“When it’s finished? A safe place for victims. Any resource they need, they’ll have, right here. Doctors. Counseling. Child Care. Lawyers. Detectives. Food. Clothing. Online schooling. Upstairs? Apartments, rent free, for as long as they need. A day. A week. Months. Doesn’t fucking matter.”
“You’re a good man, Cole Adams.”
“My mother says I have a Savior’s complex. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know. When Cadence died, I blamed myself. Shut down for a while. Hid in the gym. Training was my only outlet, the easiest way to exhaust the anger and guilt. The only other thing that helped me out of my funk was helping people.”
“All those charities you support,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around my waist, laying her cheek against my sweaty chest. “You tried to save me, didn’t you? When you’d insisted I take those self-defense classes.”
She was right. Still, I said, “You’ve never needed saving.”
“I need saving right now, Cole.”
“That so?” I chuckled, turning her toward the elevator. “From what?”
“Take me back to bed, and I’ll tell you.”
Heavy-lidded eyes met mine and, with a sweet smile, Natalie grabbed my hand and tugged, urging me toward the bed. She smelled like sex and tasted like toothpaste. When I pulled her toward the shower, she dug in her heels and shook her head no.
“I’m a sweaty mess,” I argued.
“I want you dirty, Cole,” she said, her voice dripping with need.
The hounds of Hell could’ve dragged me kicking and screaming to the fiery pits, and I would’ve fought my way back, picking my teeth with their bones. Fuuck. She wanted me dirty. Sweeter words? Not in my lifetime.
I gave her dirty. I gave her deep. I gave her hard. I gave her bites and licks and moans and every filthy thought that came to mind.
And when I came inside her, I gave her all of me, holding her tight, panting, “I love you. God, I fucking love you.”
We lay silent and still, only our breaths between us. I was exhausted and sated and so damn happy, and I couldn’t let her walk out of my life again.
Dropping a kiss to her nose, I whispered, “Tell me where you live.” I already knew. Did that make me a jackass? Too fucking bad.
“Why?” she asked, eyes bright and hopeful.
“You know why.”
“Because our mothers believe we’re soulmates?” she teased, snuggling closer, her heated skin melting into all of my empty spaces.
“We are.” I smoothed a hand over her naked ass, then gave her a hard slap, her squeal an angel’s song. “Why can’t you admit they’re right?”
“If it’s true, if you’re my destiny, then it won’t matter if you know where I live. We’ll find our way back to each other.”
She wanted to play. I wanted to beg her to stay.
“You little devil.”
“What do you say?” She pushed away from me, planting a palm on my chest. “Shall we test the theory?”
I’d play along. Anything to keep that smile on her face. And hell, I could use her game to my advantage. “On two conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“I get you every night on the phone, and I get you at least two weekends of every month. You can fly home on my dime.”
She rolled to her back. “I can come home on my own dime.”
“Fine.” I climbed on top of her, caging the spirited, quirky beauty. I’d lock her in a tower if I could. “But I get you every night on the phone.”
“That won’t be a problem, but I have a condition as well.”
“What’s that?”
Her soft fingers grazed my cheek. “You find someone to talk to. You can’t let everything they did to you fester.”
I hated the idea of talking to a shrink, but not as much as I loved making her smile, or laugh, or moan, or fuck—not as much as I loved her. “Agreed.”
Shimmering eyes held my gaze. “This is crazy.”
“This is us.” I kissed her nose.
“How long you think we can do this?”
I’d give her a couple of months, tops. My sunshine wasn’t just a city girl; she was a Seattle girl. From those stormy silver eyes plucked from the clouds, to the vibrancy that flowed through her veins, drawn straight from the pulse of our colorful metropolis. I nudged her knees apart and nestled between her thighs. “For however long it takes you to realize you can’t live without me.”
Natalie
My thumbnail was chewed to the quick. My stomach twisted in knots, and I’d squirted ketchup on my favorite green sweater. And the cherry on top of my morbid Sunday? Three new texts.
I found u
Bitch
You tried to hide
That last message was new. The past few days they’d read U can’t hide.
Now, You tried to hide blared like a bad omen on my screen. I was done. I’d head home, change my clothes, and visit Whisper Spring’s Police Department.
“Where’s Caleb?” I asked, shoving my phone into my handbag.
Monica peeked around her cubby. “He’s following up on the proposal you put together.”
“Good job, by the way,” Brandon added from the other side of the wall. “Not sure how you came up with those numbers, but Caleb was impressed.”
I didn’t mention that I knew the owner of Rossi Enterprises. That I’d had coffee with his wife at their diner at least once a week. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. As far as Rossi Enterprises was concerned, the proposal came from Pacific Regional Bank. My name was nowhere on the documentation.
“Thanks guys. But it was a team effort.” With a smile on my face and a ball of nerves in my gut, I said goodnight to my coworkers and headed for my car.
Wind whipped my hair, and I pulled my coat tight around my middle to ward off the chill. January was in a foul mood. Ominous clouds hung heavy in the sky. The waterlogged earth gave under my weight, soaking my boots with muddy slush from the melting snow.
My focus was not on my surroundings as Dad had
