Jenn snuggled into the blankets on Cole’s bed, her arms and legs entangled with his. After their fast and furious tumble into the sack, they’d slowed things down to properly enjoy each other for their second round. His chest was pressed against hers, and the rub of his chest hair against her breasts was absolutely delicious.
“Never waited so long to sleep with the girl I wanted before.” Cole’s voice had gone even deeper and more gruff than usual, and it rolled over her like a sensual caress.
“Not sure that reflects very highly on you,” she said, gasping as he sucked at a tender spot on her neck.
“It doesn’t.” He slid a hand up to cup her breast. “I know I was kind of desperate tonight because of the whole thirteen-month drought, but a big part of it was you, Jenn. I’ve spent weeks thinking about what it would be like to touch you like this.”
She tried not to let those words go to her head, but the warm, mushy feeling in her heart told her she hadn’t been entirely successful. “And was it worth the wait?”
“Are you kidding me?” He pressed his hard cock against her belly. “Fuck, yes, you were worth the wait.”
They quit talking then as their hands roamed and the slip and slide of their bodies became more urgent. Cole kissed his way down her belly, his lips stoking fire everywhere they touched. He stroked a finger over her aching center, and she practically levitated off the bed.
She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as his fingers traced over her sensitive skin, touching and stroking until she was throbbing with need. He kissed her thighs, slowly moving closer to his destination. His hot breath blew across her tender flesh, causing goose bumps to rise over her skin. Then his tongue caressed her, and she couldn’t hold in the gasp that escaped her lips.
His tongue circled her clit, hot and wet, and holy shit, she was done for. He nipped and teased until she’d forgotten everything but the wonder of his mouth and the orgasm building inside her, higher and higher…
“More,” she panted, her hips bucking helplessly against his grip.
In response, he picked up the pace, kissing and stroking with his tongue. He added two fingers, pressing against her right where she needed him, and she came so hard and so fast that she cried out in surprise.
“Wow,” she mumbled as little aftershocks pinged through her. Her insides felt like molasses, heavy and sweet and completely liquified.
Cole kissed his way back up her stomach. “Beautiful.”
“My turn.” She sat up, pushing him down flat on the bed. “I think your poor, neglected cock needs some attention.”
“God, yes.” He laughed roughly, then swore as she took him in her hand.
His shaft was thick and hot, so silky smooth on the outside and like steel beneath. Slowly, she guided her fingers down his length. “No one knows better than me how much bullshit the tabloids print, but to call you small or limp must be one of the falsest things they’ve ever run with.”
“Mm-hmm.” His hands fisted in the sheets as she toyed with him.
“Because I’d say your cock is one of the finest I’ve ever seen,” she murmured, continuing to stroke him.
“One of?” His voice had gone impossibly deep.
“Fishing for compliments now, are we?” She laughed softly. “Colton Nix, your cock is absolutely the most splendid of them all.”
“That’s total bullshit, but I’ll take it.” There was laughter in his voice, and before she knew it, she was laughing too.
She bent her head, tracing her tongue over his tip.
“Fuck,” Cole muttered, sucking in a breath.
She slid him into her mouth, angling her head to take him in as deeply as possible. He let out another rough sound, and when she raised her eyes, the look on his face was something she’d never forget. The sight of such raw need, such pleasure on his handsome face was breathtaking.
She cupped his balls in one hand, using the other to stroke the base of his cock as she worked him in and out of her mouth. Cole flung one arm over his eyes, cursing under his breath. His hips bucked slightly, matching the rhythm she’d set. She swirled her tongue, sucking gently, and despite the fact she was still coming down from her own orgasm, she felt fresh waves of desire pulsing inside her. Watching Cole lose control was a huge turn-on.
“Fuck, baby, I’m gonna…I’m gonna come…” His hips bucked up off the bed, his whole body gone taut.
In response, she tightened her grip, stroking faster as she sucked, hard. Cole cursed again as his release hit her tongue. She swallowed and sucked harder, milking every last drop of his pleasure.
“Goddamn, you are good at that,” he said, his voice raw and hoarse.
“So are you.” She crawled up to place a kiss on his lips.
“I’m so fucking glad we decided to take our relationship to this new level.” He wrapped an arm around her, his expression one of pure satisfaction.
“Yeah, me too.” She’d known as soon as she saw Cole tonight that she was ready to take this step. She’d spent too much of her life waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity. Right now, she was perfectly happy and content to be in his bed. She liked Cole an awful lot, and she was crazy attracted to him. Honestly, it would have been a shame not to take full advantage of this chemistry between them.
They lay like that for a while, just holding on to each other while they caught their breath. Her face rested against his chest, feeling the strong, steady thump of his heart. Ba-boom, ba-boom. Her eyes drifted lazily. It had been a long day…
“I know what we need,” Cole said, just as she’d started to drift off.
“Mm?” She looked up at him, her brain hazy with sleep.
“Be right back.” He gave her a quick kiss and slid out of bed.
She pulled the blankets up and burrowed in as she waited for him.
“Midnight snack,” he said as he came back into the room, carrying two cans of soda and a carton of ice cream. “Triple chocolate crunch, as promised.”
“Yum.” She sat up, smiling widely.
Cole handed her a spoon, and they both dug in. She stuffed herself on an obscene amount of ice cream, guzzled her soda, and turned to Cole with a smile. He grinned back, reaching forward to wipe a smudge of chocolate from her cheek. He set the carton on the table beside his bed and reached for her. “Now, where were we?”
Cole woke the next morning, relaxed, happy, and hard as steel. He glanced over at the clock. Nine forty-five. Well, they had been up pretty late last night…
Beside him, Jenn stirred, smiling up at him, her green eyes bleary with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten. You weren’t supposed to be at work this morning, were you?”
She shook her head. “Day off.”
“Perfect. It’s about to be a day off for me too.” He had a few unimportant things scheduled, but he grabbed his phone and texted Jorja, asking her to clear his schedule. “I propose a day spent in bed.”
“I second that.” She snuggled in close, her warm, naked body pressed against his.
He had a lot of experience fucking women, pleasing them, making them scream his name. But cuddling with them in bed? Not so much. It was nice, though. Maybe he ought to try it more often, although he couldn’t imagine enjoying this with anyone but Jenn.
They lay together as sunlight streamed in through the window. Outside, the city bustled along, loud and busy as always. Instead of birds chirping, he heard the steady rumble of engines, the occasional honk of a horn, and a siren wailing in the distance. He’d lived here for so long that these were the sounds of home.
Jenn slid out of bed and went into the bathroom, returning a few minutes later smelling minty like toothpaste. Not wanting to kiss her with morning breath now that she’d freshened up, he did the same.
“I hardly ever do this,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him when he’d climbed back into bed.
“Have sex with your husband or lie around in bed all day?”
She scrunched her nose. “Well, I meant lie around in bed, especially since today is Thursday and not even the weekend. But now that you mention it, last night was the first time I’d had sex with my husband, so that’s unusual too.”
“Does that feel weird to you?” Because it sure as hell did to him all of a sudden.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice gone quiet, her expression serious. “It’s weird. How could it not be? I mean, we’ve only known each other for a month. You don’t feel like my husband in any real sense of the word.”
“I think it might be weirder if I did,” he said, ridiculously relieved that she felt the same.
“Our situation is bizarre.” She gave him a long look. “And yet it seems to just…work.”
“I’d say things are working out just fine.” He tightened his arms around her, pressing his cock against her belly.
They traded talking for kissing then, touching and caressing in the morning light. By the time he pushed inside her, he was already feeling pretty fucking spectacular. Sex with Jenn was probably the best of his life. Not only because of the mind-blowing orgasms they seemed to achieve together, but because of the connection between them. They laughed together. They made music together. And he could be himself, one hundred percent, all the time. No need for pretenses about feelings, and he never had to worry about anything leaking to the tabloids.
After morning sex in bed, they got in the shower together—which led to even more sex. By the time they got dressed, they were starved, and since it was almost lunchtime, they dove right into the fried chicken and biscuits in his kitchen.
“Why do you even have fried chicken and biscuits?” Jenn asked as she took a big bite.
He shrugged. “I picked up a liking for Southern cooking when I traveled through on tours.”
Her expression changed, becoming almost guarded. “I should know this already, but where are you from?”
“Upstate New York.” He poked the last bite of his biscuit into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “My dad still lives there. He’s an investment banker in Albany. My mom’s living in Las Vegas these days.”
“And they’re both remarried?”
“My mom’s on husband number three. Dad’s on wife number four.” Something of his feelings on that subject must have showed on his face, because Jenn’s expression softened.
“It’s not always like that, you know.”
“I’m glad you’re not as jaded as I am,” he answered honestly. “But I don’t believe in true love and all that bullshit. I just don’t.”
“You honestly don’t think you’ll ever get married?” She seemed to realize the error of her words almost immediately because she made a face and rephrased. “I mean, you don’t think you’ll ever settle down?”
“Not a chance. You’re as close to settled as I ever intend to get.”
“Well, I do. Just as soon as our divorce is finalized, I’m ready to enact phase two of my plan to meet Mr. Right. I want true love and a happily ever after like they show you in the movies.”
“Not to burst your bubble, but I’m not sure that exists in real life.”
She gave him a stern look. “Of course it does. My parents are happily married and so are all my sisters. Kate and Josh have a fairy-tale romance and so do my friend Farrah and her husband. Just because you don’t believe in it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“I guess I don’t need to give you the statistics on how many of those marriages will end in divorce?”
“No, you don’t.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Too many people get married for stupid reasons, like we did. They’re not really, truly in love in the first place, or they give up too easily when things get tough.”
“You seem pretty confident that won’t happen to you.”
“It won’t, because I won’t settle for anything less than the full fairy tale when I get married the next time.”
He hoped she was right, but deep down, he knew that—even if their marriage were real, which it wasn’t—nothing as good as what he and Jenn shared could possibly last.
Jenn sat at the keyboard, eyes closed, listening as Cole played his guitar and sang behind her. His deep, throaty voice traveled over her like a caress, but it was the words he sang that made her heart flutter and butterflies dance in her belly. Not because she thought he meant them. Not that at all. But because she’d written them.
“Ready for you, all night,” he sang. “The only girl in my world, forever and always, all right.”
“I love it,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” He scooted his chair over next to where she sat, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her lips. “We make good music together, don’t we?”
“We do other things together pretty well too.”
A wicked grin curved his lips. “We sure do. In fact, I’ve worked up quite an appetite in here already.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “But we just ate lunch an hour ago.”
“Not the kind of appetite I’m talking about.” He reached down and adjusted himself, drawing her attention to the way his cock had hardened beneath his linen shorts as he played.
An answering ache grew between her thighs. “Well, we’d better take care of that, then.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He tugged her into his lap, and then they were kissing, and it was just as hot and thrilling and wild as it had been the first time. He gripped her hips, rocking her against him as they kissed.
Music began to play, muffled and tinny, and she recognized the ring tone from Cole’s phone. He paused, lifting his hips to drag it from his back pocket, which only served to press her more firmly against his cock, and whoever it was had lousy timing…
“Turning this fucker off,” he growled, swiping at the screen, but then he froze. “Shit. It’s my mom. She’s flying home from London today, so I’m not sure why she’d call unless…” He connected the call with an apologetic look. “Mom?”
“Hi, sweetie,” she answered, loudly enough for Jenn to hear her clear as day.
“Everything okay?” Cole asked, his brow furrowed.
“Oh yes, we’re fine. Our flight got diverted to New York. This man on board…well, I think he had a heart attack. They met us at the gate with medics and everything.”
Jenn sucked in an involuntary breath.
“Is he…did he make it?” Cole asked.
“I’m not sure. They took him out on a stretcher, so I assume he was still alive. It was so frightening, though. I mean, you just never think you’re going to see something like that happen right in front of you.”
“I bet.” Cole looked up and met Jenn’s eyes, because yeah, she was thinking about what had happened to her in Vegas. She’d never thought she would witness anything like that either. Other people’s tragedies were upsetting, but it was something you read about in a news article. You would express your sympathies on social media and move on with your day. Experiencing it firsthand was a different beast entirely, and her lens for how she viewed tragic events had been forever altered because of it.
“Well, I hope the poor man pulls through,” his mom continued, “but the reason I’m calling is that Royce and I are here at JFK, and before we start looking for a new flight into McCarran, I thought, well, we should try to take advantage of this opportunity to see you and Jenn. What do you think?”
“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Today? Right now?”
“Well yes, sweetie. If you’re around, of course. We thought we might stay the night and fly home to Las Vegas tomorrow. Royce doesn’t need to be back at the casino until Monday, but we have a function on Saturday that we need to be home for.”
“Ah, yeah, sure. It would be great to see you,” Cole said, mouthing sorry to Jenn.
She shook her head with a smile. He’d endured an entire weekend with her parents. She would be more than happy to entertain his mom and her husband tonight. And anyway, she sounded like a sweet person, one Jenn wouldn’t mind getting to know.
He hung up the phone with a groan. “Well, there goes the rest of our day off together.”
“Don’t worry, we still have plenty of days where we can make music together and fuck like bunnies.” She slid out of his lap with a smile. “Except…shit, I’ve got to clean my stuff out of the guest room.”
He grimaced. “You’re right.”
“Okay.” She shifted quickly into crisis-management mode. “We have at least half an hour until they get here, maybe closer to an hour if they haven’t gotten their luggage yet. I’ll pack up my things while you change the sheets on the bed. Then we both need to put on real clothes and make ourselves presentable.”
“’Kay.” He led the way out of the studio and up the stairs.
She rushed down the hall and into her bedroom, silently cursing herself for bringing so much stuff with her to Cole’s house while simultaneously cursing the fact that she’d have to move it all back tomorrow after his mom and stepfather had left. But they couldn’t know she and Cole had separate bedrooms, so she was going to have to grin and bear it.
And share Cole’s bed tonight…
That part made her smile. She’d shared his bed last night too, and it had not been a hardship. Not at all. Still smiling, she pulled her suitcase out of the closet and started emptying dresser drawers, stuffing in as many clothes as would fit. Cole walked by as she held a handful of her panties, and the grin he gave her was pure sin.
Thirty minutes later, she’d emptied the dresser and the closet and had gathered all the photos and knickknacks she’d brought with her, carting it all up the stairs to Cole’s room. She hurried back down to get her toiletries out of the guest bath, then wiped down the countertop and emptied the trash, hoping it was clean enough to look like it had been mostly unused since she moved in.
Finally—frazzled and hoping she’d gotten everything—she jogged back up the stairs to change into something more attractive than leggings and an old T-shirt to meet Cole’s mother for the first time. She put on a pink-striped dress that was casual enough that it felt like wearing an extra-long T-shirt but looked much nicer, then went into the master bathroom to brush her hair and put on some makeup.
Cole’s bathroom counter was scattered with his razor, shaving cream, and other toiletries. It smelled like him in here, aftershave and some kind of cologne that was subtle and masculine. Definitely a man’s bathroom.
Well, it was time to girl it up in here. With a grin, she added her makeup bag and toiletry kit to the mix. Just to freak him out, she considered putting a box of tampons under the sink, but she didn’t need them today, and she’d be back downstairs tomorrow, and okay, maybe she was even freaking herself out a little bit. She’d never shared a bathroom with a guy before. She and Chris had never lived together. And while she was more than ready for this next step in theory, she’d never imagined Cole would be the first man she’d share counter space with…
No matter.
As she finished applying lipstick, he came in behind her, taking in her stuff in his space without batting an eye. Had he done this before? No, she didn’t think so. He only did one-night stands.
“Everything looks good, as far as I can tell.” He’d changed into khaki shorts and a Quentros T-shirt.
She rested her hand over the band’s logo on his chest. “Do you miss them?”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “Solo life suits me better.”
In life as well as art, she supposed, although he seemed pretty relaxed about everything that had gone down between them so far, maybe even more so than she had been. “I guess we should go downstairs to wait for them.”
He nodded, leading the way. When they got to the kitchen, she started wiping down the counters and putting away stray glasses and items they’d left lying around.
“Relax,” he said, settling on a barstool. “The place doesn’t have to be perfect. She knows she only gave us an hour-long heads-up to get ready.”
“I know, but…I just can’t help myself. Sorry.” She was a planner and organizer by nature. She couldn’t not make the house as spotless as possible before their guests arrived.
But just as soon as she’d started, the buzzer rang.
“Ready?” Cole gave her a look as he headed for the back door.
She nodded, even as a rush of nerves splashed through her stomach, leaving her cold and jittery. There was no reason to be nervous about meeting Cole’s mom. In fact, if they didn’t get along, it would only make things easier when she and Cole divorced. But still, she hoped they did get along…
Cole pulled open the door to reveal a well-dressed couple in their fifties. Cole’s mother wore black pants and a sequined top, her short brown hair carefully styled. She had a warm smile, arms already extended toward Jenn. “It is so wonderful to finally meet the woman who captured my Cole’s heart!”
“It’s great to meet you too, Mrs. Rinehart,” Jenn managed before she was swept up in a hug.
“You can call me Gwen, or Mom…whatever suits you.” Cole’s mother was still smiling from ear to ear.
“Oh, okay, Gwen, thank you.” Jenn made the split-second decision on what to call this woman who—she realized with a gulp—was her mother-in-law. But she’d always thought it strange when people called their in-laws Mom and Dad. She had parents of her own, thank you very much.
“And this is Royce.” Gwen motioned to her husband.
He had slate-gray hair that was an almost perfect match to the shade of his pants. He extended a hand, his expression kind, if less effusive than his wife’s. “So nice to meet you.”
Cole led them into the living room, insisting on bringing their luggage to the guest room himself.
“Can I get you guys anything?” Jenn asked.
“Seltzer water would be perfect, dear. Thank you,” Gwen said.
“Same,” Royce agreed.
Jenn poured two glasses of Perrier and brought them into the living room, then sat next to Cole on the couch. He scooted closer, resting a hand comfortably on her thigh. “How was London?” he asked.
“Oh, well, it was lovely, but London is always lovely.” Gwen waved a hand in front of herself. “But I really want to hear more about my new daughter-in-law. Tell me, how exactly did you two meet?”