Force of Attraction (23 page)

He set his beer down carefully. “What did you want, Cole?”

“To be a family.”

“With children.” Her gaze jerked up to meet his. “My parents told me. You wanted children.”

Annoyance and embarrassment made quick impressions on her face. “I wish they hadn't. I told them you and I hadn't had that conversation yet. It was our last Thanksgiving. While we were waiting for you”—she ducked her head—“they started talking about grandchildren. They were teasing me, saying you and I were their only hope for grandchildren. One thing sort of led to another.”

Scott watched her with such intensity she felt like she should hatch. Finally, he said, “Were you pregnant?”

“No. No.” Cole shook her head back and forth several times. “Don't you think I would have told you?”

He slid a hand through his hair. “It's old news, I guess. My parents didn't even mention it until a few weeks ago. Just before Dad's heart attack.” He cursed under his breath and sat back in the booth. “They thought you were pregnant. So sure, they expected us to announce it at Christmas.”

“So you think I was pregnant when I left you, and didn't tell you?” It sounded so awful even in her own ears that her throat closed over the final words.

He shrugged, sorry he'd stepped into this tonight. “Look. I was fucked up in so many ways in those days I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want me to be any part of our child's life.”

“Stop.” She reached out and grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard. “Look at me.”

She waited until he lifted his eyes, dark with the expectation of rejection, to meet hers. “I've never been pregnant. Ever. If I had been carrying your child I would have told you.”

She released his arm as if touching him had become painful. “And I sure as hell would have fought harder for us.”

They sat in silence, the music of the restaurant filling that lull with a silly tune about foxes.

Finally, Scott shrugged. “I didn't mean to upset you. Or bring up bad memories. We were having a good time.”

Cole moved a hand toward him. “I would never try to hurt you, Scott. I love you.”

The present tense of that sentence didn't escape either one of them. It just hung there in the air between them because Cole realized that it was true. Love had never been the problem. Priorities and trust, those were the issues.

Scott just stared at her, afraid to probe in any way those three words. If she took them back, it would kill him. If she didn't, it would change … what?

“You hear from Doc Rob lately?”

It took Cole three seconds to remember who he was talking about. Oh yeah. Him. She shrugged. “I might have exaggerated our relationship a bit.”

“How much?”

Good question. Was she ready to say she had lied just so she wouldn't sound like a loser in love, or let him think she was still pining for him? They had barely reconnected when she told that story about the podiatrist. Now, after all that had happened in the past two weeks, that reasoning seemed meaningless.

“Let's just say we haven't been in touch in a while. A good while.”

Scott tried not to feel too happy about her news. But it had him grinning from ear to ear inside. “So, we're free to exercise our options.”

Cole ducked his suggestion. “You sure you don't have any issues I should know about?”

Just like that, all the issues Scott had pushed aside when he walked in on her in the bathroom came roaring back. Hell yes. He had issues.

He had an ex-con on his tail. Had he forgotten? His parents were in a shaky situation, living in a motel until their home was redone. His father's health was compromised and he didn't yet know what the full ramifications of that would be. He was a task force leader with a mission barely under way. He had no damn business trading confessions with her while these things hung over his head.

Panic stabbed his gut. He wasn't ready.

“Let's get the fuck outta here.”

His good mood gone to shit, Scott strode out of the restaurant, pushing past customers mobbing the bar while waiting for a table.

Cole followed closely behind him, confused by his sudden mood swing and getting more than a little annoyed herself. Noel and Sam were on the town. She should never have dredged up the problems of Scott and Cole. Except that he had been the one to bring them up.

Near the front door she stepped on someone's foot and tripped. She would have fallen if she hadn't been caught by strong hands grabbing her by the arms. She looked up into the face of a smiling man. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Thanks.” Cole straightened up only to realize her purse had slipped from her shoulder and fallen onto the floor. She looked around. “My purse! Someone must have kicked it.”

“Let me help you look.” Her savior craned his head to look around the crowded space. “What are we looking for?”

“It's brown leather with— Oh, there it is.” She reached between the legs of a customer and snatched it up.

Her savior smiled as he helped her hoist the strap back onto her shoulder. “Can I buy you a beer to say sorry?”

“Get your hands off my wife.”

Cole looked up into Scott's very angry face. He grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

They were out on the sidewalk of the nearly empty street before he released her.

As he expected, Cole swung around on him, spitting mad. “What the hell was that?”

“That guy was hitting on you.”

Her eyes narrowed at his words. “So what?” She flung her hair back from her face with a hand, fury glinting in her eyes.

“Come on. You don't need that kind of cheap thrill.”

Cole marched up to him and poked him in the chest to punctuate her words. “You have no idea what I want, Lucca.”

“Oh, I know. I know exactly what you want.” He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to him until she was plastered to his body from shoulder to knee.

There was no question in Cole's mind that he was aroused. She braced a hand on his chest and pushed hard. “Let me go.”

Scott's usually mellow baritone was reduced to a dark hiss. “You came with me. You leave with me.”

Cole looked into his angry face, her feelings too complex to pull apart. She lifted a hand to touch his hot cheek, genuine puzzlement in her voice. “Why? What is it you really want from me, Scott?”

A few latecomers rushed into the alley, their laughter bouncing eerily off the brick walls of the narrow lane before they disappeared into the pizzeria.

Cole didn't hear them. She was locked in Scott's arms and his mouth was on hers, lips and tongue explaining in explicit detail just exactly what he wanted.

*   *   *

Scott's promise to himself that he wouldn't touch her until she asked him to was shot to hell. Now, he'd probably made her so angry hell would freeze over twice before she forgave him.

His closed his eyes, dragging his mouth away from hers. But his hands didn't loosen their hold of her waist. “Bad idea.”

“Really bad.” Cole's whispered reply was almost lost in the folds of his shirt where she clutched it with both hands. But she had been miserable for so long, been lonely without him so long, that getting hurt again might feel better than feeling nothing at all.

At the moment, nothing hurt. Kissing Scott felt like the most right thing she'd ever done. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him and go on kissing him until she was saturated with his taste and smell and touch.

She lifted her head and curled a hand behind the nape of his neck.

“Cole—” He sounded as desperate as she felt.

“Shut up, Scott.”

She lifted her face and brought his head down for another kiss.

He moved a hand from her waist down over the fabric that covered her hips where he flexed it under her butt and pressed her sex hard against his throbbing groin.

Yet the hunger building between them was more urgent. It blocked out light and sound as they concentrated on the warm sinuous play between them of lips and tongues. Kissing had never felt better, sexier, hotter.

For two years Cole had been replaying over and over in her head the reasons she had fallen for him. And wondered, had her imagination played her false? First love was like that, swamping good sense with the ecstasy of the moment. He couldn't have been as good as she remembered. They hadn't been as happy as memory said. She just needed to be clear about what she had walked away from, to erase memory with reality. That's all she wanted, a little hard evidence to counteract too many lonely, sweaty nights alone in her bed.

She felt sorry for women who claimed no man had ever kissed them in a way that made them want to strip and get busy right then and there. She'd said as much once, and gotten a tableful of ugly female glares.

All evening long she had been hypersensitive to Scott's every move. He had sat so still as he drove, as if only a certain set of muscles were required while the rest of him remained at ease. As they had walked in silence to the pizzeria, his posture was militarily erect. It was as if he'd only trusted himself on a very short leash.

She'd thought that his attitude was her fault; that he didn't want to be here with her. But now his restraint was broken. Desire, liquid and molten, was surging between them, connected by soft damp lips and warm tongues. He wanted her. He was all but screwing her through their clothing.

Suddenly she had a much bigger problem. She wanted to feel it all again. Everything she'd felt that night in the shower. Only she didn't want this time to be a game between Noel and Sam. This was her very real life. She needed it to be about Scott and Cole.

She breathed in a long shaky breath and tried to think. But his mouth was so warm and inviting, and the hands on her back were cupped and holding her body so perfectly against his that she couldn't catch her breath. And she needed, badly, to do that.

She pressed against him, trying to gain a little space between them, until finally he lifted his lips from hers.

“Right.” He shook his head, as if to dispel a dream. She could feel the tension in him where his hands still held her. The breath he inhaled shuddered through his chest. He wanted her. But he was backing away from her. His fingers were flexing away from her body, one by one.

In the space it took him to unhand her, she clocked about eight good reasons why this was insane before her mind sputtered to a stop.

She reached out to—something, shove him farther away, out of her way, some decisive move that would end the madness. Instead, the moment her fingers touched his shirtfront they curled and grabbed, jerking him closer to kiss him again.

Scott resisted her kiss, not quite trusting her lust. Yet there were no words for what he was feeling. A kernel of desperation struggled to life within him. At any second she could decide that this—that
he
—was not really what she wanted.

He muttered something urgent against her lips but her overstimulated senses couldn't work out the words.

She did register the instant he tried to move away from her. Pride tossed aside, she grabbed on to him. “No. Don't—”

He looked down into Cole's face, which expressed the sexual invitation he so badly wanted to see there.

He smiled at her in perfect understanding. “I'm not going anywhere. We just need to get off the street, okay? Come on.”

He scooped her about the shoulders and urged her across the street into an alley opposite the pizzeria. A few yards in from the street he guided her into the shallow dark alcove of a bricked-up warehouse entrance. He backed her up against the wall, his body blocking out all other impressions of the night. Bracing himself with a palm flat against the wall above her head he leaned into her until they touched everywhere from thigh to shoulder.

His free hand moved from her waist to lift her chin as he dipped his head, blotting out even the distant light.

She murmured something she thought would be a protest but in reality was relief as his lips settled over hers in slow but complete possession.

Her mouth opened under his as he began a slow grind, his engorged cock rubbing insistently against her lower belly through the barrier of their clothing.

She could not catch her breath but this time it didn't matter. She didn't need to breathe. She only needed to feel Scott inside her, as quickly as possible.

“Please,” she whispered raggedly as she clutched the powerful muscles of his upper arms.

Scott was exerting too much control on his body to answer. If he didn't get inside her sweet body and soon, he would explode in his jeans.

He shucked her short skirt up to her waist. Using both hands, he ripped off her lacy panties and tossed them away. He slipped up between her soft thighs and her moan made him growl in response. She was moist and warm. As he parted the wet silk of her lower lips with a finger she whimpered in response.

Cole did a little dance on the tips of his fingers, grinding her sex against his hand, frantic for release and afraid it would once again be snatched away. In spite of where they were, in an alley in sight of anyone who might come their way, she could only urge him on.

This was wild. This was madness. Someone might see them. She didn't care.

She lifted her leg and hooked her heel behind his thigh.

Scott used the advantage of her parted thighs to slide two fingers deep into her sex. Sighing, she pressed her lower body into the push-pull of his fingers. But that was not how he wanted to be inside her. He wanted to cram the full length of his rigid cock into her.

He unhooked his belt buckle and reached for his zipper as the sounds of music and laughter burst from the opening door of the arcade opposite them on the street.

Scott stilled and swung his head in that direction, ever alert to danger.

Cole grabbed his neck. “Please don't stop.”

“The hell I will.” A fire hose couldn't get him off her now. But he watched, his pulse pounding in his cock, until the gamers moved on down the street.