25. Sunny

"Cole? What"s going on?"

For a moment, Cole had been beautiful, his expression tender and soft—revealing a side of him I"d never seen before.

Then, suddenly, that guy—the man who"d given me not one, but the two best orgasms of my life—disappeared, and the Ice King took back over.

He raised up, removing his heavy weight from my sensitive body.

"I need to get back to work," he said as he pulled out with cool efficiency.

Did he?

"Cole..."I began to say as he stood and began to redo his pants.

"Actually, I should take a shower first." He glanced around, like a man who"d lost something. "Change."

"Cole,"I said again."Don"t..."

I trailed off, the "run away" dying in my throat when he swiped his shirt and cufflinks off the ground, making it obvious that was exactly what he couldn"t wait to do. Like getting away from me couldn"t happen fast enough.

"Did I...?"It had felt so beautiful, our first time. But I had to ask."Did I do something wrong?"

He stared at me, like I was some alien who"d somehow appeared completely naked in his bed. Then he repeated in the iciest monotone,"I need to shower and get back to work."

A chill ran all the way through me, pinning my heart to the back of my chest. What he meant was that he needed to wash my smell off him. Erase all traces of what we'd done before he went back to work.

What had been so beautiful for me just a few moments before became ugly. So ugly, tears formed in my eyes without warning.

"Okay,"I finally agreed, forcing them back down, turning my head away so Cole wouldn't see how much he'd hurt me.

Hold on. Just hold on for a few seconds,I told myself. The coast would be clear after he disappeared into the bathroom. Then I'd be free to run back to the guestroom and cry like a not-very-big showgirl without him ever being the wiser. I waited for the click of his bathroom door.

But the click never happened, and eventually, the bed depressed to the side of me.

"I thought you were going to take a shower,"I said when too many excruciating seconds passed without him saying a word.

I raised my head to find him sitting on his side of the bed,watching me try not to cry.

"I feel like I need to get away,"he admitted.

I nodded, the way one does after getting kicked in the stomach."Yeah, that was pretty obvious."

"But I also feel like I"m in violation of one of your conditions."

"Which one?" I asked, honestly curious about how the Ice King processed the emotions of us mere flesh-and-blood humans.

"Number one,"he muttered."Probably number three. Maybe also number two….You"re supposed to tell me when I fuck up, remember?"

I did remember that. I took a deep breath and confessed,"I have some issues, I guess. I should have thought about big ones before agreeing to this arrangement."

"Okay."He heaved an aggrieved sigh."You"re aware I"m not good at conversations like this. I go out of my way in my day-to-day life not to have conversations like this."

"I mean, I guess not officially aware, but not surprised, either,"I answered carefully. I was not even a little bit sure where this was leading.

Did he want me to apologize? And if so, for what? The terms he was so obviously uncomfortable with, or daring to have feelings?

"I cannot express enough how much I would have preferred that your terms be straightforward and quantifiable,"he answered, as if I"d spoken my questions out loud.

I nodded again."Noted."

Silence. Cole just sat there, gripping the shirt he"d picked up off the floor so tight I could see the whites of his knuckles.

"You don't have to talk to me." I was more than happy to let him off the hook if it would end this excruciating conversation. "Just go to work. I'll be fine…."

"Are you upset because I punished you for teasing me?"

"No, that was..." I fumbled with both my words and my feelings before admitting, "Actually, that was kind of hot."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying,"I insisted. "My eyes just got a little wet. That"s over now."

"Then why are you trying not to cry?"

"Seriously, Cole. I don't want to have this conversation with you. Just go. When you get home from work, I'll be fine. I promise."

I couldn't do this anymore. I had to get out of there. Blinking the unshed tears out of my eyes, I made a move to get up, only to have Cole catch my wrist.

"So the deal is I have to talk to you, but you don't have to talk to me?"he asked.

Anger flared inside of me, like the hourly volcano at the Tourmaline."You still haven't told me why you got upset last night,"I reminded him, tugging on my wrist.

But Cole didn"t let go.

"So it's an exchange," Cole replied with a nod."I tell you what you want to know, and you tell me what's going on with you?"

"No! That's not what I'm trying to say—"I broke off with an exasperated huff."Not everything's a perfect business exchange. You're asking me to talk to you, and I'm telling you it's not worth talking about. Please let go of me."

His hand tightened around my wrist."I'll be the judge of that."

"No, you won't because I don't want to talk about it." A new panic rose in my chest."Okay? I don't."

He stared at me for a few cold seconds. Then he said,"My mother said I was a mistake. That having me was amistake. She was drunk and angrybecause my father had left her for another woman—Max's mother. She told me I ruined her body and made my father stop looking at her like a woman. Maybe she had a point because he eventually left Max's mother, too. But my mother died right after she said that to me—like, the same night. So...There"s your explanation for my reaction to you saying the hotel room was a mistake."

"Oh, Cole."I brought my free hand up to cover my mouth.

"And there's that look of pity again."He dropped my wrist."That's why I didn't want to tell you last night."

"I'm not a block of stone, Cole. No mother should ever say that to her child and then die right after, leaving him emotionally scarred for life." I shook my head. "I can"t help it. I'm sorry—like, truly sorry—that was said to you."

Cole made a hurry-up motion with his hand, winding it around in a circle."Can we talk about your thing now?"

I clamped my lips and struggled inside of myself.

Yes, it was true that this wasn't supposed to be yet another business exchange. But Cole had just shared something painful with me, something he obviously hadn't told many other people—if anyone. And it felt peevish not to push down my self-consciousness and fess up.

I crossed my arms across my chest."When you went cold on me right after we finished and decided to take a shower, it reminded me of my ex,"I mumbled.

Cole's face went blank in a way I could tell was very deliberate."Your ex, the do-gooder?"

"Yeah, him."

"I"m thirty-seven. I remind you of an old…" He stopped, looked down, then raised his eyes back to me. "I remind you of the guy you met when he was campaigning for shelter funds, one of the least effective ways to actually raise money for a charity, and so obviously self-serving in every way?"

"Well, no, you don't remind me of him when you talk like the least altruistic man on earth. But when you can't wait to get into a shower after you"ve had sex with me—then yeah, you do."

Cole, who I was beginning to think was incapable of feeling insult unless the word"mistake"was used, just raised his eyebrow."Why?"

"He didn't want to be seen with me. He said dating a showgirl wasn't a good idea for a man in his position. He claimed to love me, but kept me hidden. Like a dirty secret. And he, um, always used to shower right after. Like he needed to clean me off him. And eventually, he dumped me. It was pretty amicable, but I guess it hit on some long-held emotional wounds and left me feeling not good enough to walk with certain people in certain circles."

"So when did you figure out he was married?"

My eyes went wide."Pru saw him with his wife, walking their dog, after one of her brother's soccer games. How did you know he was married?"

"That's the only real reason any man wouldn't want to be seen with you,"Cole answered, as if that were an obvious fact of life. The same as the Strip being covered in neon lights.

Just like that, I went from holding back tears to suppressing a smile. "Really. The only reason? I mean, I'm not everybody's cup of tea."

"The only reason,"Cole insisted. Then he frowned."So now what do we do? Talk about why I was going to take a shower and go back to my office. Is that how being nice and communicating works in synergy?"

I scrunched up my face, not knowing if I'd ever get used to the way Cole saw everything as a business scheme."Yeah, I guess that's kind of how it works."

"Then I have another confession I should communicate." Cole turned his eyes to the window wall, with its view overlooking the east side of the Strip."I'm pissed off at myself right now. I planned to tease you for a while, but I didn't even make it to the end of my lunch hour."

I burst out laughing.

But then I realized from the look on his face,"Oh, wow, you"re not joking. You went cold on me because you couldn't torture me for as long as you were planning?"

"I don't think you took me seriously when I told you I like to be in control,"he said, his jaw setting.

"No, I didn't,"I said with the most sincere, apologetic look."Because Cole, oh my God, Cole.Who cares what you want?"

That was all the warning I gave him.

Before he could stop me, I used my dancer muscles to quickly push myself up and over his body, straddling him and settling into his lap in one smooth move."If that was Cole Benton out of control, that's who I want to be sharing a bed with from now on."

"How do you know?"he asked."So far, I haven't been able to stay in control where you're concerned."

As if to prove his point, I felt him swell underneath my core.

"Mmm,"I said with a delighted chuckle."Tell me more about how you failed the mission this afternoon."

He shook his head, like this conversation was exasperating him. Like I was totally exasperating him."Sunny, I didn't even make it to my pants. I barely got my shoes off."

"Oh, poor baby." I gave him another look of pity, one he couldn't possibly take offense to because it was nowhere near real. "I feel terrible for you."

I let my chest fall against his, and my nipples pebbled as I rubbed them against his rock-hard pecs. I couldn't help but appreciate the fact that he was hard almost everywhere I was soft.

In one particular case, really hard. His erection rose up through his briefs, poking against my slit in a way that made me whisper in his ear,"If you don"t need another twelve hours' notice and have another condom, maybe you could try again?"

There came a pause. I could almost hear the words he was thinking: I need to go back to work.

Eventually, Cole lifted me off him and said, "New plan."

Disappointment sunk my stomach—only to be replaced by a squeak of delight when Cole flipped me onto my stomach.

"Stay there," Cole commanded. "Don"t move."

But the anticipation—not to mention the high thread count of black silk duvet.

By the time he returned from what I"d later find out was a primary bedroom closet the size of my old efficiency apartment with a condom, I was squirming on top of his covers.

"I told you not to move."

"You also told me not to pleasure myself," I reminded him—even as I rolled my hips into his black duvet.

"You like this, don't you." Cole placed his hand on my back, forcing my body to still with just a little bit of applied pressure. "You wouldn't admit it in the hotel room, but you will now. You're goading me. On purpose."

I couldn't see him from my prone position, and his voice was the kind of ice you couldn't see through. Was he upset with me?

"I'm not?—"

"No more lying." He walked his fingers up my spine. Like a chill. "Tell me the truth, Sunny. You've seen a glimpse of my crazy, and you're trying to drive me back to it."

I shivered. "I wasn't trying to…" I chose my words carefully. "…upset you in the hotel room. But I don't want the cold CEO in bed. Here, I like the other guy. The one underneath. The one you've been hiding from everyone."

It didn"t take long to get his response.

His hands circled my writhing hips, yanking me to my knees.

I moaned when he filled me up again, this time from behind.

"Little brat. This is what you get." The way he bit out the words made them feel like an official condemnation. A judge banging his gavel and declaring you guilty.

The weirdest, most amazing feeling washed over me. A delicious mix of power and core-clenching shame.

He bent over my back and growled in my ear, "Don"t move."

He sounded serious.

I rocked my hips backward, pushing myself into his thick erection, taking what I wanted as brazenly as I wanted to.

Cole rewarded me with a sharp intake of breath, and his head briefly fell onto the back of my shoulder.

I giggled."Oh no, I seem to be moving again. Not to mention keeping you here when all you wanted to do was get back to the office and work some more."

I punctuated my words with another backward roll of my hips.

And soon I got exactly what I wanted.

Cole fell on top of me, crashing both of us to the bed as he pounding into me with such force I knew he'd lost all control again. Knew it and thanked the stars for it. Cole was relentless on top of me, pushing himself in and out of my quivering core until he finally growled at me to come.

I did. Hard. So hard that it sent Cole over the edge, too.

He cursed and once again spilled into the condom, his body shaking as he emptied out.

But this time, instead of pulling out afterward, he pulled me to his chest and lay down with me sideways across the bed, breathing hard into the back of my neck as we both came down.

"Oh no, what did I do?"I asked with faux alarm."You were supposed to be taking a shower, and I got you even dirtier. Now I've given you something else to be mad at me about."

Against all odds, I felt him harden again inside of me, and he shook his head."What are you trying to do to me?"

"I have no idea. I"m improvising this all the way," I admitted with a breathless laugh."You might have to punish me extra hard for all of this when you get home from work."

It was just a joke—a silly little joke. But he reached backward toward the nightstand and returned with his phone.

"Um…what are you doing?"I asked, feeling decidedly less vixenish as I watched him type out a message to Agnes with one hand.

"Texting Agnes to clear my calendar for the day,"he answered before tossing the phone carelessly toward the edge of the bed."I'm going to punish you extra hardright now."

I had no idea sex with Cole would induce so much giggling—at least until he started moving inside of me again.