A thing I could deal with because . . .
I was happy.
And with the happiness came the guilt.
Logan was in prison while I shacked up with a gorgeous tattoo artist.
No wonder my family still hadn’t bothered to get in touch with me. I was happily living my life while my brother suffered for having tried to protect me. My sister hadn’t texted me since that last text weeks ago when she asked me to confirm I was alive.
And so for the last few days the worry over what my family would think if they found out about Cole had overtaken my contentment. It didn’t matter if Cole wasn’t really a bad boy at all. He looked like one, and that was all that would matter to my family.
I knew Cole could sense I was in a weird place, but thankfully he put it down to the fact that he was staying at my flat for the first time. I hadn’t invited him to stay with me, because secretly I liked the idea that I could leave Cole’s whenever I wanted. Not that I ever did, but the control was there. If Cole stayed with me . . . well, it was just much harder to kick someone out than it was to leave. But a few days ago Cole had insisted on staying the night. We’d argued. He’d won. Now he thought I was pissed off when in actuality I was neck deep in self-recrimination.
While I cooked dinner in the kitchen, Cole was in the sitting room watching a comedy show. He was perfectly at ease here, whereas I felt like it was our first night together all over again.
“Shortcake, have you seen my phone?” he called out.
“Try the bedroom.”
A few minutes later I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over my shoulder to find him standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a piece of canvas, eyes on me. He looked confused.
My gaze flew back to the canvas.
My . . . art.
The pulse in my neck began to throb. “What are you doing?” I croaked.
Cole held up the cityscape of Edinburgh. “Is this yours? Did you do this?”
I felt sick.
Concern emanated from him as he walked toward me. “Shannon?”
I nodded, my eyes glued to the painting.
“Shannon, this is amazing.” His voice was soft, low, amazed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Amazing? My eyes flew up to his face. “You like it?”
Cole gave a huff of laughter. “Are you kidding me? It’s brilliant.”
He liked it? He liked my painting. “Are you sure?” I squeaked.
“Yes,” he insisted. “As are the three others you have hidden under your bed.” He placed the painting carefully on the kitchen table and then wrapped his arms around my waist, drawing me into him. “Why didn’t you tell me you paint? Why is it a secret?”
I was still in shock that he liked my work.
“Shannon?”
Trembling, I released myself from his hold to return to stirring my sauce. “It’s . . .”
I didn’t even know how to begin to explain to him.
Cole’s chest pressed against my back as he leaned past me to turn the hob off. “Dinner can wait.” He gently took my hand in his and led me to the bedroom. While I stood in the doorway he got down on his knees and pulled out all of my hidden artwork. He put the pile of sketch pads on the bed. “May I?”
Heart racing again, I nodded.
Cole began to flick through my work. After a few minutes he sat back on the bed and stared up at me. I didn’t know what his expression meant. “I feel like I don’t know you,” he said softly, touching a sketch of my brother, Logan. “This is clearly a big part of you . . .”
It was only then I realized how stiff I was holding myself, my muscles coiled tight with tension. I released my hands from the fists I had them clenched in and tentatively made my way over to the bed. I brushed my fingers over the sketch of Logan. “He was the only one that ever encouraged my artwork. After Granddad passed and then Gran . . . I only had Logan.”
“This is your brother?”
I nodded. “I used to love sketching people. I’m more into semiabstract landscapes now.” I looked over at the acrylic paintings Cole had leaned against my wall. “I’d never painted until I moved here.”
I flushed with pleasure at the surprise on his face. “You wouldn’t know it.”
“You really think I’m good?”
“Good?” Cole shook his head, bewildered. “Shannon, you’re a beautiful artist. Why . . . why have you never pursued it?”
With his praise ringing in my ears I had to duck my head to avoid his gaze. I didn’t want him to know how much that meant to me, or how it made me want to dive on him and kiss him all over. “After high school I decided not to go to uni like all my friends. I wanted to have some life experience, work experience. The plan was to defer for two years and then apply for art school.” I sighed, a million regrets weighing on my chest. “Somehow I let it slip away from me. It was easier to have a job and some money and a relationship than it was to think about studying and getting into debt. But then I got a little bit older and I realized I wasn’t happy. Being creative made me happy and I wanted it to be a real part of my life.” I looked up at Cole and he flinched at the anger in my eyes. My words sounded brittle to my own ears. “When I decided I wanted to apply for art school I was with Ollie. He’d find my sketches lying around and he would mock and belittle them. He told me over and over and over again that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t talented . . . and I let myself believe the son of a bitch.”
“I hope I never find him, Shannon.” Cole’s voice was rough, his own anger scraping against the words. “Because I’ll fucking finish what Logan started.”
“Don’t say that.” I reached for his hand and he curled his fingers around mine. “He’s not worth it.”
“He’s not worth this either,” Cole snapped. “Hiding your talent under your bed like it’s something to be ashamed of.” His eyes blazed into mine. “He knew you were too good for him and that one day you would wake up and realize it too. So he did his best to make you feel small and worthless—to make you feel lucky to be with him, when the truth was the exact opposite.”
“Cole . . .”
“This.” He grabbed up a sketch pad. “Is out in the open from now on, and if you want to go to art school we’ll find a way for that to happen. I’m still in contact with some of my professors from Edinburgh—I do special workshops every year there about tattoo art. We’ll find a way,” he promised. “If that’s what you want.”
So many feelings filled my chest that I was breathless. I stared at Cole in wonder. “Are you real, Cole Walker?”
He gave me this small half smile. “It’s funny. Every day I look at you and ask myself if you’re real.”
“Don’t.” I squeezed his hand. “You’ll make me cry.”
“I want to know everything.”
“Everything?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. “About the others. Your exes.”
Alarmed, I pulled out of his grasp. “Why?”
The determination in his eyes only grew more intense at my withdrawal. “Because I need to know what I’m dealing with. I need to know what they’ve done to you.”
“No.” I shook my head, ready for retreat. “You want to know, and I’m not sure I’m up for that discussion.”
Cole removed my sketch pads, laying them gently on the floor like they were precious works of art, and then he moved closer to me on the bed. His fingers wrapped around my wrist and he tugged me toward him until my hip rested against his. “I need to know.” He brushed his knuckles across my cheekbone as he stared deep into my eyes. “I need to know so I can try to reverse all the damage they’ve done.”
My eyes and nose burned as his words prodded too closely at my raw emotions. “If you knew . . .” I shook my head, trying to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me. “Cole.” I tried to firm up my voice, but he held on tighter. “If you knew you’d know what an idiot I’ve been. You’ll look at me differently.”
“I won’t.”
“Shannon.” He gripped my chin tightly and I knew he was losing patience with my admittedly low assessment of not only myself but him. “I won’t.”
I tugged my chin from his grasp to look away, but I didn’t retreat. I gave in. At some point he was going to find out. It had always only been a matter of time. “My first boyfriend was Ewan. The guy that picked me up that day on Scotland Street. His was a typical desertion and it didn’t leave much of a scar. But Nick was next and his definitely did.” I drew in a bolstering breath. “He was the first guy I had sex with. I thought I loved him.” I rolled my eyes at my naïveté. “He was in a rock band. He was good-looking and too charming for his own good. He told me he loved me the night before I caught him screwing a blonde in a closet at one of his gigs.”
I felt Cole’s fingers dig into my waist and when I looked at him I saw turmoil in his gaze.
He hurt for me.
Something . . . something big lurched in my chest.
I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go, and yet at the same time I wanted to run in the opposite direction from this man who seemed too good to be true.
“I didn’t learn my lesson,” I continued, my voice now hoarse—affected by the events of the past and present. “A year or so later I started dating Bruce. He was a biker—everyone called him Bear because he was huge. He was really taken with me. At first.” I smiled unhappily. “My size made him feel protective and powerful at the same time. He was always telling me how cute and sexy I was, how funny, how smart, how lovable. He was full of compliments. So it didn’t matter to me that he was a fun-loving biker ten years my senior. I fell for him. He got me a job working in his best friend’s tattoo studio and we dated for eighteen months.
“The last four of those he spent screwing a real honest-to-goodness biker babe behind my back. He decided she was more his speed, so he dumped me and he also made his best friend fire me.”
Cole looked ready to kill someone.
“Are you sure you want me to continue?”
He nodded, his mood rapidly growing darker before my eyes.
For me . . . well, I’d thought it would be harder revealing all this to Cole. I’d gotten over my past grievances until Ollie, and these last few months the memories of what I’d allowed to happen to me had burned in my gut like acid. Yet sitting there with Cole, I realized that somehow over the past few weeks that bitterness had begun to fade.
I tensed at the realization.
I was allowing myself to forget because of Cole.
Don’t be stupid again—you need to remember, to keep your guard up. It’s when you feel safe that they hurt you. Every. Time.
Instinctually I attempted to pull away from Cole, but his hold on my waist tightened.
I exhaled, so confused, so unbelievably mixed up by all of the emotions churning through me. I should be terrified of Cole and yet . . .
“Fine,” I continued. “Then there was Rory. We were only together a few months before I started to notice that money kept going missing from my purse. Eventually I discovered Rory was stealing from me even though he had a lucrative side business as a drug dealer. I then found out he was an ex-con. I got the hell out of there and went running right into the arms of dear Ollie. And you know all about him.”
After a few seconds of loaded silence Cole said, “That’s just a series of bad luck, Shannon.”
This time I did pull away, jumping off the bed with an exasperated grunt. “Bad luck? No, Cole, that’s having terrible taste in men.”
“Present company excluded,” he grumbled, getting up off the bed.
“Don’t,” I snapped, turning on my heel and heading back to the kitchen to finish making dinner.
“Don’t what?” He followed.
“Be boyish and charming.”
“That’s kind of hard. I am boyish and charming.”
I huffed and was just about to turn on the hob when his strong arms encircled me and I found myself up in the air. I landed on Cole’s shoulder with a gasp. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed. Dinner can wait.” He patted my bottom and started striding back toward the bedroom.
“Let me down,” I growled.
“Nope. First: Looking at your gorgeous artwork gave me a serious hard-on. I do love a talented woman.” He stroked my bottom before dropping me on the bed. I stared up at him, wondering how we went from heartfelt confessions, messy confusion, and irate irritation to this. My eyes dropped to his hands as he began unzipping his jeans. “Second, I’m going to fuck every bad memory of those unworthy gits out of you, even if it takes me a lifetime. Starting tonight.”
My mouth dropped open at the lifetime comment. “Cole—”
“Be quiet, Shortcake,” he murmured, crawling up the bed until he was straddling me. “Anything you say will only make me more determined.”
* * *
I shot awake, my heart pounding so hard it was all I could hear. Sweat slickened my skin and I panted for air.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw I was in my bedroom. Cole was sleeping beside me. He was exhausted after spending the entire evening screwing my brains out. I’d been exhausted too. That was why I’d fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
But the nightmare had returned.
I hadn’t had it for weeks. Since I’d started seeing Cole.
I swallowed hard, running a trembling hand through my damp hair. It must have been all that talk about my exes that had spurred its return.
I had no idea what to do.
Things seemed and felt good with Cole, but hadn’t they with all the others before it went bad? I should leave him. I should . . .
Taking my time, breathing in and out, I felt my heart starting to slow, and that was when I heard a familiar grunt followed by a low wheeze. Slowly the grunts got louder and the wheeze grew higher until it was more of a squeal.
Cole shifted beside me and groaned. His eyes opened reluctantly and he squinted up at me. “What the fuck is that?” he said, his voice hoarse from sleep.
I snorted and lay back down. “That’s Rae and Mike.”
The look of horror on his sleepy face was so comical I burst out laughing.
The grunting and squealing immediately stopped. Something pounded against the wall between Rae’s and my room. “Shut the fuck up!” her muffled shout echoed through.
That set us both off. I snuggled into Cole, burying my giggles in his throat as he shook with his own choked laughter.
And just like that, my nightmare and worries were temporarily forgotten.
CHAPTER 16
A t the press of a gentle touch on my lower back, I found myself inhaling the scent of Cole’s cologne.
“I thought you could come over to my place tonight once I finish up at judo,” he murmured in my ear.
I moved away from him, bending my head closer to the file I was working on. I’d almost completed the digitization of Stu’s filing system. If I didn’t have to endure too many distractions, I would be finished in a week or so. Cole didn’t take my “I’m busy. I don’t want you touching me” hint. The studio was quiet, and there was no one around to witness him crowding me against the reception desk.
“Shannon,” he said, his voice a warning as his fingers gripped my hips.
I ignored the flush of arousal I felt at his touch. In fact, I was trying to ignore everything about him these days.
True to his word, Cole contacted a tutor at the College of Art inquiring about my chances of being accepted into a BA degree course for painting. She was kind enough to send me information on the kind of portfolio I’d need to put together for submission into the program as well as information on the student loan system. I was going to miss the deadline for that year, but after discussing it with Cole and being infected by his enthusiasm, I decided I was going to work on a portfolio over the next nine months that I would use, along with my high school qualifications, to apply for admission into next year
’s program.
Cole also outed me to Rae and Simon, and Rae insisted I use the sitting room to work in since there was more space and we had the view from the balcony. I was blown away by all their support, but mostly by Cole, who seemed more than determined to erase all the negativity Ollie had left me with.
His seeming dedication to making me happy scared the utter crap out of me. That was why when most girlfriends—not that I was his girlfriend—would be lavishing gratitude and affection on him, I grew distant. It wasn’t even intentional. The need to protect myself was instinctual. At first I didn’t even realize I was doing it.
It started with little things . . . like not meeting his eyes when we were talking at work and finding ways to let go of his hand whenever he reached for mine. Then I began to make excuses not to go home with him, and for him not to come home with me. Two nights a week he went to judo, and another two he went to kickboxing. In the past I’d meet him at his place after he’d finished up, but now I was using the classes as an excuse for us to spend the nights apart.
Cole had been patient.
I didn’t know how long that was going to last. There was a possibility that his patience had just snapped.
“I’m working on the Royal Mile piece right now.” I hurried to excuse myself from his company that evening. “Another time.”
“Rae says you’ve finished it.”
Dammit, Rae.
“Well . . . I’m tired because of it. I think I’ll just have a quiet night in tonight.” I tensed, waiting for his reaction.
His reaction was to hug me and kiss my temple. “Okay. But you’ve got the day off on Sunday. Simon’s covering for me so I can take you to lunch at Elodie and Clark’s.”
Like he sensed my imminent refusal, he continued. “I’ve already told Elodie you’re coming, so she’s planned accordingly. She’s also told everyone else. Hannah is really looking forward to seeing you, and Joss was hoping you would beta-read a few chapters in her new book while we’re there.”
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