It’s a remarkable act of selflessness that only further endears me to him. Maybe that’s exactly the reaction he intended. If this is all an orchestrated game, I’m playing into it beautifully.
I’m tired of the egos and rivalry and constant state of uncertainty. It makes me question every action and twist around every word. But I can’t lose sight of one important thing.
I trust him.
Over the next week, I spend my nights off work visiting the homeless shelter and my days practicing a Waltz routine for the mayor’s Christmas party with Nikolai. I’m too busy to make use of the space Trace is giving me, but that’s about to change. Tonight was the mayor’s party.
The performance went off without a hitch, and I don’t have another gig lined up until next summer. With the stress of my second job behind me, I should be happy and relieved. But as I step inside my house after the party, carrying the sparkly gown and heels, I feel out of sorts and misplaced, like I don’t know what I’m doing or where I belong.
Cole emerges from the basement as I pass through the hall, and our paths collide.
“How did it go?” He lifts the dance costume from my arms and takes it into the spare room to hang up.
“They want us back again next year.” I lean against the hallway wall, watching him through the doorway.
“That’s great.”
He steps into the hall and stops a few feet away, regarding me with unshakable focus. His expression is cautious, mouth slightly parted and gaze fixed on mine.
I strain to hear the words he doesn’t speak. Whatever he’s thinking is right there, hovering on the pillow of his kissable bottom lip.
His jaw shifts, his head angling imperceptibly to the side. His eyes, so deeply brown they appear black in the dim light, are bordered by dark lashes, giving him a sexy, sleepy look. A baseball cap sits backward on his head, making him appear younger than his thirty years. A gray shirt hangs from his slope-shouldered body, partially tucked into low-slung jeans that fray along the seams. And he’s barefoot, which I find obscenely sexy.
“You’ve only been home a month and a half and you’ve put on weight.” I give him another once-over and shake my head. “Not a single ounce of fat.”
He glances down at his body and rubs the ridges of his chest, as if noticing his physique for the first time.
His mouth crooks up in a lopsided smirk. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”
He works out nonstop. God knows he has to expend all that sexual energy somehow. He’s gorgeous and virile with an off-the-charts libido. He could have any woman he wants in his bed. He could fuck a different beauty every day or several at the same time. Instead, he lingers in this house, comes home every night after work, and waits while I relegate him to the limbo of my indecisiveness.
My fingers tingle to touch his whiskered face, to hold him against me and tell him I’m sorry. I don’t know where we stand anymore. He said he needed time to think, but he hasn’t told me the verdict.
I rest my hands on the backs of my hips and stare at the floor. “I’m ruining us, aren’t I?”
“No.” His soft timbre lifts my head.
“This is…” I gesture between us. “It’s painful. Don’t you feel it?”
“Attachment hurts, Danni.” He inches closer, right up into my personal space, and frames my face in his hands. “It means you’re human, and you love to the point of pain.”
I drag in splintered breath. “Does it hurt to love me?”
“I love you so much it hurts.” He leans his face against mine, his fingers curling around my neck and thumbs stroking my cheeks.
“No matter what I do, someone’s going to get hurt. At the rate I’m going, we’ll all be alone in the end.”
“No.” He clenches his teeth. “You choose him or me. Those are your only options.”
What if I can’t choose? It’s like telling a mother she can only keep one of her children and has to let the other one go.
“I want to be your future.” He kisses my bottom lip, suckling on it before moving to the top one. “But more than that, I want you to be happy.”
I tilt my head up, absorbing the sincerity in his voice.
He stares back at me with the flames of dreams in his eyes. If I braved the fire and peered in, I’d see a beautiful future, our forever, flickering in the depths.
With a dip of his head, he kisses me again, deeper, more passionately, touching his tongue to mine as his fingers twist in my hair. We break apart long enough to move to the bathroom and strip our clothes.
Then he kisses me in the shower. He kisses me while we dry off. Then we spend the rest of the night in bed, lips locked and tongues reaching. Deep and slow. Stoking the passion that hums beneath our skin.
I close my eyes and hold him in the dark, my arms wrapped tight around his back and fingers tracing the taut muscles along his spine. His entire body vibrates with the need to touch and grind and fuck. But he doesn’t.
For now, we simply cherish the moment, with our bodies pressed together, limbs entangled as our love spills into the shared rhythm of our heartbeats.
The next morning, he’s up early, working out to his obnoxious music in the basement. I spend the day in the dance studio, choreographing new belly dance routines while trying to embrace Trace’s advice and just be.
Cole leaves for work thirty minutes before I do. Our hours are the same, but I’m always running late.
I dart through the kitchen, grab my keys, and gulp down an afternoon cup of coffee. Then I’m out the door and tumbling into the Midget. Trace had my car delivered the morning after our confrontation in the rain, but I haven’t seen or heard from him since.
As I shove the key in the ignition, something crinkles beneath my butt. I lift my hip and yank the offending object out from beneath me.
It’s a brown 8x11-sized envelope, sealed with one of those string thingies that wrap around a paper disk. I flip the package over a few times, but there’s no writing, nothing to indicate what it is or why it was left in my car.
I leave the car door unlocked. Anyone could’ve put it here, but I suspect Trace was involved. Last time he left me an envelope, it contained a concert ticket to see Beyoncé.
A grin steals over my lips as I unwind the tie and dump the contents onto my lap. A stack of photos spills out. Huge photos, the size of the envelope. I hold up the first one.
What the tits?
Those are some serious tits. Big, round man-eating knockers. The nude, dark-haired woman in the photo has her head tilted back, her mouth in an O of ecstasy, and her legs straddled around a man’s body on a bed.
My heart hammers as I bring the picture closer to my face, studying the naked man. I don’t have to look very closely. The instant I see the snake tattoos on his arm and neck, my stomach collapses and my airway clamps shut.
NoNoNoNoNo. Cole would never cheat on me. This isn’t real. It can’t be.