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Cole seems to realize this as well. He seems to come back to the present with me, his hold easing. He inches back, and strokes hair from my face. “Let’s put some clothes on or I’m going to just fuck you again and not talk about this.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. He grabs his shirt and drags it over my head. The minute my arms are through the sleeves, he stands us up and sets me on my feet. The shock of him pulling out is more than usual. It’s like a disconnect, a foreboding feeling I can’t even explain.
I force myself to step away from him, and we both do what we need to do to pull ourselves together.
Cole pulls the coffee table closer to the couch, and then his hands are on my waist. “Let’s sit,” he says, and I settle on the couch with him on the table right in front of me, his hands on my knees. “There is something in my past that isn’t another woman, or some criminal activity. It’s just something that affects me. Something I didn’t know still affects me this badly, but it does and that means it affects us.”
My hands cover his. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
“It affects me.”
“I know. I see that.”
“I don’t want it to have this kind of control over me. I don’t want it to fucking have this control. It will affect how I am with you. At least, until I shove it back in a box.”
“I don’t understand what that means, but I want to. And we’ll deal with it.”
He looks skyward, as if he is staring at a million stars above that do not exist, as if he’s in a sea of the darkness, trying to climb out. And all I can do is hold my breath and wait until he’s ready.
Chapter sixty-three
Lori
Cole and I are still sitting facing each other, him on the coffee table, me on the couch, his hands on my knees. He’s looking skyward, battling his demons that are now my demons. I think that is the problem, among others. He doesn’t want them to be mine.
My hands come down on his, silently telling him that I am here, and whatever this is, we’ll deal with it. My touch seems to pull him back out of whatever hell he’s in, and he looks at me. “I went to the jail to talk to the man who attacked you, but he refused to see me.”
I’m not sure Cole should have even gone there, not in this state of mind, but I don’t let myself react. He’s as cool under pressure as anyone I’ve ever known and this is leading somewhere. I need to give him space to take me there. “He blames us for handing the man he believes killed his sister freedom. Are you surprised?”
“Yes, actually,” he says, his tone sharper. “He came after my woman. I thought he’d want to taunt me. And I thought despite that, I’d make him see reason, explain our client wasn’t the killer. I told myself I’d do that because it would help keep you safe.”
“But?” I prod gently.
“It’s a good thing he didn’t see me, Lori.” His voice roughens, his expression turning all hard lines and brute force. “I would have beaten the shit out of him and gone to jail without any regrets.”
“No,” I say, rejecting this idea. “You would not have. You know that’s not the way—”
“It doesn’t matter what I know,” he says, his voice vibrating with anger. “When I walked into that holding room, I wanted one thing. That man’s blood. Reese knew, too. He was trying to talk me off the cliff.”
I swallow hard, hating where my mind goes, but it seems obvious. This is not Cole, except now he has me. “Because I do this to you,” I say. “Because, like I said once before, I’m the poison that—”
“Don’t go there, Lori,” he says, taking my hand. “I can’t have you go there right now or ever. This is not about you. This is about me. You’re everything to me.”
“But?” I press, the question rasping from my dry throat, urgency building in my belly. “Because there is obviously a ‘but’ hanging between us and you’re starting to kill me here. Just tell me, Cole.”
“There is no ‘but’ to us, Lori. No question between us. This isn’t about us. Not in that way.” He cuts his gaze and then looks at me again. “I don’t talk about this,” he says. “I haven’t told anyone this my entire adult life. Just you. This is not for Reese. This is not for Cat. Just you.”
“Just me,” I whisper. “Just us.”
“I shut this out to the point that it wasn’t a problem. Well,” he runs his hand through his hair. “I didn’t think it was and I didn’t tell you, because—I would have. At some point, I know I would have, but I just don’t reach down and touch this place freely or willingly.”
“But my attack made you?”
“Yes. Yes, it did.” He swallows hard and looks skyward again, seeming to struggle with control before his tormented gaze returns to mine. “When I was a teen, thirteen to be exact, my father was on a high-profile case, much like the one we just worked together. He got an innocent man off, which was admirable, back when he still had a human side. He did the work law enforcement did not. He found the real killer, and did so by following the evidence they could have easily followed.”
A knot starts to form in my belly with the certainty that whatever is coming is bad. Really bad. “But something went wrong.”
“Yes. Law enforcement didn’t make the arrest. They were slow to look at what my father presented in court.”
“The killer came after your father?” I assume.
