He pulled me close to him and held me tight. I was still bound, and that made me feel more small and fragile. As if he were holding me safe, keeping me shielded from whatever awful things might lurk in the world.
I floated there a moment on a wave of contentment, but his words kept playing back in my head. “More, you said,” I murmured. “Will you tell me what the more is?”
“Eager?” he said, with a tease in his voice.
“Maybe.”
“I won’t tell you, but I’ll show you. Not all at once, but when you’re ready. Trust me, Kat. Trust me to make this journey exceptional for you.”
“I do.” I hesitated, then asked, “Will you take me to the Firehouse when we get back to Chicago?”
It may have been my imagination, but I thought that he stiffened slightly. “Maybe,” he said. “I haven’t decided.”
“Oh.”
I’m not sure why his response disappointed me, but it did. “Is it because of Michelle? Why you’re not sure, I mean?”
He eased back, then rolled me over so that I was facing him. “No,” he said. “Not because of Michelle.”
I nodded, knowing I should drop it. I could tell that much just from the tone of his voice. But somehow, I couldn’t quite seem to back away. “Were you two together?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I licked my lips. “I saw you the night of the gala. That argument with Conrad. I don’t know. I just thought . . .” I trailed off into a lame shrug.
“Conrad Pierce is a fucking asshole,” Cole said. “He was trying to recruit some of my girls into prostitution. I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen.”
I recalled Cole’s fury that night, and decided that it was perfectly understandable. “Was he trying to recruit Michelle, too?”
Cole exhaled. “No,” he said. And then a moment later, he added, “Christ, Kat. She works in that trade, okay?”
“Oh. Right.” I hesitated a moment, then pressed on. “Do you pay her? To fuck her, I mean.”
I saw a muscle in his jaw twitch, as if he was trying hard to keep a grip on control. “Can we quit with the twenty questions?”
“I’m sorry.” I rolled away, suddenly chilled by the gulf I felt growing between us. “Really. Never mind.”
“Shit.” I heard him exhale, then felt the press of his hand against my shoulder. “Shit,” he repeated, this time more softly. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
He drew in a breath, and the irony of the situation—me naked and bound with a plug in my rear while we discussed another woman—really wasn’t lost on me. “I don’t want to have secrets from you.” He eased me over so that I was facing him again, and the intensity I saw in his face nearly did me in.
“But I do have secrets,” he continued. “I won’t lie to you. But I want to start chipping away at them. So let me start by saying that I don’t pay Michelle, but I do fuck her. Or I did. I haven’t touched her since you. Haven’t wanted to. Haven’t needed to.”
He looked at me, and I felt that sweet ping in my heart. “Really?” The word tasted like hope. More, it tasted like love.
“I told you, Kat. You fill me up. It may take some time for me to figure out what that means, how it manifests. But I know that it’s true. Can you be patient, baby? Can you let me find the words my own way, in my own time?”
“I can,” I said, because at the heart of it the past didn’t matter. The Cole I’d fallen for was the one I saw in front of me. All the rest was just backstory and gossip. And all of that could wait.
twenty
“Cole?”
“Mmm.” He sounded far away and yet right beside me.
“Before you fall asleep, do you think you could untie me and, you know, all the rest?”
I heard the low rumble of his chuckle. “I don’t know. It’s tempting to just keep you like this, bound for my pleasure, mine to take whenever I want.”
“I already am,” I said. “You don’t need the ropes for that.”