“Love you more.”
“Impossible.” He straightens his spine then his suit jacket. His hands slip into his pockets, and he turns on his heel, vanishing around the corner.
I close the door and sag beneath the force of my feelings. The desperate urge to run after him and hug him with all my might is a powerful pull. But it would only make it harder to say goodbye.
It’s time to go home. I haven’t seen or spoken to Cole in two days. He started his new job tonight, and I want to hear about it.
And I miss him.
As much as I already miss Trace.
Fuck me, my life is a mess.
They gave me their hearts, willfully, recklessly. If I choose one, I break the other. What the fuck am I supposed to do?
I want to keep them both. But even if we were the last three people on Earth, that wouldn’t happen. Not with two men as possessive as Cole and Trace.
I take a shower and pull on jeans and an oversized sweater and coat. It’s after one in the morning when I drive home and park the Midget in my empty driveway. No motorcycle. Cole’s still at work?
Bracing against the cold, I race inside, through the back door, the dance room, the kitchen, and pause. I didn’t lock up.
Since Cole has his own keys, I retrace my steps to the back of the house. As I pass through the dance studio, the mirror on the far wall catches my eye. I swivel toward it, squinting at the pristine new glass, and press a hand against my tightening chest.
I broke that mirror three years ago in a drunken rage of grief. Then I left it, splintered and sad, as a reminder of what I look like when I give up.
And Cole replaced it.
Anger lances through me, spiking my pulse. But I shake it off. He didn’t know. He was just trying to be helpful.
Do I even need the reminder anymore? The night I dragged myself out of that dark place, I hoped I would look back someday and appreciate the distance I covered.
I started dancing again. And smiling. And living. And I fell in love. That’s a pretty good distance. A happy distance.
The near future won’t be easy, but I like to think I’m past the hardest obstacle of my life. Cole’s alive and breathing and able to share those dimples with those lucky enough to know him.
As if on cue, the purr of his motorcycle vibrates along the side of the house. It shuts off, and I rush toward the door, yanking it open and shivering against the chilly air.
Cast in shadows, his dark silhouette swings off the bike and approaches in long, unhurried strides. I step back, making room as he enters.
“You just get home?” Glancing at my coat and gloves, he sets his helmet on the chair by the door.
“A few minutes ago.” I lock up and pull off my outerwear. “Thank you for fixing the mirror.”
“You’re welcome.” He shrugs out of his leather jacket, takes my coat, and hangs everything on the hooks behind the door. “How did the glass break?”
“It got in a fight with a bottle of whiskey.”
His bog-brown eyes scan my face. Not prying. Just looking. Taking in my features like the first day we met.
It’s always the visual connection that sparks first between us. The silent greeting of eye contact. The instant physical attraction. It creates a crackling glow that wraps around us until the rest of the world fades into the void it was without him. We float in a luminous bubble, staring and gravitating closer together and smiling foolishly.
The helmet left his brown hair in spikes of sexy defiance. Dimples dent his cheeks, and a black t-shirt stretches across his wide shoulders. Black slacks and a gun holster on his hip complete the security uniform. It’s uninspiring as far as uniforms go, but my God, he knows how to work it. I bet he turned every female head in the stadium tonight.
“Do you know how to use that?” I point at the gun on his hip, assuming his prior job required expertise in all manner of firearms.
He arches a brow and huffs. “We’ll go to the shooting range, and I’ll show you how to use it.”
“Sure.” I shrug. My interest is solely in watching him handle a gun. “How do you like the new job?”
“It’s just a job.”
I circle his wide stance, taking in the delicious fit of his clothes. Sitting low on his trim waist, the cargo pants highlight the powerful muscles in his legs and the firm shape of his ass. He’s covered head-to-toe in black, like a formidable shadow, except for the white lettering on his back that reads Security.
He went from a high-speed operative with a top-secret clearance to the sheriff of Nothingham with an iron-on decal on his back.
“You hate it, don’t you?” I return to his front and study his dark gaze.
“I hate being in this house without you here.”
My shoulders slump. “I know this is hard—”
“Hey.” He lifts my chin with a knuckle and glides his hand beneath my hair to hold the back of my neck. “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. The job gives me something to do while you’re working. That’s all it is to me.”
“And a paycheck.”
“I don’t need much beyond what’s standing right here.” He folds his arms around me and holds me tight to his chest. “This… This is everything to me.”
I clutch his waist, balling his shirt in my hands and sinking into his molten eyes. His beautiful lips are right there, a breath away. The need to kiss him is so deep-rooted and intrinsic I’ve never had to think about it before.
But I don’t want to turn this into a passionate make-out session that ends in frustration. And it will, because we never go halfway on anything. When we met, we fell instantly. When we kiss, we go wild. A feral, uncontrollable kind of wild that always leads to sex.
I shift back, putting a sliver of space between us. “Are you tired?”
He shakes his head, eyes warm and hooded.
“Want to have a picnic on your futon and watch movies?” I ask.
“You mean, watch one movie? The only movie?”
“You remember.” I grin.
“Are you kidding? I watched Dirty Dancing countless times over the past four years, just so I could come home and recite it with you.”
“You know the words?”
“All of them.”
I bounce on my toes, unable to contain my excitement. “I’ll get the snacks.”
“I’ll take a quick shower and meet you downstairs.”
Later, with my belly stuffed with cheese, crackers, and beer, I lie face-down on the futon, with his pillow scrunched beneath my chin. He mirrors my position beside me, wearing lounge pants and a white t-shirt. With our legs angled toward the top of the bed and our heads at the foot, we’re glued to the TV on the wall a few feet away.
There’s only a couple scenes left in the movie, and he’s proven that he does, in fact, know all the words. Midway through, we fell into our own speaking parts, with him reciting Johnny Castle’s lines while I perform Baby’s. It’s turned Dirty Dancing into a whole new viewing experience, and I can’t stop laughing.