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“Are you saying the world is spinning? What is going on?”
“Nothing but what I’ve already told you about the trial chaos. And nothing that won’t go on over and over, and in different ways.”
“I know. I get that.”
“But the hell you went through is fresh for you and you’re about to call your mother, who you almost lost not that long ago. I just want you to know that as you call her, as we go back to the real world that I can’t promise you that world will never spin. I can’t even promise, that I won’t need you to steady it for me sometimes. But know this: I’ll do the same for you. I promise you that we will steady it together.”
“I know that,” she says. “I said ‘I do,’ remember?”
“You did and I’m going to remind you of that many times and ways tonight. Call your mother.” I kiss her hand. “But don’t put any clothes on.” I kiss her and push off the bed, walking to the door to find my phone before returning to the bed to offer it to her. She sits up and shivers.
“I think I need a shirt.” She gives me a coy look. “You can take it off me after.”
“And I will,” I promise, moving back to the door to grab my shirt, which I drape around her. She shoves her hands into the sleeves and I help her roll them up, listening as she chats with her mother, laughing with joy at several things her mother says. When finally the chat is over, Lori’s smile fades as she hands me back the phone. “What was bad enough that you felt they needed to leave the city, Cole? What haven’t you told me?”
Tension rolls down my spine. “They didn’t need to leave the city,” I say. “But I know you. You’ll worry if your mother is in the line of fire. I wasn’t going to let you worry like that.” I stand up and pull on my pants.
She scoots to the end of the bed. “You just put your pants on when I asked that question,” she says. “As if you’re preparing for some sort of battle. And you did so right after you gave me the spinning world talk.”
Fuck. This woman knows me. I go down on one knee in front of her, taking her hand in mine. “It’s normal. The chaos after a trial this big is normal.”
“And yet, your reaction doesn’t feel normal.”
Because you’ve been threatened, I think. I’ve never had my wife, and the woman I love, threatened. But this time. I have. This time there are threats against Lori that I am not about to tell her about in full detail until we’re home, security is in place, and her mother is close by. And if Walker Security does their job, there will be nothing to tell when we get home.
Chapter fifty-seven
Lori
Cole is still on his knee in front of me, tension radiating off of him. I reach out and run my fingers over the stubble of his jaw. “Talk to me. We’re supposed to share everything now, remember?”
“We do, Lori. I’m also supposed to be the person that makes you feel safe and protected.”
“I didn’t marry you to feel safe and protected, Cole.”
“But it’s a need you have and if you’re denying that, I’ll just claim it for you. That need is why you didn’t trust me at first.”
“Cole,” I breathe out, this man delivering so many feelings in me so very easily. “God, I love you, husband, but I don’t need you to make me feel safe and protected and yet you do. Because the thing about life is, that when you have someone you know will endure the bad with you and make it better, you do feel safe and protected. I do—”
He presses his lips to mine, his hand at the back of my head, and there is tenderness and passion in this kiss. There is love. There is just so much. When his lips part from mine, he strokes my hair behind my ear. “Just move a little closer to me if the ground feels like it’s falling. Okay?”
“Yes, but I need to say something that I fear is at work here. My father is why I didn’t trust you at first. He was my hero that was flawed. I’m still accepting that but I don’t want you to think that I need you to be perfect. I’m afraid I’ve made you feel that way.”
“No,” he says. “I get it. I know the hell he left you to clean up.” He kisses my hand. “Perhaps we’re dealing with my demons now, not yours.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have you now. I’m not going to let anyone take you from me.”
Realization hits me, Cole was far more alone when we found each other than I was. His parents are gone. He has no siblings. And yet this man was all in with me from the beginning. I made him fight for us. He did. So very perfectly.
He pushes off his knee, and sits on the bed beside me and takes me down on the mattress, the two of us lying side by side, facing each other. “Here’s what I’m going to say to you before we head home. I’m going to be a bulldog about protecting you. You’ll call it controlling. You might even be right. We’ll fight. And we will talk, and then fuck it out. Deal?”
My lips curve, tenderness filling me at just how honest he’s been with me. “The best deal ever.”
It’s almost twenty-four hours later, near sunset, when our plane touches down in New York City but that sexy encounter with Cole that turned tormented has been lingering in my mind. Actually, I’m pretty sure the entire encounter was driven by torment. I even believe that spanking was driven by his need to escape, not mine, or maybe both of us needed the escape.
Cole has remained edgy, his mood darker than usual, despite him touching me often, despite gentleness and love in his eyes when he looks at me. He’s still fretting and while I don’t deny he’s told me the truth about what awaits us here in the city, I think he’s got a gut feeling gnawing at him. And the man has an incredible gut feeling or he wouldn’t be the all-star attorney that he is. Which is exactly why the minute we’re taxiing on the runway, I dial my mother. “How are things?” I ask, fearful that trouble in the form of protestors or who knows what else might have found her.
