Our first dance.
The dance that never happened.
My heart trips as I envision a dream I thought I’d buried with his ashes.
A marriage to my first love.
A wedding dance.
With Cole.
As warm, gooey hope flutters through in my veins, another emotion knocks inside me, crashing everything to a halt.
Fear.
As much as I love the idea—the ballroom, white dress, tuxedo, wedding rings, and our smiles as we twirl through the room—all my happiness shatters when fear shoves its way in, that jealous whore.
Cole hurt me in the past, and he could do it again. I’m so attached to this dance, and teaching him the steps could deepen my attachment to him. What if he knows that and this is just a ploy to outmaneuver Trace? What if I teach him and give the dance to Trace in the end? I can’t do that to Cole.
I open my mouth to tell him…what? I don’t know.
He cradles my face in his hands and looks at me like I’m a coin at the bottom of a well. A flickering candle on a cake. A star shooting across the sky. I’m his wish, and he is mine.
“Lie to me, Danni. Tell me we’re not made of the same destiny.”
“I can’t.” I blink, heart stammering. “I won’t lie.”
Over the span of four years, we leapt and soared. We fell and crashed. Then we brushed ourselves off and jumped again. We’re not a phenomenon of chance. We’re meant to be, and fate always finds its way.
I lean my brow against his, hugging the broad slopes of his shoulders. “When do you want to start learning the steps?”
A smile lights up his whole face, popping those dimples and painting his brown eyes with an eager glow. He lifts me from the floor and carries me to the couch, kissing me as he lowers me to my back.
I crane my neck to the look at the door. “What about—?”
“Trace wouldn’t dare come in, and there are no cameras in here.” He nibbles my lips. “No more spying.”
Kneeling over me, he deepens the kiss with fevered licks. His hand slides over my neck, through my hair, down the length of my body, and pulls on the sports bra impatiently, aggressively. I help him work off the top, and his mouth falls upon my nipple, tongue flicking and curling around the bud.
“Swear to God…” He moves to my shorts, yanking them down my legs while holding my gaze. “I’m not stopping until your pussy’s sore and the walls in this room know my name.”
My legs tremble, and I glance down at the bulge straining his zipper. “Are you always hard?”
“Yes.” He tosses my shorts and climbs up my body. “Because you’re always goddamn sexy.” He molds his hands around my breasts. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m fucking the hell out of you in my head.”
“And the other one-percent?”
“I’m blowing my load in my hand.”
“Cole,” I moan, wriggling beneath his sweeping caresses. “I love when you get all poetic. You and your dirty mouth.”
“My dirty mouth is a sucker for the romantic stuff.” He grazes his teeth across my breast. “Like eating your pussy and lapping up your come.”
He shoves a hand between my legs, using his muscular forearm to spread me wider. With a knee on the couch beside me, he plays with my wetness, opening me, spreading my heat, and plunging his fingers deep inside.
My back arches, and my knees fall open as he thrusts and teases with wicked skill. I bury my hands in his hair, whimpering and rocking my hips. I want. I need. Christ, I don’t know the difference when his long fingers are stroking inside me.
He worships my peaked nipples with hot, wet lips and slides back up, face to face. I sprawl my hand across his scratchy cheek, and he kisses me like we’re the last of our kind, like we’re an extinct species in a loveless world.
Then he leaves my mouth, trailing kisses down my breastbone, across my abs, tickling his whiskers against my skin. His lips are the greedy kind, the kind that possess, devour, and plunder every part of my body they touch.
Dipping his head, he groans against my pussy. “So tight and sweet.” He sinks his teeth into my tender flesh. “I want to break this pretty pink cunt.”
“Have at it.” I gyrate beneath him, high on lust.
He flashes a wolfish grin and lowers his face between my legs. Then he eats me like it’s the last time he’ll ever eat, kissing, sucking, and rolling his tongue around my piercing. He plunges deep and licks every drop of wetness. I tighten my fingers in his hair and wrap my legs around his neck, groaning, holding on, and making it last as long as possible.
Sliding a hand up my body, he cups my breast and tweaks the nipple. The insides of my thighs become stubble-burned, and my inner muscles build in the spasmodic contractions.
His eyes lift to mine, and he presses his lips harder against me, pushing me closer, faster along the rising tide of pleasure.
“Cole!” I jerk against his mouth and tug at his hair, writhing on the couch as everything inside me surrenders. “I’m coming. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
He sucks and nuzzles until my moans wane and my body goes slack.
I’m still trying to catch my breath when he crawls between my legs. The sound of his zipper speeds up my pulse as his fingers trace my soaked, overstimulated lower lips. Then it’s not his fingers. It’s the fat, plump head of his hardness. He slides it through my wetness, circling my clit and making me squirm.
For a second, I think he’s going to slam it in. But instead, he pulls back and straddles my hips.
His jeans gather beneath his ass and stretch across his sculpted thighs. No underwear, of course. The length of him juts from the open fly—thick and veiny and jerking for release.
“I give you permission to choke me with that.” I peer at him from beneath my lashes.
He groans and wraps a hand around his cock. “You know that look you get when you’re being sweet and innocent? Me neither.”
Then he bows over me, braces his weight on an arm beside my head, and proceeds to stroke himself off.
His eyes connect with mine, his pupils blown and lips parted erotically. He’s so worked up he won’t last long. Too bad, because I could watch him like this for hours.
He’s a wall of muscle, not an ounce of fat on those chiseled bumps and valleys. His golden skin is smooth as silk with a dusting of hair on his chest and forearms. He’s a man’s man, a rough-and-tumble, sexual beast of a man, and if I told him right now that I’ll be his and only his, he’d fuck my lights out.
“Danni.” His strokes accelerate, and the rock of his hips stumble into an erratic tempo. “I’m going to fucking come all over your gorgeous tits.” His chin drops, but he doesn’t move his eyes from mine. “Fuck. Oh, fuck, baby. I’m there.”
I grip his denim-clad thighs, digging my nails in as he spurts milky white ropes of come across my chest.
Panting and spent, he collapses on top of me. Then he rolls us until he lies on his back. His possessive lips find mine, and he kisses me adoringly while grabbing my ass aggressively.