30. Sunny

Well,that apology bath didn"t last long.

A few seconds later, Cole and I crashed through the guestroom door kissing—until I pushed him backward ontothe bed.

"Get yourself ready for me," I commanded, drunk on the power he"d given me.

He didn't appear to comprehend my order at first. Then his eyes darkened with understanding. He unzipped his suit pants. And took himself in his hand.

My breath caught as I watched him watch me, this time while stroking his long length.

He always recovered quickly, but having my eyes on him while his hand moved up and down appeared to make him return to full staff at record speed. Soon, we were staring at each other over the tip of his fully extended erection.

"I'm ready for you."

Yes, he is.

Still, I had to tease him a bit.

"Are you sure?" I asked as I crawled on top of him, my still-wet body creating dark spots on his light-gray suit. "Because someone who I never thought would apologize or admit he was wrong just did. And it's got me all revved up. I"m not sure you can handle this ride."

His staff visibly pulsed, and he let out a wry chuckle. "Fuck, I"m not sure I can, either. But let"s find out."

"What a brave soldier," I joked—before rising up and lowering myself down on his erection.

All jokes fell away, and we both groaned in the new position.

"Oh,Cole, so good."I tentatively began moving my hips."Always so good, the way you fill me up."

"Can"t even look at you. You"re so fucking beautiful." Cole literally turned his head and averted his eyes, like I was too painful to look at.

"But I will not make you regret taking my peace offer. I"m not going to take over. I"m just going to lie here." It wasn"t clear whether he was talking to me or himself. His hands settled on the tops of my thighs, squeezing like he didn"t know where else to put them.

"You"re in control. You"re in control. You"re in control," he chanted. Like it was his new mantra.

I was in control.

And for a moment, it was glorious. I rode him, undulating my hips with the instincts of a born dancer.

But it wasn"t enough....I ground my hips into him, attempting but failing to find the rhythm that always made me catch fire.

I tried everything. Leaning back, twisting sideways, shifting forward so that I could feel the scrape of his chest hair against my sensitive breasts.

But nothing worked.

"Why can't I...?" My undulations became jerky, desperate. Everything was in place, but I couldn"t light the match. "Uh, Cole, I want this so bad, but I…"

"Sunny..." he croaked into my ear, his hands squeezing my thighs again. But they stayed put, refusing to guide me, even as I became more and more unhinged with need.

"Cole, baby, I can't believe I'm saying this, but..." I let my head fall into his shoulder, my voice exhausted and needy."Take back control, please. I think I need you to get me there. Please, I'm so clos?—"

"Oh, thank fuck." He grabbed onto my waist and tilted my hips forward so my clit was right where it needed to be when he began physically moving me up and down on his shaft. "Come for me, Sunny. Come now!"

I did. Immediately, and with a scream, clamping down on him so tight that I took him over the edge with me.

His entire body quaked beneath me, then seized as he unleashed a second load into my sex.

"I"ve never..." I collapsed on top of him, breathing hard for reasons that seemed more emotional than physical. "Is it supposed to be like that? So intense? Is that how it always goes down for you?"

"No." His voice was raw, honest. "It's never been like that for me with any other woman."

An emotion I probably shouldn"t name clogged my throat.

"Could you...?" I swallowed against his chest. "Could you hold me? Like you did that morning after we signed the contract?"

Cole stilled. And I wondered if he even knew what I was talking about. There was a more-than-good chance he hadn"t been playing and replaying waking up cocooned inside his arms like I had.

But then he said, "Let me get out of my suit first."

He lifted me off him, and I watched as he removed the tailored suit I"d dampened—maybe ruined. He let all of the fine items fall to the floor, like they were scraps that didn"t matter.

And then, like a rewind button hit, I was on my side, just like that morning. Cocooned inside his hug. The only difference was neither of us were wearing clothes.

We lay there. Naked and raw. Maybe that was what made it so much easier to talk to him about all my confused feelings.

"I think…I think I might not mind you being in control," I admitted. "I mean, I think I might actually prefer it. And I might even—you know—need it. I don't know the right term for it."

"Submissive,"he supplied, voice quiet. "You want to be submissive to me."

I stiffened in his arms. "I'm not a doormat."

"I know you're not, Sunny," he answered, his voice dry as the desert beyond the Las Vegas city limits. "If you were a doormat, this arrangement would have gone much more smoothly. Trust me, you've been a challenge from the beginning."

My defensive wall slipped back down. "Then why couldn't I get there without you telling me to come? And you were right about all the times I goaded you—acted like a brat so you would handle me. I mean, the way I let you drag me back here to sign that contract, even when I wanted to run…."

A hard note crept into his voice. "Look at me, Sunny."

This turned out to be another one of his rhetorical commands because he reached between us to take me by the chin and make me look at him.

But his voice came out surprisingly gentle when he said, "I know I prefer clearly defined relationship parameters. But we don't have to put labels on this. I like to be in control, and you like for me to take control. This is Vegas. Anything goes. I say we've got a win-win situation here. We win. Not just me. You and me. We win."

I shook my head. "But earlier?—"

He stopped me right there, pressing his thumb into my lips. "Earlier was bad. I went too far. I know that. It won't happen again."

My heart constricted. "I want to believe you but?—"

"Sunny, believe it." He stroked a hand over my cheek. "We only have until late March. I'm not going to risk our arrangement again."

Wow. Who knew the Ice King would be so good at making my heart melt? "Okay, I believe you."

"Good."

He pulled my head back into his chest, and I settled in with a contented sigh—only to risk our newfound peace by asking,"What did Max mean when he said he was wondering when the real Cole would show up? Why did he act like you punching him was some kind of victory?"

Silence. And his heart beat faster underneath my ear. But eventually, he spoke again."After my mother died, I had some problems keeping myself in check, and when somebody pissed me off, said the wrong thing to me—boom. I used to get in a lot of fights. Got kicked out of a few schools and went through a battalion of kid headshrinkers. That's the Cole Max knew growing up. Let's just say today wasn't the first time I've punched him."

"So are you saying Max triggered you?" I let my hand curl into his chest hair. "On purpose?"

"Maybe. I can never really tell when it comes to him. Max and I got in a few fights when we were younger, but we actually got along a lot better back then," he answered. "Caused all kinds of mayhem together. But then my grandfather sent me away to military school, and that kind of turned me around—or maybe I just grew up. I don"t know. But I learned to control my emotions. Enrolled in a combined undergrad/MBA program at Tulane, and my grandfather took me under his wing when I finally returned to Vegas—started grooming me to take his place. Things changed. I wasn"t the guy Max knew anymore."

"So he felt like you left him behind?"

"Actually, I"ve never given much thought to how Max felt about my change," Cole admitted. "But yeah, I guess he"s like Peter Pan, trying to drag everyone back to Neverland with him. He wants the old Cole back, and he's pissed at me for growing up."

"Or maybe he just wants to be close again," I suggested. "Brothers, like you two used to be. But he's afraid you'll never see him as anything other than a screwup."

Cole stilled. "Did he tell you that?"

"No, but that's the sense I got when I had lunch with him. Or maybe you"re right."

It occurred to me: "Maybe I"m just projecting my feelings onto Max."

"Because of your dad."

"Because of Rich Harrison," I corrected, my voice turning bitter."Nora actually deserves her title. Rich isn"t my anything."

"Was Rich Harrison the reason you empathized with Max about his mother? The reason you stole from my grandma"s charity fund?"

Wow.The Ice King was learning fast. And putting everything together with that case of empathy he"d caught.

I was more excited about correcting his usage of the term "dad" than telling him the full story. But wrapped up in his arms, it felt like a willful act of miscommunication to keep holding back the truth, which was, "Kind of."

I took a deep breath. "My mom was basically his kept woman. The way she tells it, Rich Harrison allowed her to have me, but only if she didn"t put his name on the birth certificate. And I definitely wasn"t allowed to be there when he came around. At first, she shuttled me off to my grandma, but eventually, she gave up on trying to keep those two parts of her life separate and gave me to my grandma to raise. It was actually a blessing. I got a relatively stable upbringing, with someone who loved me without reservation—and had colorful friends like Nora."

I smiled, thinking of my childhood, growing up in the backstage areas of some of the Benton"s ever-changing roster of glittering shows, where my grandmother worked as a costumer after she aged out of the Benton Girls line. "I think Grandma had regrets about partying too much when she was raising my mom as a single mother, so she put all the nurture she hadn"t given her own daughter into me. But sadly, life as some guy"s super-secret mistress began to take a toll on my mom"s psyche."

My heart shadowed, remembering Star"s increasingly rare visits. "She turned to drugs to help soothe her, and I guess Rich Harrison got sick of her because as soon as I turned eighteen, he called it off. Anyway, Grandma spent most of her pension getting Mom into a decent rehab center in California. And my mom decided to stay out there. For a while, she was doing great. She got a real job that didn"t revolve around whether Rich Harrison could get away from his wife and kids that week. She was truly thriving. She even managed to stay clean after my grandma"s funeral. So, when I got accepted into Manhattan University for a degree in Dance Pedagogy, I thought it would be safe to invite her out for a girl"s weekend. I even used all my employee discounts to book us into a nice room at the Benton so she wouldn"t have to stay at my shitty apartment."

I stopped. Feeling stupid. So stupid.

But Cole prodded, "Then what happened."

I sighed. "I"m still not sure. Somehow, they got in contact with each other. And I guess they hooked up, and Rich Harrison insinuated that now that my mom was clean and he was retiring soon, she could move back to Vegas. It could be like before. My mom was so happy, talking about staying here instead of going back to California. But then, when she tried to call him, she discovered that he"d blocked her, like everywhere. That was how she found out he'd changed his mind about them getting back together. And I"d been practically bragging about how Nora had put me in charge of Grandma"s charity fund. I guess she must have seen an opportunity when my laptop was open, and she also had access to my ID and all of my government information. Plus, she"s always been great about upkeep. Even with the years of drug use, she could easily pass for a woman in her thirties."

My face grew hot with shame, remembering how I didn"t put all of this together until it was too late. "Basically, she pretended to be me and went on another bender with all the money she withdrew from the charity fund. Anyway, I eventually found her in a place that made that apartment you got me evicted from look like a palace. Most of the money was gone—just gone. I never got a clear answer from her about whether it went to drugs or if it was stolen, but we agreed she could keep the rest if she used it to go to rehab. And that"s why it"s only kind of Rich Harrison"s fault. Really, it"s all mine for inviting her back to Vegas to celebrate with me—especially when I knew all of her triggers."

That was the story. I finally stopped talking and waited for Cole to respond to finding out that he"d made an arrangement with a complete idiot.

"So she drained a charity fund you were in charge of, and you think it"s your fault?"

"I"m the one who invited her back here—just when her life was going good."

Cole grunted. "And you didn"t tell me the full story from the start because you knew I"d go after her."

"Wouldn"t you have? Wouldn"t you still if I hadn"t added that Be Nice item to my relationship terms?"

To his credit, Cole didn"t even try to lie. "That"s exactly what I would have done. But you know it"s not your fault, Sunny. None of the fucked-up things our parents do is our fault. That"s just something we tell ourselves after they leave us to deal with the emotional fallout."

His words circled around my mind, like a plane that wanted to land but couldn"t because of the bad weather.

I backed away from what he was trying to tell me by returning to the original subject. "Main point, that"s why you never had anything to worry about with Max. I would never knowingly cheat on anyone. That"s why the breakup with my ex—whose name was Henry, by the way—devastated me. I hated thinking I"d become my mother."

"You could never be your mother. And I shouldn"t have accused you." Cole"s arms loosened around me. I thought maybe he was going to end the conversation by letting me out of his hold. But then he said,"My father left my mother for Max's."

"Yeah, I remember you telling me that before. Is that why you got so angry when you saw us together?"

"No, I got so angry because Max's mother was my mother's sister. My aunt. Like you, I didn't like the idea of reliving that piece of history with my own brother."

Understanding dawned, and suddenly, it wasn't just Cole holding me anymore. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Oh, my gosh, that explains so much. Thank you for telling me. Thank you."

I guess he must have been just as emotionally exhausted as me. He accepted my comforting hug without a fight.

"The point is, I've learned the hard way that when I start to get out of control like that, I need to reign myself in," he said into my shoulder. "I turn off my feelings like a switch until I can trust myself again. It"s part of one of the many programs I went through—one I privately call Rage Control.The thing is, I forgot the second step of Rage Control. Turn off your emotions and remove yourself from the situation. I didn't remove myself from the situation like I should have when we got back here. I couldn"t. I know this relationship is fake with a self-destruct timer on it. But for some reason..."

He didn"t finish. But he didn"t have to.

"I understand exactly how you feel," I answered with a wry chuff. "The line between fake and real is getting blurry for me, too, but..."

I leaned back to say, "You like to be in control. I kind of like when you're in control. But it becomes weird when you'retooin control. So how about this? For the rest of this arrangement, you can be in control. I'll do whatever you say. But if I want control back for any reason..."

"It's yours," he agreed quickly. "Those are fair terms."

Then he smiled and brought his hand back up to my face. "You know what, Sunny?" he asked, caressing my cheek with his thumb.

"What?" I asked as his lips hovered over mine.

"I like all of your terms."

"You do?"

"I do."He kissed me once, twice. "No more fights. No more misunderstandings. Until our expiration date in March. Agreed?"

"Agreed," I whispered, ignoring the twinge of pain that came with the thought of our contract-mandated breakup in March.

For once, I must have done a good job of acting the part. Cole took my mouth in a devouring kiss.

And for the rest of the afternoon, he showed me why it wasn"t a bad idea at all to let him be in control.