My spine stiffened. “We don’t need to talk about any of that. What you need to do is—”
“Oh, we’re going to talk about that, but it’s going to wait, and in the meanwhile, you can get angry and you can tell me I’m being unreasonable, and you can come up with any number of crazy reasons why you think I’m doing this, but I’m not leaving. No way in hell,” Cole said, eyes flashing, “am I leaving you again.”
Chapter 10
Cole didn’t leave.
And I also didn’t stand in the living room of my cute-but-not-as-amazing-as-Cole’s-house apartment and argue with him. I’d stormed into my bedroom, only to remember that my bathroom was outside the bedroom.
So after pacing for several minutes, chafing at the idea that Cole felt he needed to be here to protect me from some unseen threat that probably didn’t even exist, I threw open my bedroom door and stomped back out into the short hall. I didn’t see Cole, but he’d apparently found the remote to the TV.
Cole was literally sitting in my living room, watching TV.
I couldn’t believe it.
Quickly completing my nightly routine, I stormed back into my bedroom and managed to resist the urge to slam the door shut behind me. I needed to talk to Miranda.
Except I’d left my phone in my purse on the kitchen counter.
And I refused to go back out there.
Undressing, I grabbed the first thing out of my drawer and I slipped it on over my head. My bedroom door didn’t have a lock on it, and the last thing I needed was to be standing around half naked if Cole decided to roam into the room for some reason.
I all but threw myself onto the bed. It wasn’t late, and normally I wouldn’t be anywhere near bed at this time, but I was trapped.
Okay. I wasn’t trapped. It was by choice that I was hiding in my bedroom. Hiding yet again, and as I lay there, I knew he was doing what he thought was the right thing. He wanted to make sure I was safe, and I could appreciate that even though it annoyed me greatly. I wasn’t a damsel in need of protection. Not that I didn’t recognize what Cole could do if I was threatened. I wasn’t stupid. He had a gun. I didn’t, but I didn’t . . . I didn’t like feeling as if I couldn’t take care of myself. For ten years, I’d been doing just that. I’d beat back that fear and I’d been fine.
But Cole was here because of what happened to me before. And I didn’t need a PhD in psychology to know that he felt like he hadn’t been there for me before. In a way, he was atoning for what he believed he had failed at.
Or maybe, just maybe, I was making up a lot of reasons and deciding they were true without even talking to him, because I just couldn’t deal.
The last thought sounded way too rational to be the truth.
“I’m a mess,” I said to my ceiling.
My ceiling had no response.
And my thoughts drifted to what had happened when I tried to leave Cole’s house, and I shuddered under the covers as the memory of the stench of death and decay nearly swallowed me whole.
Curling onto my side, I folded my hands under my chin and stared at the small window across from the bed. I closed my eyes, not wanting to think about the deer or my vandalized car. I didn’t want to think about anything, but for the next several hours, I did, and whenever I heard movement outside my bedroom, I would go stiff and hold my breath, ears prickling as I tried to figure out what he was doing. Would he come in here? He had no reason to. Would he still be out in the living room in the morning or would he leave once the sun came up? I didn’t even know if he had to go to work, but I did know that couch was not big enough for someone as long as him.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, and I’d given up tracking how far the moonlight reached across the floor by the time I slipped into that half-awake stage. I was floating there when I felt it, the featherlight brush along the curve of my bare shoulder.
My heart rate kicked up. What was Cole doing in here? I held my breath as his fingers coasted over my skin, spreading a wave of tiny goosebumps along my flesh. His fingers slipped under the strap of my nightie, slowly dragging it down my arm.
I needed to stop him. Hell, I needed to be pissed about him sneaking into my room and touching me, but I . . . I liked it. Oh God, I did like it, and I could lie here, pretending I was asleep.
His hand drifted over my shoulder and danced along the blade until he reached my spine. I let out a shaky breath. He dragged his hand down the center of my back, the pressure heavy and—
“Sasha . . .”
Pressure twisted in my chest. The hand at my back. It was too heavy, too rough. Too familiar. Too cold.
I twisted, flipping onto my back. My eyes widened as I stared into the darkness, knowing I couldn’t see his face. I’d never see his face, but I knew, oh God, I knew this wasn’t Cole. A scream built into my throat, ripping free, and my ears burned from the sound. I heard it then, the high-pitched laugh. The laugh that signaled pain was on its way, because when he touched me like that, when he laughed like that, he wasn’t just the Groom anymore. He was more than a monster.
“Sasha!” Pressure tightened on my arm, and my scream intensified. “Sasha! Stop. You’re okay. You’re safe. Stop.”
You’re safe.
Two words the Groom would never speak.
Jackknifing up and to the side, my flailing hand hit air and I tumbled to the left, right off the bed. I didn’t hit the floor.
Cole was fast, wrapping an arm around my waist and hauling me back onto the bed, against him. Chest to chest. Skin against . . . skin? What? The nightmare faded like wisps of smoke as I slowly became aware of everything. Cole was holding me to him, his breath warm against my cheek, and he’d taken his shirt off at some point, and now my heart was racing for a whole different reason.
“You with me?” he asked.
I was so with him.
The room was dark and I couldn’t see anything, but all I could feel was him, and it was at that moment that I realized what I’d thrown on before getting into bed. It was a spaghetti-strapped nightie and had a heart-shaped bodice; the kind of nightie made of soft cotton that only reached the midthigh and was most likely completely see-through in bright light. A very thin nightie that made it feel like there was almost nothing between our bodies.
And his chest was warm, actually felt hot against mine, and the denim of his jeans was rough against my inner thighs. It was then when I also realized that somehow I wasn’t just in his lap, I was straddling him. I had no idea how that happened, but his shoulders were also smooth and hard under my hands.
“Sasha.” His voice was deeper as one hand folded around the nape of my neck, bunching up my hair. “Are you with me?”
My throat was dry as I gasped out, “Yes.”
“Good.” He didn’t let go, but his hand tightened, as did his arm. “Does this happen often?”
“Does what happen often? This?”