Cole must have read the interest on my face because he grinned and motioned for me to follow him. He turned on more lights and grabbed a couple of pairs of boxing gloves.
“I have to admit, I was going to come down here and do this after you went to sleep,” he admitted. “But after what you just admitted, I figured you could probably benefit from a little time with the bag too.”
“I’ve never hit anything in my life,” I said with a small laugh. “I never wanted to.”
He looked at me with one dark brow arched. “Really? Even me?”
I couldn’t even try and suppress my laugh. “Okay, I’ll admit, I’ve been very tempted to punch you a time or two.”
“Well, now’s your chance.”
My eyes went wide. “What? I thought you said I was going to punch the bag?”
He smiled. A real smile. I couldn’t help but soften at the sight. This was the first time I ever saw him so relaxed—which was crazy considering the night we’d had so far.
He didn’t respond right away. First he helped me get the gloves on, and he tied them tight to secure them. Then he took care of his own.
I couldn’t believe how incredibly sexy he looked.
“Okay, I’m going to walk you through some of the basic moves so you don’t overextend and hurt yourself,” he explained. “We’ll take it slow, and then you’ll practice hitting my hands and then the bag. Sound good?”
I nodded, anxious to start.
For the next several minutes, Cole explained how to stand and how to move my arms in a way that was controlled for maximum impact. At first it felt a little bit awkward, but I found my rhythm, and soon I was mirroring his moves. It was almost like a choreographed dance.
He stopped and came to stand in front of me—his hands held out in front of him. “Okay, I want you to use your right hand to punch my left,” he explained. “Ready?”
I nodded again and then followed his direction. Pulling back, I then put all my energy into making contact with his glove. When it did, it was the best feeling. I looked at Cole and smiled. “How was that?”
He chuckled. “Not bad, slugger. Now let’s try using your left hand to punch my right.”
After alternating several times, he showed me how to work the bag. I stood back mesmerized as I watched him move. His T-shirt was snug and didn’t hide the play of muscles on his back, his arms. I always knew Cole was strong and muscular, but to see him in action like this was almost hypnotic.
“You ready to try?” he asked, totally taking me by surprise.
“Uh…”
“You can pretend it’s my face you’re punching.”
At that moment, punching him was the last thing on my mind.
Cole stepped around me and then pressed up close against my back. “C’mon, Maybelline,” he murmured, “you know you want to hit me.”
I knew what he was doing—taunting me so I’d step up to the bag and start swinging. I already felt a little bit better after the few punches I’d done against his hands, how much better would I feel after letting loose on the bag?
“What’s the matter, princess,” he added smoothly, “too prissy to work up a sweat?”
And that was all it took. I stepped in close and punched the bag once. Then again.
And then I couldn’t seem to stop.
I punched for every scary phone call, for all the twisted deliveries, for all the times my life had been turned upside down by a sick individual, and then I punched some more for all the times Cole had teased me.
I was panting and breathing heavy and let out a kind of a primal scream when Cole stepped up behind me and urged me to step back and take a break.
“Easy there, Tiger,” he said. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I knew enough about working out to know that you didn’t want to overdo it on a new exercise, but this just felt so good. Which is what I told him.
He nodded and laughed again. “I know. But this is going to be home for at least a little while so you can come down here any time and work out all of your anger and frustration.”
It was little consolation at the moment, but I knew I needed to be careful. No need to add muscle aches to the growing list of things messing with my life.
“Five more minutes,” he said as he took a step away. “I’m going to go and grab us some water. I’ll be right back.”
I immediately took advantage of the time and pounded on the bag a bit more. By the time Cole was back with two bottles of water, I was ready to call it a day.
He helped me remove my gloves and then handed me my drink. We stood in companionable silence while we cooled down. Soon we were turning off the lights and heading back up the stairs.
“Do you want anything to eat?” he asked as we walked by the kitchen. “There isn’t much here, but we could probably whip up something.”
“No. It’s late.” I swallowed and toed off my shoes. “I think I’ll just shower and go to bed.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
I walked away and took a quick shower. It felt good after working out. When I stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later wearing nothing but my panties an oversized t-shirt, I was surprised to find Cole standing in the bedroom.
He nodded toward the chaise under the large window. “I’m going to sleep there. I’m not going to leave you alone. Not even to sleep.”
I wasn’t annoyed by this high-handedness. It was a relief. I didn’t want to be alone. It terrified me. “Okay.”
Cole went into the bathroom while I was crawling under the covers, and he returned wearing his pants but no shirt and no shoes.
He might look like he was ready for bed, but I didn’t really think he was going to sleep.
I was damned sure I wasn’t going to sleep tonight.
I’d fallen into a strange, blank daze by going through the motions of everyday routines, but the fear hit me again when Cole turned off the overhead light, leaving the big room lit by only the bedside light
“You’ll be safe here,” he said, his eyes searching my face again, as if looking for signs of an impending collapse.
I wasn’t entirely confident the collapse was at bay. It could hit me at any minute.
“If you keep acting all nice with me, I’ll know for sure the situation is desperate.” I managed a ghost of a smile.
He gave a soft huff of amusement. “You call this nice?”
“Well, relatively speaking since you’re usually all mean and snappish.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve snapped my fair share this evening.” He’d stepped over close to me, and I reached to hold on to his arm, needing stability, needing something.
“Yeah. But it feels like it’s in a nicer way.”
He smiled faintly, that intensity still holding his gaze with mine, like neither of us could look away. “That’s me. Snappishly nice.”
I couldn’t hold back a little giggle, but even as I was laughing, the vision of those decapitated rats hit me again, and the giggle transformed into a gurgle that turned into a choked sob. The boxing had been a great distraction, but now that all was quiet, everything came rushing back.
Embarrassed by the sudden breakdown, I turned away from Cole so he wouldn’t see my changed expression.
“Shit,” he muttered, turning me back around and pulling me against him. “You’re safe here, Evangeline. I promise.”
I clung to him, feeling small and weak and too scared. “I don’t feel safe.”
His arms tightened around me. “What can I do to make you feel safer?”
“Stay with me,” I whispered, stroking his hard back and feeling the strength of him in the lines and muscles. “Stay with me tonight.”
“I already told you I would.” His voice was slightly hoarse, and his body was feeling tense.
It was a tension that spoke to me though—that I wanted to feel even more, that seemed to hold the nightmare at bay.
“No.” I pulled back enough to look up at his face and de
ep eyes. “I want you stay with me. All the way.”
He couldn’t fail to know what I was talking about. It was obvious in the way I was touching him, in the way I was gazing up at him. And I knew he wanted it too. That tension was arousal as much as anything else.
For a moment a flicker of conflict was visible on his face, but then it disappeared in a wave of passion. He reached down to take my face in both his hands the way he had before, and he released a soft groan as he leaned down into a kiss.
The kiss was just as hungry as the first one had been, but it felt even needier, more desperate this time. He seemed to need me as much as I needed him.
Our lips and tongues tangled as I pressed my body against his, wanting to feel how big and hard and capable he was by the feel of his body.
I was already turned on, despite the trauma of earlier in the evening, but my need was as much emotional as physical—as if Cole and his strength was the only thing holding off the darkness.
His hands slid down to cup my bottom, and he pressed me against his groin, which had hardened in an obvious way.
He broke the kiss briefly to mutter, “Sometimes trauma can lead to this sort of thing. It might just be the trauma that’s making you think you want this.”
I groaned in frustration because I wanted to kiss him again. My hands were sliding over the firm skin of his bare back, and my fingers squeezed under his waistband to reach even lower. “Why does it matter why I want this? I want this. So much. Right now.” I rubbed myself against his arousal until he groaned. “Don’t you?”
“You know damned well I do.”
“So take what you want.”
He groaned again, differently this time, and kissed me again. This time the kiss took us into the bed, and I wrapped my legs around him as he buried his face against my neck, nibbling and kissing in a way that made me squirm.
When I was fumbling with the button on his pants, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to stop me. “Slow down, sweetheart,” he murmured thickly. He moved my arm so it was lying on the bed beside me. “Slow down.”
I was panting and flushed, wanting to bury myself in the sensations so I could forget about everything else. I moaned in frustration and arched up into his body. “I don’t want to slow down.”
He gave me a wolfish smile. “But it will be better that way.”
Despite his words, his expression and his touch were neither teasing nor playful. They were intense, unexpectedly gentle as he pulled the T-shirt off over my head and started to kiss and caress his way down my body.
I could see how much he liked my body by the way his eyes heated up. It was thrilling, intoxicating, that this strong, capable man wanted me so much.
His mouth closed over one of my nipples, and the soft touch was almost torturous. I couldn’t keep my hips still as I clawed lines down his back in my frustration.
“Cole, please,” I gasped, fisting one of my hands in his hair.
He lifted his head. “Let me give this to you, sweetheart.”
My mouth parted with a silent cry when his hand slipped between my legs and found my wet arousal. Then the cry found its voice when he started to pump with two fingers.
I rode his fingers eagerly as an orgasm built up and then broke inside me. I was panting loudly when I came down from the high, and my body relaxed a little.
But then Cole was being gentle again, kissing his way softly down my belly.
“Cole, please,” I said again in a slightly different tone this time.
He looked up again at my words. “I want to give you more. Especially after everything that’s happened. I didn’t want to be rough. I want it to be…”
He didn’t finish, but I understood what he meant. And it touched me. He was trying to be careful, to be gentle, to make sure this was good for me—no matter what his own body demanded.
But he didn’t understand what I wanted at all.
I shook my head and reached up to cup his rugged face. “But I don’t want soft and gentle. I want… I need for you to be… strong.” I saw his expression change, so I repeated, “I want to feel you be strong. Please, Cole. Be strong for me.”
“Damn right, I will,” he said gruffly, the tension in his body transforming palpably. The fire blazed up in his eyes even more, and I knew that, at last, he was going to give us what we both wanted from tonight.
Eight
Cole
It was wrong.
So damn wrong.
But for some reason, it made complete sense.
I was a selfish bastard—particularly in the bedroom. Normally, women worked for it a little. I wasn’t necessarily proud of that fact, but it was normally what I liked. But right now with Evangeline? I wanted to be the one working—the one giving.
And I wanted to give it hard.
I wasn’t sure she knew what she was asking for.
I looked down at her again; her eyes were glazed with passion. Her lips were parted. And she was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. All I wanted was to pound into her. To fuck her until she couldn’t remember her own name—let alone what had happened earlier.
I stood and quickly undressed before reclaiming my spot on the bed on top of her. The feel of her naked flesh beneath mine was both heaven and hell.
Taking her hands, I placed them above her head on the pillow. Her eyes went a little wide, and it made me smile. “Brace yourself, princess.” She stiffened slightly, and that made me pause. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “I know what I want, Cole. It’s just… no one’s ever… been like this with me. I don’t want to disappoint you.”
If I’d been standing, she would have brought me to my knees. “That’s not even possible,” I told her, and I meant it. Just the mere fact that she was here, that she wanted me, and she trusted me was one of the greatest moments of my life.
She squirmed beneath me, and I knew I had to do something now. “Sweetheart, I promise we’ll stop if I do anything you don’t like.”
“Cole?”
“Hmm?”
“Stop talking.”
A slow smile spread across my face before I could even stop it. I loved a woman who told me what she wanted. Rather than answer her, I gave her exactly what she wanted.
Holding her hands still, I kissed her. Hard. Her tongue mated with mine, and I heard a small whimper escape, but I didn’t stop.
My mouth left hers and nipped at her jaw, her throat, her collarbone—all the way to her breasts. I’d been fantasizing about those more than any man should. I teased first one nipple and then the other, making her cry out. I bit at the tender flesh until she cried out again and arched beneath me.
But I didn’t stop.
Releasing her hands, I let mine begin to follow the path my mouth had just been on. Gently my rough skin slid along hers, and I marveled at her softness. I don’t think I’d ever felt a woman with silkier skin. I could touch her for days and still not get enough.
I teased at her belly button until my hands were anchored at her waist. “Spread your legs for me, sweetheart,” I murmured thickly. She hesitated, and I lifted my head and met her nervous gaze. It couldn’t be possible that no one had ever…
“Cole.”
“I bet you taste sweet, Evangeline. Let me taste you. Please.”
Slowly her legs opened farther, and I could see the slight tremble in her thighs. My hands soothed them as I lowered my lips to taste her.
Heaven.
I heard her low, throaty sigh, and it was almost enough to make me come. I kind of felt like I was corrupting her.
“More, Cole. More,” she panted.
Never say that I don’t aim to please. I feasted on her until she was sobbing my name, and when I thought she couldn’t take anymore, I felt her come apart, my name on her lips the entire time. I soothed her. I gently stroked her thighs, her belly, her breasts as I made my way back up to her mouth and quieted her sobs with my own lips.
She wrapped around me—all long, silky limbs—and I knew I was on the brink. I broke the kiss and reached for where I’d dropped my pants and fumbled for a condom. I slipped it on in record time, a sheen of sweat forming on my body from trying to hold back.
Then I braced myself over her, holding her hands. I was going to ask if she was ready, but I already knew the answer. I surged forward and watched her eyes grow wide again—something I was really beginning to love—and buried myself to the hilt.
“You’re so… you’re…”
I knew what she was going to say, and at that moment, I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want her to talk. I wanted to feel. For both of us to just feel. I ducked my head and claimed her mouth with mine again. I didn’t wait, my tongue thrust forward to dual with hers just as I began to move inside her.
There was no slow buildup.
There was no time to get acquainted.
I didn’t do emotional with sex. I liked to fuck. And on any given day, with any given woman, I liked to fuck hard. That was what my body was doing, and Evangeline was going wild beneath me—meeting me thrust for thrust and loving it. But my head? My heart? Well, something was going on there, and I couldn’t stop to examine it too closely.
So I let my body do what it does best.
She was so tight around me. So wet. So… everything.
“Come for me, baby,” I whispered against her ear. “Do it for me again.”
“I can’t,” she murmured, her head thrashing back and forth. I pounded into her harder and harder, my grip on her hands near brutal.
“Come on, sweetheart. Do it for me.” I shifted just slightly and hit the spot that sent her soaring. Evangeline screamed my name as she wrapped herself so tight around me there was no way to tell where one body ended and the other began.
I did my best to hold back, to let her have her moment, but I couldn’t. The feel of her, the sound of her, the smell of her—I was on sensory overload. This time it was me crying out her name as I came. I couldn’t stop myself. Sex was never personal for me before, but this time it was.
Protecting the Movie Star (The Protectors Book 4) Page 10