How’s Ionie?” he asked.
“Stable,” Jillian said, her arms wrapped securely around his waist as she lo
oked up at him. “The doctor believes it was a stroke.”
Tears filled her eyes and that wrenched his gut. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly. “What I have learned about your grandmother is that she is a fighter. Right?”
Jillian smiled and bit her bottom lip. “I feel for the doctors when she’s able to swing and wants to go home,” she quipped.
They looked at each other and shared that kind of smile of intimacy and closeness.
He liked it a lot.
“I’m glad you’re here. I need you with me,” she admitted, pressing her hands to his back atop the sweater.
He raised her body up to lightly kiss her lips before setting her back down on her feet.
“Hello, Cole.”
He stiffened and looked over Jillian’s head at the other man. “Warren,” he said, offering no warmth even as he gave him a forced smile.
Warren pushed his spectacles up on his nose and gave Cole a stiff smile, as well.
“Thanks for coming to check on my grandmother, Warren. You’d better get back to your rounds before you’re missed,” Jillian said as she released Cole and turned to her friend.
“Yeah, I gotta go. I have surgery in a little bit,” he said, checking the time on his pager.
“She’s in good hands,” Cole reassured him as he placed his arm around Jillian’s shoulders.
Warren nodded. “I’ll check on you later,” he said to her before walking away.
Keeping her grandmother’s well-being paramount, Cole set aside his concerns about Warren’s feelings for Jillian as they walked together to enter Ionie’s hospital room.
“Good evening, everyone,” he said, giving Jillian’s parents a nod of greeting before moving to the side of the bed where Ionie looked less energetic.
She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice and then squeezed them shut. “Cole, you turn around until Jillie puts my lipstick on me,” she said, sounding tired and talking slowly.
He chuckled and bent to press a kiss to her soft cheek. “Beautiful as ever,” he said to her.
That made Ionie smile.
Jillian sat beside her grandmother on the bed. As Ionie kept them entertained with her quick wit, which wasn’t harmed by her slow words, Cole eyed Jillian. Things between them were so serious. So intense.
So needing of ultimate trust and understanding.
But that wasn’t easy for him, especially knowing her ever-present ex harbored love for her.
Over the years, he’d seen many relationships shatter because of infidelity—emotional and physical.
For so long, he had fought hard not to give in to the weakness that love could be. The vulnerability. The risk. The danger.
Does Jillian love Warren, as well? Is there more there that I’m missing?
His eyes shifted to Jillian’s profile and his doubts gripped him.
He wanted it to work. He truly wanted them to be one of the few to make it.
His fear of betrayal just wouldn’t allow him to believe it could be.
* * *
Jillian gently gnawed at her thumb as she swiped through online listings for chef positions, sitting at the kitchen table at her parents’ house. Cole had taken them all to dinner after they’d left her grandmother to get some rest. Although she knew he wanted her to go to his condo, she had begged off to be with her parents instead.
When she was with Cole, she got too lost in him and would forget her anxiousness over being unemployed. Still. The last thing she wanted was to reveal to him that she had moments when she regretted leaving her well-paying job—mainly anytime she paid a bill and had to dip into her savings.
And now her grandmother’s medical bills would increase; she would need physical therapy to fully regain her walking stature.
“Damn,” Jillian swore, covering her face with her hands as she fought not to feel so overwhelmed by it all.
She’d chosen love, but love didn’t pay the bills.
She picked up her phone and opened the text she’d received from Gunther Red, the award-winning musician, asking if she was available to chef for a two-week cruise around the Greek Isles. The money was great, the locale and freedom ideal, but his love of cocaine and pleading to see if she tasted as good as she looked had kept her from accepting.
Her thumb floated above the phone as she eyed the text and seriously considered dancing with—or rather avoiding—the devil for two weeks. Any hope his wife would help keep him from being handsy went out the window when the woman had made her advances for a threesome.
Jillian dropped the phone and ran both hands through her curls before gripping the soft hair in her fists.
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
She looked at her phone at the incoming text. Cole. She swiped to open it.
My Heart: I have a headache.
“Awww,” she said as she picked up her phone to text him back.
Do you have a pain pill?
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
My Heart: Wrong head...
She laughed. The exchange reminded her of their no-strings sexual adventures when they would’ve been tearing each other’s clothes off within an hour.
“What’s so funny?”
Jillian set her phone down and looked up at her mother passing by her to wash her hands at the sink. “Nothing,” she said. “Why are you up?”
Nora opened the fridge. “Your daddy got thirsty,” she said, reaching in to pull out a bottle of water. “And why are you up? It’s after one.”
“Looking for a job,” she admitted.
Nora looked at her as she eased the water bottle into the pocket of her fluffy, bright yellow robe. “You’ll find something,” she assured her. “You want me to take a look at your résumé?”
Jillian nodded. “Yeah, maybe so, Mom. Thank you. I’ll email it to you.”
“Good,” Nora said, wrinkling her nose at her daughter affectionately before walking away.
Jillian picked up her phone, looking at both invites on her phone. One from the man she loved. The other from a man who seriously needed therapy and or drug rehab.
“Jillian.”
She looked over her shoulder, surprised to find her mother standing in the archway. “Yeah?”
“What’s going on with you and Warren?” Nora asked, coming back to take a seat at the table.
“Me and Warren?” Jillian balked, a frown on her face.
“Yes.”
The women eyed each other.
“Nothing. Just friendship. I’m with Cole, remember?” she said, reaching over to playfully tug her mother’s thumb.
Nora eyed her. Studied her.
Jillian’s frown deepened.
“Just make sure you remember, dear,” Nora finally said. “And if you want something else, that’s okay, but always be clear with your intentions. It’s less messy.”
Jillian waved away her mother’s concerns as she rose to retrieve her own bottle of water from the fridge. “Warren and I are just friends. Plus, Cole is a grown man who understands that. Trust me. I got this.”
Nora grunted. It revealed her disbelief in just how much her daughter “had it.”
“Night, Ma,” she said, reclaiming her seat and picking up her tablet as her mother took her leave. She searched the internet for Gunther Red and within moments her decision was made. The most recent articles were about a woman claiming he’d held her captive during a drug binge.
“Oh helllll to the no.” Jillian picked up her phone to politely decline the private chef gig.
Dropping her phone back to the table, Jillian rubbed her bottom lip with her thumb.
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
She picked it back up and opened the text from Cole. It was a picture of him in bed. Ready and waiting, if she was willing. She eyed him in all his rugged glory. It was quite a temp
tation.
Jillian grabbed her devices and turned the lights off in the kitchen before making her way up the stairs to the guest bedroom. It had been hers until she’d gone to college. She removed her warm and toasty fleece pajamas and took a steamy shower. Once dried and then lathered in scented lotion, she eased her body into a slinky satin slip of bright emerald. It fell to her feet as she pulled on gold heels. She freed her curls from a messy topknot to arrange with nimble fingers before glossing her lips. Once she covered her sexy attire with a fluffy ostrich coat in the same green, she grabbed her phone and keys. As she prepared herself for yet another round of passion, the feel of the satin against her nudity was foreplay itself.
She felt sexy. Powerful. And she wanted him. Around her. On her. In her.
Jillian opened the front door and the late fall winds whipped around her, breezing her curls back from her face and tightening her nipples into buds that pressed through the thin material. She paused at the sight of a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter slowing in front of the house.
Cole.
In yet another of his vehicles he rarely drove.
He lowered the window just as surprised to see her leaving her parents’ home as she was to see him pulling up in front of it. She came down the three levels of stairs, ignoring the cold, as she felt the heat of desire rise in her. She motioned with her head for him to park in the driveway.
He did.
When she neared the luxury van with its dark-tinted windows, the side door slid open. Cole was already sitting in the middle of the rear seat, in all black, his knees wide and his lap ready.
She stepped aboard and let her coat slide down her body to puddle at her feet as he closed the door and shuttered them from the frosty air.
He swore as he watched her with his beautiful eyes hooded as she came up the wide aisle to stand before him. His hands gripped her hips and then eased around to cup her soft buttocks. “I was just about to text you to come downstairs,” he said, looking at her as she eased up the skirt of her slip to reveal she was bare beneath it before straddling his hips.
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