He huffs a laugh—small, tired, but real. I step into the sunlight outside, the breeze brushing against my skin. Behind me, he follows quietly, and even though this day was chaos, pain, panic, and fury…
There’s hope now. Something new is forming between us—fragile but real.
He’s free, safe, and he won the bid. And I’m not letting him go through the fallout alone.
Not now.
Not ever.
12
COLE
There are a hundred things I should be doing right now—like finalizing the Morgan invoices, answering calls from my foreman, checking a material order that showed up wrong—but none of them register when Ella drags her lips down my neck the way she does at the bar. This isn’t flirting or teasing anymore; it’s a claim, and I quite like it. Her mouth is warm and fierce, and it pulls whatever restraint I had like a thread. The room blurs, and the world narrows to just her.
She invited me out for drinks to celebrate my winning the bid, but that quickly shifted to something more charged the moment she got some liquid courage in her.
She laughs against my collarbone, breathy and dangerous. “We absolutely should not be doing this,” she whispers, but her hands are already undoing the top button of my shirt while her knees press against the inside of my thigh.
She’s right—we shouldn’t be doing this. She’s technically my boss’s daughter, for crying out loud. I should be steering clear of her, but how can I when every inch of me wants to pull her closer? We’ve already indulged twice, so what’s one more time? We might as well take this celebration a notch higher.
Her laugh turns into something sexier when I hook my fingers into her waist and pull her up against me. “We should.”
I’m not philosophical; I’m practical. I like plans, hard hats, calendars, and schedules. But God, Ella’s chaos is a plan I can live with. “Come on. My place is the closest. I’ll make coffee in the morning.”
She smiles at me, soft and indulgent. “You’ll make coffee? How confident are you that I’m going to spend the night?”
“I’m not, but I’m hoping you will,” I grin back.
“What about Aria?” she inquires.
“I asked my mom to pick her up when I got arrested and keep her for the night,” I explain.
She eyes me for a moment before leaning up on her tiptoes and kissing me. No ceremony, just warmth, heat, and the kind ofhunger that’s been simmering for far too long. Her mouth is soft and immediate; it’s the answer to a lot of questions I didn’t know I’d asked. I taste tequila, the smallest hint of salt. I taste her.
We stumble—me guided by a gravity I didn’t plan on, her weight a perfect counterbalance—and we are out into the night before I even register the logistics.
I pull her through my front door with one hand, and my keys slam down on the counter, blueprints skittering like startled birds. My house is a mess—boots by the back door, a stack of invoices on the kitchen table, a half-drunk cold beer on the counter—but none of it matters. She bites my lip in the doorway like she’s sneaking something valuable, and I want to steal the whole thing.
“Wanna keep drinking?” she asks, voice thick with liquor and decision.
“No,” I answer before I think. “I want you.”
She blinks at me, surprised, and then surges, closing the distance between us in a single, feral motion. Our mouths crash together. It’s all teeth, tongue, the kind of pressing that makes no room for thought. Her hands rake up under my shirt, fingers splaying against my ribs like they want to memorize the shape of me. I grab her by the hips and pull her into me, her insides flush to my front. She groans into my mouth, and the sound is a match.
We fall toward the couch. She’s on top of me, and the world is out of oxygen. I don’t kiss her gently—I kiss like I’m trying to remember where she ends and I begin. Her hair smells like peaches and perfume, her lips soft and plump against mine.
The couch shifts, papers flutter, and the lamp throws a halo against the wall. There’s urgency in every motion—our hands, tongues, the scramble of denim and fabric. I press my palm flat between her shoulder blades, and she shivers, breath hitching. I hook my fingers into her belt and start to unbuckle it.
“Cole—“ she breathes, a laugh breaking through, half protest, half plea. “Whoa. That’s—”
“Too much?” I ask into her hair.
“No,” she laughs, shaking her head. “It’s perfect, but you’ve never seen me fully naked before, and I’m scared you won’t like what you see.”
The word lands between us like an accusation she keeps firing at herself, and it should be a small thing. I should let it be small. But the sight of shame flickering across her face is like a blow. I yank her close until there’s no distance left, tilting my head so I can look at her. The light plays over her skin, and I notice the faint pale tracks at the curve of her hip, the thin white lines along her stomach. She waits for me to flinch with her or pull away.
Instead, I cup the back of her neck and kiss the hollow beneath her ear. “You’re amazing, every inch of you. You fit me, Shiloh. God, you fit me like—“
