“I’m serious,” he said. “If you need help making ends meet, you know you can come to me, right?”

“I do,” I said earnestly. And the fact was that I knew more than that. I could go to him about my life. About my hopes and my dreams. And not just could go, but wanted to go.

I wanted to share with Cole. Because this thing between us was more than just sex. It was life. It was us. It was everything.

“Hey,” he said, peering at me. “Contemplating the horrors of having me for a boss?”

“Hardly,” I teased. “Thinking about how little work we’d get done.”

He grinned, but it faded quickly. “Is everything okay? You got suddenly pensive.”

“Everything’s great. I have enough money to cover the mortgage and my expenses for at least six months.”

“That should give you time to find another job. Want me to talk to Tyler about sending your resume out through the placement office?”

“Thanks, but no. I have something in mind, actually.” I glanced at his face, saw his attentive expression, and hurried on. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, now. Ever since I started house-hunting. I think—I think I want to get my real estate license.”

“Do you?” He nodded slowly, as if he was seriously weighing my words. And then an easy smile crossed his face. “I think you’d kick serious ass in real estate.”

Tension I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding drained from me. “Do you really think so?”

“It’s the perfect job for you. You’re good with people, you know how to sell a thing and a concept. You can bullshit with the best of them,” he added with a cocky grin. “Yeah, I think it’s good.”

“You are just raking in the brownie points today.”

“I’ll be sure to cash them in soon.” He turned a slow circle in the room. “Yeah, this place was a great find. It has a ton of potential.”

“In other words, it needs a lot of work.”

He laughed. “That, too.”

“Will you help me?”

The answer was there in the way he looked at me, his words only underscoring the truth. “You couldn’t keep me away.”

I took a moment to simply look at him and soak him in and wonder why it had taken me so long to go after what I’d wanted. Because now that I had Cole beside me, all those empty days before seemed even emptier. And I was determined to fill to overflowing all the days that were still to come.

He tapped the end of my nose. “You’ve checked out again,” he said. “Where to this time?”

“Away,” I said with a grin. “With you. To fantasyland.”

His grin was bright and wicked. “I’m happy to make your fantasies a reality.”

“And I am going to take you up on that. After I get your opinion on the rest of the house,” I said, then laughed as I grabbed his hand and led him toward the second bedroom. “I’m just going to do a basic paint job in here. I figure Flynn can decorate it however he wants.”

“Flynn’s moving in with you?”

“He’s my roommate now, and he’ll be my roommate when I move. He needs one, and I always appreciate saving money. Especially since he’ll be helping build my equity.”

“I’m really not sure I like that.”

“No?” I folded myself into his arms. “Then I guess you’ll have to spend a lot of time right here to make sure I’m being a good girl.”

“Kat . . .”

I’d been teasing, of course, but Cole’s expression looked anything but amused. “Don’t be jealous,” I said, and though I tried to keep my irritation out of my voice, I don’t think I succeeded. “You know there’s nothing going on with me and Flynn. And honestly, if either of us has cause to be jealous, I think that would be me.”

The minute I said it, I regretted it.

“Really?” He spoke in the overly polite tone of a boardroom executive.

I cocked my head and crossed my arms over my chest. “Come on, Cole, seriously? We’re not playing this game. I know about the Firehouse, remember? And I have an idea of what goes on there. And I know that you fuck that girl, Michelle. And,” I added, because I’d gotten myself worked up and was on a roll, “I don’t even know if you’ve been with anybody since me. Because you told me that I had to be exclusive, but you didn’t say a thing about yourself.”

“Is that what you think?” he asked in that dangerously flat voice. “That I’m with someone else when I’m not with you?”

“Oh, hell, I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I’m sorry. Truly.” I drew in a breath. “I’m not sleeping with Flynn. I’ve never slept with Flynn. But he can’t afford to live alone and I’m not leaving him high and dry. And no,” I added, “I don’t really believe you’re with anyone else.”

That was the truth, but it didn’t matter, because my mind had skipped ahead to Michelle and the Firehouse and leather and—and that was the problem. I didn’t know what the and was. And, damn me, I hated the idea that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get everything he needed from me.

Because even if he wasn’t going to Michelle anymore, I knew that he was leaving something on the table. That he was afraid to push me to the edge. That despite how far we’d come, we still had a long way to go. And we weren’t going to get there until he got over the fear that he was going to go spinning out of control.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her. I’m completely and totally jealous of her, but if you say you’re not still seeing her, I believe you. You just pissed me off about Flynn. He’s a friend. That’s all.”

“You don’t have any reason to be jealous of Michelle.” There was nothing flat about his voice now. It was smooth and soothing and full of tenderness.

“But I do,” I said, as he took my hands and pulled me close to him. “Don’t you get it? I want what she had. You shared something with her—something I don’t understand because you haven’t even shown it to me—and maybe it’s petty and stupid, but whatever you did with her—whatever you got from her—I want you to get that from me.”

“Oh, baby,” he said, then claimed me with a wild, violent kiss full of teeth and tongue and power and heat. My head went spinning, my thoughts turning into a jumble, my worries fading to nothing more than mist. And when he cupped my ass and thrust me hard against him so that his erection teased me mercilessly, all I could think was that I had to have him—had to touch him—because then I would know that he was real and that he was mine.

He moved his hands to my shoulders, then pushed away from me as violently as we’d come together. “There is nothing—nothing—that I don’t get from you. You fill me up, Kat. Don’t you see that? Don’t you understand that?”

“I do,” I said, my words coming on a gasp. But that wasn’t the truth. Not really. I still feared that I didn’t fill the dark spaces inside him. That he needed more than he was taking from me.

At the same time, I remembered the phone and the car. The way he took me with such wild passion in The Drake just a few short hours ago. I remembered, and I hoped. And I decided to bide my time. I’d waited so long for this man, I could wait a little longer for the whole of him.