Chapter 17

I glanced up from my computer screen as the surgery door opened.

Cole stepped inside, looking around tentatively. "Hey."

I shot to my feet. "Are you okay? The doctor is in with a patient at the moment but I can?—"

"I"m fine," he said quickly. "I brought you something." He brought his hand out from behind his back and handed me a box of chocolates. "If they"re not the kind you like, I can take them back and get something different."

I closed my hand over the box. "No, these are perfect. My favourites. Thank you."

To be honest if it started with ‘choco' and ended with ‘late,' it was my favourite. With the exception of chocolate covered ants. A girl has to draw the line somewhere.

He dropped his arm to his side. "That"s great. I wasn"t sure if you even ate chocolate. You could have been allergic for all I know." He looked adorably awkward.

I kissed his cheek and placed the box down on my desk. "Definitely not allergic, thank goodness. That might be worse than being allergic to alcohol." My curves were evidence of my enjoyment of both of those things.

He grimaced and leaned against the wall beside the desk, arms crossed over his burly chest. "That wouldn"t be so bad in some ways."

My heart sank. "I"m so sorry. I didn"t even think." Open mouth, insert foot right on in.

He responded with a minute shrug. "You couldn"t have known. My father was worse when he was drunk."

"They often are," I said.

I"d seen it more times than I could count. Oliver donated as much time as he could, to the women"s shelter in town, making sure victims got the support and medical care they needed. I spent a good deal of my time liaising between the shelter and the surgery, and being an ear for the women to talk to. The things they told me would give anyone nightmares.

Cole glanced down at the floor. "I suppose so. Losing inhibitions is a good way to bring out your inner asshole."

"Absolutely," I agreed. "Especially when your inner asshole isn"t buried all that deep." It sounded like Cole and Saxon"s father wore his asshole right on the surface.

Cole looked back up. "Right. Anyway, I came to see if you"re available for lunch? Today. Now. Or soon, or… Unless you"ve already eaten."

"No," I replied. "I mean, I haven"t already eaten. As a matter of fact, I was just about to take a lunch break, so your timing is perfect."

"Good." He nodded. "Do you need to—" He nodded in the direction of the treatment room.

"Ask permission to go to lunch with you?" I asked, only half-joking.

Cole"s face turned slightly pink and a hint of anger flashed in his eyes. "If he"s that possessive that you can"t even go to lunch with someone else…"

"He"s not," I said quickly. "I mean, not entirely. But he knows about you and he"s okay with it. As my boss, I should let him know if I"m stepping out of the office, that"s all."

Something crossed Cole"s face, but I couldn"t put a finger on what it was before it was gone.

"Yeah, okay, I get that," he said. "I forgot you worked for him for a minute. Do you need to wait and take money from the patient?"

"No." I picked up my phone and bag. "The person he"s seeing is someone who doesn"t have to pay. Sometimes he takes on people who can"t afford to see a doctor. It"s something he likes to do for Opal Springs. He"s always trying to take care of the whole town."

"That"s commendable," Cole said. "It seems like he wants what"s best for everyone."

"He does." I tapped on the treatment room door and called out that I was going to lunch. In reply I got a muffled, "Okay."

I turned back around to see Cole"s eyes dipped, midway down my body. He must have been checking out my ass. Next time, I"d be sure to give it a wiggle.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked. "There"s a nice little coffee shop three doors down."

"If that"s where you want to go, let"s go there." He slipped his hand into mine and pushed out the door and onto the street. "I didn"t have any particular plans beyond asking you out. I tend not to plan too far ahead."

"Me either," I said. His hand felt warm and firm in mine, like we fit together perfectly. "You never know what the day will bring, much less weeks and months from now. I prefer to live in the moment."

In that way, I was very different from Cat. She had her life planned out since we were in school. Of course, she hadn"t planned to have three boyfriends, but she"d decided in year two to become a vet. She was going to fit that in between speed skating, and that was exactly what she did for a long time.

Me? I had a hard enough time trying to decide what outfit to wear from one day to the next.

"Me too," Cole said. He gestured for me to step through the open doorway into the coffee shop ahead of him. "Especially before the Ghouls joined the AIHL. That was like being in limbo for a couple of years."

"That sounds painful," I remarked.

He flashed me a smile, showing dimples in both cheeks. "Both literal and figurative limbo for would be. I"ve only done the figurative kind. That was bad enough."

"You"ve never done the limbo?" I glanced over my shoulder at him while I picked up two menus and handed one to him. "You don"t know what you"re missing."

He leaned in to whisper in my ear. "I prefer to bend than to be bent."

My mouth formed an O and heat rushed to my face. "I kinda like bending."

"I know." His breath was warm against my cheek. He took the menu and started to look it over.

I swallowed hard. "I think I"ll have a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and a cup of coffee."

"Me too." He took back my menu, handed it to the server and ordered for us both. The server handed him a table number and some napkins.

"I could have paid for my own," I said.

He led me over to a table in the corner and pulled out the chair for me. "I like to be a gentleman sometimes."

I sat down and placed my bag at my feet. "Gentleman in the street, ghoul in the sheets?"

He sat beside me and snorted a soft laugh. "Something like that." He hesitated for a moment before saying, "About the other day."

"I meant what I said when I told you I enjoyed it," I said. "I haven"t changed my mind. I don"t plan on changing it anytime soon."

His shoulders dropped in relief. "I was thinking we could go out tomorrow night."

"Why do I think there"s more to that than just a nice dinner and a movie?" I asked.

His tongue slid through the gap between his slightly parted lips. He pressed them together and swallowed.

"I was thinking we could…take it a step further. If there"s something you"ve ever fantasised about, maybe we could…act it out." He sat back to let the server place our coffees in front of us.

"As in, you doing whatever you want with me, and me letting you?" A surge of excitement passed through me. "I"d like that. It happens I"ve always had this one recurring fantasy."

I was awoken by the sound of the window sliding open. I"d left it unlocked, but it still startled me. I sat up in bed and looked around, reorienting myself.

"Hello?" I called out softly.

The only response was the window being pushed open further and a dark figure climbing inside.

A shiver of excitement passed through me.

He moved towards the bed and grabbed me, a hand going over my mouth. Strong arms pulled me up to my feet and over to the door.

He smelled like spices and arousal. He was already getting off on this.

Good, because so was I.

I caught sight of the outline of his face in the streetlight that came through the open window.

"Open the door," he growled softly. He pushed me towards it.

I pushed back against him, but he held me hard, shoving me forward again. I grabbed the handle and pushed it down before pulling the door open.

He dragged me over to the front of the house and over to the front door. This one, he opened himself before pulling me out into the night and over to his car.

As we"d figured out in advance, he pulled open the back door and shoved me inside onto the seat. I"d insisted he not put me in the boot of the car. For some reason, that made me uncomfortable.

I flopped down face first on the back seat. My hands under me, I started to push myself up.

He placed a hand on my back and pressed me back down. He grabbed the waistband of my pyjama pants and yanked them down and off. He tossed them onto the base of the seat, right beside me and slapped his hand down hard on my ass.

I jumped slightly and squealed. Fuck, that felt so good.

Again, I tried to push myself up, but he held me down and slapped my ass several more times, until my cheeks must have been pink.

Panting, I flopped forward. He grabbed my ankles and shoved my feet into the car before closing the door behind me.

I lay there half-naked while he slid into the driver"s seat and pulled the car away from my house.

I had no idea where he was taking me, he just said he knew a place. I lay still and tried to relax while he drove for several minutes.

When the car stopped again, he climbed out and wrenched open the back door. He leaned in and grabbed my hand, pulling me out far enough to be able to throw me over his shoulder.

I wriggled and writhed as though trying to get away.

He brought another stinging slap down on my ass and carried me through a stand of trees to a small, rundown house. He opened the door without a key and lowered me onto the old, scratched hardwood floor.

Immediately, I got onto all fours and started to crawl away.

He grabbed my ankle and dragged me back to him. My pyjama top rose up as he pulled, sliding over my breasts, to my armpits. He gripped the hem and yanked it up over my head, using my shirt to pin my arms while his other hand forced my legs open and rammed his fingers into my soaking pussy.

I moaned. I couldn"t pretend I wasn"t enjoying everything he was doing to me. He was driving me absolutely wild. Wilder still, when without warning he pulled his fingers out of me and rammed his cock all the way inside. I hadn"t even known he"d undone his pants.

I cried out in pain, pleasure and surprise. Cried out again when he pounded harder into me than any man had ever done before. He held absolutely nothing back.

This was the real Cole. The animal under the shy, civilised exterior. The creature he made no effort to contain, because I gave him permission to let himself loose. To use every centimetre of my body the way he wanted to.

He pulled out of me, rolled me over and scooted up just far enough to shove his cock between my lips. He tasted of his own arousal and mine, a heady combination.

"Take every bit of me," he growled. "Choke on my cock." He wrapped a hand around my throat, holding me while he relentlessly fucked my mouth.

I took him in as deep as I could, gagging with each of his furious thrusts.

He squeezed my throat a little tighter, until my vision started to blur. His other hand, he tangled in my hair, tugging until it hurt.

As quickly as he had with my pussy, he pulled himself out of my mouth, straddled my body and rammed back into me.

"Fucking hell," he grinned. "I"m going to cum inside you and you"re going to take all of it. Understood?"

I whimpered as though I wasn"t completely into every moment of this.

He groaned again. "Holy shit. Do that again."

I whimpered a couple more times and struggled against him while he held me in place and fucked me hard. The last whimper turned into a shout as I came violently. I felt as though my body wasn"t mine, like I"d entered some universe where nothing existed but pleasure and pain. The perfect partnership of bliss.

Cole came while I was still mid-orgasm, shouting his own release and pounding harder before he went still, giving me every drop of his release.

He finally sagged over me, loosening his grip on my throat and hair.

"Marley," he whispered.

"Cole," I whispered back. "That was amazing."

"You don"t hate me?" Even now, he was uncertain. Even after everything we'd discussed. We'd planned almost every moment of this and he'd followed it to the letter. How could I hate him?

"I don"t hate you at all," I said. "This was a fantasy come true. Everything was perfect."

"Thank fuck." He exhaled softly. "For me too." He rolled over until we lay side-by-side, his cock still embedded inside me. "Thank you. Thank you for not judging me on this. For letting me be me."

"Thank you for the exact same things," I whispered. "Another guy might think I"m crazy for wanting to do this. Not you."

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"A little bit," I said. "I"m going to wear every bruise with pride."

"Shit," he said softly. "I shouldn"t think it"s hot that I"m going to see bruises I left on you."

"Yes, you should," I said. "It is hot." I meant that. Every one would be a sign that we could be ourselves and act out our fantasies because we were comfortable enough with each other to do it. That was everything.

"Then…I should leave some more."