Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Well-fed and wined, we slip into the back of a hired car, and I pull her close, my hand on her leg. I never thought about kids until tonight, but with Lori, I want it all. Everything. Despite the punch in my chest when that test was negative, I’m grateful that she’s not pregnant yet. We need to learn us first. We need to get past this one damn case that hasn’t fully let us go, and travel a few more, just because we can. Because we’re us.
We don’t speak on the ride home, but the awareness between us is that palpable intense awareness I have known with no one but Lori. It’s like a burn that slowly consumes, demands, even takes, but you give yourself to it willingly. And that’s where I need Lori, where I almost had her, but she’s pulled back, and neither of us even saw it happen. That’s how much I was focused on how that attack affected me. What it made me feel when I was never what was important.
We arrive at the building and I help her exit, pulling her to me, my hands on her waist as I kiss her. “We’re home. Our home.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Our home.”
I lace my fingers with hers and we start walking when my cellphone buzzes with a text. I fight the urge to throw the damn thing, but I snake it from my pocket and read the message from Royce while we cross the lobby. Once we’re at the elevator, and actually, in the car, I stick my phone back into my pocket. “That was from Royce,” I say, keying in our floor. “He says there’s more to Ashley’s ex than meets the eye. He might be CIA. He can’t get a straight answer.”
“CIA?” Lori asks incredulously. “That’s unexpected. At least that means he’s not dangerous.”
“Royce said CIA doesn’t mean he’s not dirty or dangerous. We should hold for more information. We’re not telling Ashley yet. He wants to wait. We’ll know more in the morning.” The elevator dings and we enter. “And now we’re really home.” I take her hand. “Come on.” The minute I’m touching her again, the air is charged between us. I lead her down the hallway and once we’re in the apartment, we leave our bags behind and I have her hand again, with one destination in mind: our bedroom.
We walk there in silence, and I know she can tell there is more on my mind than undressing. I guide her into the bedroom, but not to the bed. I walk us to the floor-to-ceiling window, and I pull her in front of me, the city lights dotting the inky sky. My hands cage her, and hers rest on the glass. I nuzzle her neck, inhale her scent, and I want to ask questions. I want to ask her how that attack made her feel. What she feels. What she fears. But I know Lori. She felt she had to be strong for me, and she built that damn wall again, that I had to have Reese jolt me into seeing that. The wall has to come down and without knowing it that first night when I spanked her, I had torn a piece of it down. I made her feel safe when she wouldn’t normally feel safe. I have to make her vulnerable. I have to make her safe in that vulnerability and that means taking her someplace we haven’t been. That means pushing her limits, tearing down her guard.
I sit down on the chair behind us. She turns to face me, leaning on the glass, a question in the silence between us that I answer with a soft command. “Undress, Lori.”
Chapter seventy-one
Cole
Lori is still standing in front of the window of our bedroom, the New York City lights speckling the night sky behind her. I’m still in the chair where I sat down, leaving her in front of me and with good reason. I need to be in control and not for me tonight, but for her. I’ve let my past make her feel she has to revert back to the days before she met me when the world was on her shoulders and there was no one to hold it up but her. I made her revert back to a place I never wanted her to be again. To a place where she didn’t know I was there, holding it up for her. And so, we go back in time the way she has, and I remind her that from the day she met me she instinctively trusted me. She let me spank her. She let me be that person and place where she could just let go.
I remove my jacket and toss it aside, but Lori still hasn’t moved. “Undress,” I order again, as I had when I first sat down.