AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I already tried, despite your request, Cole. She’s writing the article. She’s a champion of right over wrong. It’s one of the things I love about her, and you. She’ll be fine. This isn’t like with your father where he named the killer, or I assume he did.”
“He did,” Cole confirms.
“This person is in hiding, and the truth is, Cat might be driving him back into a deeper hole as we speak. What option remains but to do just what your instinct said to do? We have to pressure law enforcement. And you—you can’t start second-guessing yourself. If you do, that monster in the bathroom wins.”
He presses his hands on the window on either side of me. “Right. Right. You’re one hundred percent right.”
“What happened to the man in the bathroom?”
“He was stabbed to death in prison the year after he was put there,” he says. “Which is one of the reasons I was able to bury this so damn deeply. I didn’t have to think about parole. It was over. I need this case to be over and now I have this idiot attacking you in a bathroom while a real killer runs free.”
I press my hand to his heart. “We’ll make it go away together. All of it.”
He covers my hand with his and just stares at me, his expression so damn unreadable that I want to reach inside him and strip away the past. I’m contemplating how I might do that when he suddenly scoops me up and starts carrying me up toward our bedroom. I curl into him, reveling in the fact that instead of pulling away from me, he’s pulled me closer. He’s let me inside and while it felt like it took forever, it was only a few days before he opened a closed door and let me inside.
We enter the bedroom, our bedroom, and he sets me on the bed, coming down on top of me, the heavy, perfect weight of him comforting. He’s here. We’re here. He kisses me, and it’s not long before his shirt that I’m still wearing is gone, and he’s kissing me everywhere. He is tender and sweet, but when he too is naked and buried inside me, the demons of the past are right there with us, driving his every move, and the tenderness is gone, a rough, hard need in him taking control. I am right there with him, driving away those demons, or trying.
Hours later, he finally sleeps, but I don’t. I lay in the darkness of our room, listening to Cole’s steady breathing, thinking of the way he took control of my financial struggles and while it had seemed controlling at the time, I realize now there was so much more to those moves he’d made. He has a deep need to protect those he loves, and Cole made sure he loved no one. Until me. This moves me in ways that I thought impossible. How could I be moved more than I already am by this man? He’s everything to me. But I am. And I am also certain the storm has not passed, but it will. I won’t give up until it does.
Chapter sixty-four
Cole
Iwake Sunday morning, groggy, and to a beam of light, Lori’s soft curves are pressing into my body, and my cellphone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it and eye the screen to find Reese’s number. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Because something has to be wrong for you to call me this damn early.”
“It’s eleven o’clock,” he says. “It’s not early. In fact, I gave you time to sleep. Get your ass up.”
Lori raises up on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I repeat to Reese, letting her know that I have no answer to that question.
“Nothing is wrong,” he says. “A lot is right. The ADA you met with wants to meet with Cat today.”
I repeat the news to Lori. “On a Sunday?” she asks.
Reese clearly hears her and responds, “Yes. On a Sunday. Obviously, Cat’s article stirred the right hornets’ nest. They want to explore her tips which, of course, came from you guys.”
“Exactly,” I say, watching Lori crawl out of bed, her naked ass in the air, which is a damn good way to wake up for the rest of my life. She rushes across the room toward the bathroom. “Why not ask us? Or better yet, just review the court proceedings?” I ask, watching Lori disappear into the other room.
“Why wouldn’t he go to you?” Reese says. “Because that means admitting the answers were right in front of him. Cat is meeting with him at four. She wants to review the case with you guys, get her sources straight, and go prepared to get this case handled. Can you be here at two?”
“We’ll be there. I’ll have Savage join us, and give us an update on anything he can offer.”
We disconnect, and I stand up, pulling on my pajama bottoms before I text Savage about the meeting. The minute I hit send, I stuff it in my pocket, and I’m on the prowl for my wife for about ten reasons, five of which require her to be naked. I enter the bathroom to find her just finishing up with her toothbrush. “What happened?”
“We’re going to Cat and Reese’s at two to help Cat prep for her meeting.” I grab my toothbrush. “And I’m making sure I can tell you a proper good morning.”
“It was pretty proper about two hours ago,” she says, sitting down on the side of the tub to watch me, and as silly as it might seem to some, this act, just living life with this woman, cuts and heals at the same moment. It reminds me that she’s a part of me now, and already I barely remember when she was not. I don’t want to remember, which is exactly why I need today with the ADA to go well for Cat.
I give Lori a wink, and she replies with a charming, almost shy smile that brings my bad down about three notches and manages to make me hot and hard at the same time. I brush my teeth, splash water on my face, and take her hand. “Coffee. You on the island counter. Now.”
She laughs. “What about the ADA?” My cellphone buzzes in my pocket. She laughs again. “And why are your pants vibrating.”
I shake my head and laugh, reaching for my phone to find Savage’s confirmation of the meeting, even as I pull her with me toward the stairs. God, this woman. Only she could take me from where I was last night to vibrating pants and laughter.
Lori
For the few hours that Cole and I are home, he is several shades cooler, as far as his mood goes. Though he’s still all about heat and fire. In a good way. Those demons from last night are no longer front and center, but more backseat riders now. That is until we’re both finally dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in a façade of casual that feels quite normal as we enter a private hire car on our way to prep Cat for her meeting. It’s then that Cole withdraws into silence, his mood darkening, his hand on mine, gripping tightly.
