Fire with Fire (Crash and Burn, Book 3) (A Military Romance) (5 page)

That last sentence pushes me over the edge. I suck one ripe nipple into my mouth, and her hands fly to my head to press my lips closer to her tit. I fumble my zipper open, anticipation making my fingers shake. Then I shove my jeans down and kick out of them and position myself between her parted thighs, her panties once more pushed to the side of her wet cunt.

The tip of my dick poised at her entrance, I pause. Give her a moment to reconsider it. Pray like hell she doesn’t.

Then she nudges her pelvis forward so the head of my cock slides in.

I gasp at the raw burst of sensation enveloping me, allowing myself to push in inch by painful inch. Heat and wetness and, God, her inner walls are pulsing around me, and I can feel every fucking bit of it in a way I’ve only ever fantasized about. “So unreal…holy fuck, Lauren,” I say as I grip her hips and thrust the last bit of my cock inside.

I drop my head to her naked shoulder, draw in a breath. I am not going to fucking lose my control. She trusts me. My heart is a drum, erratic beats pulsing in me, urging me on.

I withdraw and she sighs, her smooth thighs rubbing against my hips, her heels digging into my ass. “Yes, yes,” she moans in my ear. “Don’t stop. Give it to me harder.”

Her asking me to fuck her harder spurs me on. I cup her breast with one hand, keeping the other on her pelvis, and thrust deep. I’ve never felt pleasure before like this, ever. I lose myself in her, her feel, her scent, her breathy exhales, our skin slapping, my dick crying out to spray inside her walls. I fucking love this woman, and every thrust in her tattoos that on my naked skin in a way I know I’ll never forget.

Lauren takes my mouth in a wet kiss, and our breaths intermingle. I pound her rough, loving the way she shivers. I drop my hand from her breast to her clit and stroke. I need her to come on my cock. I have to feel that before I pull out of her. Because my balls are getting tight and I’m gonna come soon.

I feel her walls squeeze my cock, trying to milk me, and I moan into her mouth. “Kitten, you’re killing me,” I say against her lips.

“I’m close, Cole,” she pants. Her thighs start to tremble again, the muscles tightening. Her heels press deeper into the muscles of my ass. “Don’t stop.”

Not gonna happen. I rub her cunt and fuck her good, and Lauren stiffens and arches, her breath caught in her throat. I lean down to capture her nipple in my mouth, lick the tip, and she falls apart all over me. Her channel throbs on my dick and I can feel every damn ripple, and she’s biting her lip to keep from crying out her orgasm.

I continue to pound her with abandon, my body feeling tight, so gloriously tight. I’m going to come, hard, and fuck me, I want to come in her but I’m not going to do that. When I get right to the edge, when I know one more thrust will make me blow, I pull out and grip my cock in my hand.

Her eyes are heavy-lidded and she shoves my fingers out of the way, taking my dick and stroking it right over her thigh.

And I spill. My body is a plank, my balls aching, my spine stiff, my dick pulsing as stream after stream of come pours out of the head, streaking across her bare thigh. Lauren pumps my cock until I’m empty, and I sag against her, utterly spent in every way.

We remain like that for a moment. Erratic intakes of oxygen. Ambient party noises out the bathroom window. The rich, heavy scent of sex filling the spaces around us.

Lauren gives a light chuckle. “Wow. I’m…wow.”

I just nod, then pull back, brushing my lips on her brow in a light kiss. I grab the towel off the ground and both of us quickly clean up. I shove the towel in the bottom of the hamper and tug my clothes back on.

Lauren straightens her clothes too. Her hair is mussed, her lips swollen, and a streak of male pride surges in me. She looks fucked, hard. I made her look that way. I want her to walk outside like this, gripping my hand, and every man out there envious that she’s mine. She quickly re-braids her hair, but that pinkness in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, the moist swollenness of her lips, are still telltale signs.

I open my mouth to tell her we should probably hang out in here for a couple of minutes when she says, still eyeing herself in the mirror, “Okay, so you leave first, and after a little bit, I’ll follow.”

Something in my chest turns to stone. I think it’s my heart. Is she fucking joking? For the last two weeks, I’ve been in hell, missing her, wondering if I made a mistake staying away. Reality hits me hard right now. Lauren’s never going to see me as anything more than a fuck buddy. Her dirty secret, not someone she can hold hands with and actually, oh, date out in public.

I’m the worst kind of fool, because I let myself get tricked into this
again
despite having learned better. I am a total asshole.

“Sure, Lauren,” I find myself saying. “We could even wait until more people leave the party, so there’s fewer eyes out there to possibly suspect something happened. I’ll distract everyone so you can sneak out.”

“What?” Her brow furrows.

I shake my head. “I can’t do this with you. Not anymore. I’m done.” The words come out cruel, but I it’s the only way I can hold on to my pride. I can’t stay here and listen to this anymore.

I turn around and, stony heart chipping to pieces on the ground behind me, leave Lauren behind. For good.

C
ole closes
the bathroom door behind him, and I just stare in shock.

What did I do? The look on his face, his harsh words, gutted me. I was only trying to suggest we leave separately so people wouldn’t know we came to his brother’s bathroom and had sex. But his eyes got a momentary flare of something so deep and hurt the moment before he lashed out at me that it froze me in place.

I hop off the counter, grab a washcloth, and wash down the counter under where I sat, to help me not feel like a total douche for abusing their hospitality. The whole time, my brain is spinning, trying to solve the mystery of Cole’s sudden frustration. When I’m done, I toss the washcloth in the hamper, turn off the bathroom light, then dodge out, through the bedroom once more, heading back down the hall.

It hits me then, out of nowhere.

Oh God, maybe Cole thinks I was trying to slink out of the bathroom and have us exit separately because I was ashamed of us being together or something. My stomach flips so hard I want to puke. I pick up my pace and go into the kitchen, peek in the living room. He’s not inside there, not anywhere in the house.

I can’t let things end like that, on that note. Because that’s so far from the truth, it isn’t funny. How could he possibly feel that way and not see I was trying to be thoughtful? And yet, that look on his face suggests it.

I go out the kitchen door into the backyard. There are still a number of people walking around, kids everywhere. I weave my way through and look for Cole’s familiar form. I have to find him. Have to explain.

My brain won’t stop. Because once I realize that I hurt his feelings, it makes me realize that Cole might want more from me than just sex. Otherwise, why would he be so hurt by this? If I was nothing more than a friend-with-benefits situation, he would have thought my idea was smart.

I didn’t just hurt his pride. I hurt his heart.

My own heart sinks straight to my feet, and I draw in a shaky breath. Make my way to his brother’s side. “Um, have you seen Cole?”

He studies my face for a beat. “Yeah. He just left.”

“What? Wait, really? He’s gone?” Panic wells in me, and I bite my lip and spin around to face the street. His truck, which was parked across from the house, is no longer there.
Shit.

“I don’t know what happened,” Xander says in a quiet tone, drawing my attention back to him, “but he looked like he had the devil on his heels.”

“Do you know where he went? Did he go back to your parents’ house?”

“He just said he had to go and apologized for leaving early.” Xander eyes me with disappointment. “Don’t know what’s up with you two, but it’s tearing him apart, whatever it is. My brother cares about you more than you realize.”

My heart gives a painful throb. “I care about him, too.”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t mean as just friends, Lauren. You need to understand—”

“Xander!” Rebecca calls out from across the yard. She’s holding James in one arm and clutching another kid with her other hand. “A little help here, please.”

“You don’t know where he went?” I press Xander.

“’Fraid not. Good luck.” He pats me awkwardly on the arm then takes off in the direction of his wife.

I plod back to my car and sit in it for a moment, reeling. Truth is sinking into my bones. About why I missed him so painfully the last couple of weeks—far, far more than I’ve missed any of my other friends during our gaps of seeing each other. About why I can’t stop thinking about him. Why I crave him beyond reason. Why I seek him out first before anyone else.

I love Cole.

I don’t know when it happened—if it all started because of that wild Wednesday night we were locked in the basement, or if deep down I was feeling it but didn’t know what it was—but at some point, my feelings shifted from thinking of him as my friend to thinking of him as much, much more.

I love Cole, and I think he might have real, romantic feelings for me too. Not just sexual. I reach with shaky hands and grip the steering wheel. I know he wants me physically—despite his declaration of our friendship back at the bar office, the way we had sex…he was aching for it just as much as I was.

If we become more, not just friends, not just sexual partners, are we risking it all? It’s possible, but every fiber of my being tells me I need to try. Because I can’t just pretend I don’t love him when I do. I can’t be satisfied with anything else.

The big question is, will Cole risk it all to be with me, after the way I’ve screwed things up? I need to get him to sit down and listen to me. I need to find the right way to make him understand how I feel, beyond a doubt, push past my fear and throw it all on the line. He deserves it. And frankly, I do too. I’m scared, but I can’t let that hold me back anymore.

I’m about to pull my car into drive, trying to think about where he might go and if I should follow him or wait until I know he’s going to be back at his dad’s, when my phone rings. I fumble to get it out of my purse, praying it’s Cole wanting to talk.

But the number on the caller ID startles me, and I almost drop my phone in shock. I manage to press Accept and say, “Hello?”

“Hey. You busy? I’d like to talk. If you…if you have the time, that is.” My sister’s delicate, cautious voice fills my ears.

I pause. I don’t know where Cole is, and I could spend hours driving around and not find him. Or I could meet with my sister and hopefully resolve the issue with us. Part of my chest aches at the thought of not chasing after Cole, but I know what the right thing to do is. “I’d like that. Can we meet for coffee?”

* * *

M
y stomach is
a mass of nerves when I pull up at the coffee shop a half hour later. I take a moment to steady myself before exiting the car and walking through the front door. It gives a cheerful ding.

My sister is tucked in the corner table, sipping a coffee out of a paper cup. I’m too nervous to drink or eat anything right now, so I make a beeline for her.

“Hey,” I say quietly.

“Hey.” She nods. Her face looks tired, her eyes a bit downcast. And I hate myself all over again for making her feel this way. After the Max debacle, she looked like this for months—or at least our mutual friends told me she did. She didn’t go anywhere near me until well after that.

I slip into the seat across from her and drop my hands to my lap. Fidget with the hem of my skirt. Shift in the chair. “So.” I clear my throat. Swipe at my messy braid. Shit, I’m so frigging nervous. “Um, I’d really like to hear what you have to say. And I’ll be quiet while you talk, I promise. I know you’re upset with me, and rightly so. I handled everything badly about Cole.” I stop rambling and force myself to look at her.

Christina just stares at me for a long, hard moment. “Okay, I’m not gonna lie, I’m still a little upset at you. You should have told me from the start that you and Cole are seeing each other instead of hiding it. I felt so stupid. Stupid and hurt and embarrassed.”

I want to tell her that we’re not together—at least, not yet, not unless I manage to convince him to give me another shot, a
real
shot—but I keep my mouth shut. I promised to stay quiet. This isn’t about defending myself, it’s about listening to her.

She plays with the rim of her cup, running her finger along it. Stares down into the brown liquid. “So I’m still upset, but…I’m not mad anymore. I’ve taken some time to really think about it and try to see it from your point of view. At first, all I could think about was how this was another echo of what happened with Max.” She looks up at me now, her eyes filled with intense emotion. “But it’s not. I know that now. I can’t be mad at you because Cole likes you, not me.”

I dare to reach over and grab her other hand. She doesn’t move for a moment, then squeezes my fingers, and that massive knot I’ve been carrying in my chest since our fight dissolves. I’m so relieved I could cry. “I’m super sorry,” I whisper.

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, too. I said some nasty things to you that weren’t fair, or even fully true, and I feel bad about that. It was a silly little crush I had on him. I see that now. And it’s fine, I swear—I’ll get over it. It’s a big world filled with lots of men, right?” Christina offers me a shaky smile.

I smile back. “Absolutely.”

“So, what’s going on with you guys? Are you dating?” Her voice is light, but strained. I can tell she’s asking to be polite, and my heart swells even more from the gesture she’s making toward me, despite her discomfort. She’s trying.

“No, I…I kinda screwed up, yet again, and blew it big time.” I can’t seem to muster a smile now, my lungs tightening as I think about what happened. “Seems like I have a gift in being able to do that with the people I care about the most.” The image of his eyes, filled with pain as he looked at me, won’t stop haunting me.

Christina studies me. “But you have romantic feelings for him.”

“I do.”

“Strong romantic feelings.”

“Very strong. I don’t know when it happened, but it did, and…” My throat clenches. I swallow. “I love him, and I hurt him, and I don’t know how to make it right without making things worse.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she says, squeezing my hand in earnest now. Her eyes are kind, and I ache at the warmth on her face now. Once again I feel like it’s more than I deserve, but I so need it. “He’s a great guy.”

“He really is.”

Christina leans forward. “Then tell him how you feel, in a way that makes it clear beyond question he’s the man you want. Don’t let a fight keep you two apart like this.” I know she’s talking about her and me because of the sad smile on her face. “It’s a dark, lonely place to live in when you close yourself off and don’t reach out to make things right, no matter whose fault it is. Pride can get in the way of love.”

“I won’t. Promise.” Tears fill my eyes, and I blink back the rush of emotion and give a watery laugh. “Gah. I’m a mess. Sorry. I’m just…I’m so glad we talked. So glad you returned my calls. I missed you.” I swipe a napkin from the dispenser at the end of our table and dab my eyes.

“I missed you too, sis,” Christina says.

I know it isn’t perfect between us, not yet. But it’s a start. A really good start. And I’ll take it.