CHAPTER TWELVE

The question followed Tess through the rest of that night. Cole didn’t come to her bed. For the first time in six nights, he wasn’t beside her, tempting her, teasing her with his body, his lust. She lay in the middle of the big bed, staring silently up at the vaulted ceiling, the loneliness of the room smothering her. God help her, if she couldn’t get through one night without him, how would she handle the rest of her life?

What had she done? Had her desire to experience with him everything his other women had been her downfall? Had her envy, her depravity, ruined the only chance she had to make him love her? She swallowed the tight knot of fear in her throat. Realistically, she had known that her chances of capturing his heart were slim. She just hadn’t expected it to be over so soon.

Realizing she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon, Tess got up, pulling on the bronzed silk robe that lay at the bottom of the bed and belting it firmly. She slipped her feet into soft, matching slippers and left the room. She would prefer to sit in the kitchen, drowning her sorrows in the chocolate mint ice cream her father kept on hand, rather than wallowing in them.

As she stepped into the hallway, she followed the bright light spilling from the kitchen further up the hall. She halted in surprise at the doorway. Dressed in a thick robe, her blonde hair attractively mussed, her surprisingly pretty face free of makeup, sat Missy, digging into a bowl of the mint flavored chocolate, the box sitting temptingly in front of her.

“Great minds think alike?” Missy flashed her a smile as she looked up, waving the spoon in her hand at the cabinet. “Grab a bowl.”

Tess walked to the cabinet and did just that, then sat down at the other side of the rounded table and began to spoon in a large portion.

“Nothing settles the nerves like Chocolate Mint,” Missy sighed. “And I guess today rates as definitely that.”

“I’m sorry,” Tess apologized, genuinely regretful that she had caused her stepmother any pain. “I didn’t expect Mother to show up.”

Missy paused, her spoon suspended above her bowl as she flashed Tess a frown.

“Tess, I’m not upset for me,” she said sincerely. “I’m upset for you and Cole. Your private choices should not be aired in such a manner. Cole was furious, of course, that she hurt you. But I was angry for your sake.”

“Why?” Tess frowned. “We’ve never been close. We barely get along.”

A knowing smile tipped Missy’s pale lips.

“Tess, you fight with someone when you feel threatened, and when you care without a safety net, an assurance that you are cared for as well. I know that. I used to be the same way, until I met Jace.”

Tess hunched her shoulders. Missy’s assessment was much too close to the truth.

“That’s how I knew you loved Cole.” Missy dropped her next bombshell. “At first, it was just general sniping, but as he teased and flirted and pushed you, it became outright fighting on your side. I knew then your heart was involved.”

Tess nearly choked on the spoonful of ice cream she was attempting to swallow. How could anyone, especially airhead Missy, who wasn’t such an airhead after all, know her better than she knew herself?

“Have I lost him?” Tess couldn’t keep the longing, the fear from her voice as she stared back at the other woman.

“Lost Cole?” Missy laughed in surprising amusement. “Tess, Cole has been fighting for your attention for over two years now. What the future will bring, I don’t know. But I sincerely doubt you have anything to worry about for the present.”

This did little ease to her worry.

“He hasn’t returned.” She shrugged, dropping her eyes to her bowl. “Maybe I disgusted him. Maybe I was supposed to refuse when Jesse came in?”

When Missy didn’t answer, Tess risked a quick look.

The other woman watched her sympathetically, warmly.

“Cole is different from other men,” she said as Tess watched her worriedly. “How different, is up to you to discover. But I’ve known him all his life, and I know Cole doesn’t play games. If he invited Jesse, then he wanted it too. He wouldn’t try to trap you, Tess, or hurt you. You have to trust him that far.”

“I’m scared,” Tess admitted, her eyes going back to the melting ice cream. “I don’t know how to handle what I feel and what I want.”

“Do any of us?” Missy’s chuckle was self-mocking. “It takes meeting the man who can give us what we need, who knows, because it’s what they need. I know, Tess, because that’s what your father and I have. A relationship that fulfills what both of us need.”

“Mother never loved him.” Tess knew that, had known it for a long time.

“Your mother has to love herself first.” Missy shrugged. “Now finish your ice cream. I’m sure Cole will be back before the party tomorrow, and he’ll show you then how much he’s missed you. I know he didn’t want to leave and he hated going before talking to you first, but in this case, he assured me it was necessary.”

What, Tess wondered, could have been so important that he couldn’t even see her before leaving?

* * * * *

Tess waited, and she waited. All through the next day, while she was dressing for the party, and halfway through the boisterous, noisy affair she waited, and held onto the hope that he would be back that night. She gave up at nine. She set aside her glass of champagne, put away her hope and walked regally from the noisy ballroom and up the narrow steps that led to the Turret Room. She would pack and leave in the morning. She wasn’t certain where she would go, but she was certain she couldn’t risk staying here, or begging him to forgive her for something she didn’t know if she would change.

The sexual dominance of the act had thrilled her. The utter thick, hot pleasure in Cole’s voice had only spurred her on. She didn’t know if it was something she would ever want again, but she knew experiencing it would be a memory she would always hold onto.

She kept her head down as she entered the room, going straight for the suitcase stored in the large walk-in closet just inside the room. She placed it on the luggage rack, opened it and re-entered the closet to collect the few things she had brought with her.

As she folded the articles of clothing, the tears began to fall. They were hot, blistering with pain, and shook her body as she tried to console herself that at least she had tried. For one time in her life, a very brief time, she was free.

She wiped at the tears, her breath hitching as she moved to the stone dresser and collect the clothing there, then she went to her bed and picked up her robe. The last article Cole had given her. It was then she saw the small, black velvet jewelers box. She stopped, clutching the silk robe to her chest

It was a ring. The diamond glittered with shards of blue and orange, intensifying the gold of the thick, simple band. Her hands shook, her body trembled. Her head raised, her eyes going to the shadows of the opened bathroom door.

“Shame on you, Tess,” Cole chided her gently as he walked from the room where he waited. “To think I wouldn’t come back. I’ll have to punish you for that.”

His chest was bare, his jeans rode low on his hips and fitted tightly over the bulge beneath the material.

Tess took a deep, hard breath.

“You didn’t call,” she whispered as she saw the mask of cool determination on his face, the sparkle of warmth in his eyes that was so at odds with his expression. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

“If I had seen you, I wouldn’t have left. And I had to leave or miss the jeweler before he left. You should have known I had a reason.”

Cole’s voice was cool, disapproving. His eyes were patient, wicked and warm. God, she could feel her cunt heating to lava temperature.

“You knew I would worry,” she snapped out, ignoring the hope, the happiness surging inside her.

“Worry, not have so little faith in me.” There was an edge of hurt in his voice now, as though her tears, and the cause for them, pricked at his emotions. “After taking you, did you think I would let you go easily?”

A sob broke in her chest, another tear fell.

“I enjoyed it,” she whispered brokenly. “You shouldn’t love me.”

“Tess,” he whispered her name gently. “Don’t you think I want it too? That I didn’t enjoy your pleasure as well? It was the first time, baby, and it won’t be the last time. I love hearing your cries, feeling your pleasure, knowing you’re dominated, submitting to me, no matter what I want. Tess, I love you more for it, not less.”

“How?” she whispered brokenly, shaking her head. “How could you?”

“Do you want Jesse alone, Tess?” he asked her carefully. “Would you let him touch you, hold you, if I didn’t ask you to do so?”

“No!” she burst out, realizing the idea was abhorrent to her. What she had done with Cole could never have been done without him.

He came closer to her, standing within inches of her, staring down at her with heated arousal, and something more. Something she was terrified to admit to seeing. What if she was wrong? What if it wasn’t love she saw in his eyes?

Rather than taking her in his arms, he indicated to her to sit on the bed. Tess did so slowly as he reached around her and retrieved the box on the bed. As her eyes rounded in shock, he went to one knee before her, holding the box in front of her as he stared up at her in adoration.

“You’re mine.” He wasn’t asking her anything. “Taken by me, Tess. Mine to hold and mine to love now.”

He took the ring from the box, picked up her hand and slid the diamond over her finger firmly.

“Is this a proposal?” she asked huskily, incredulously.

“Hell no. I’m not asking you anything,” he grunted. “With that smart assed mouth of yours, you’d have me tying you down rather than loving you the way I want to.”

“Loving me?” she whispered as he pushed her down on the bed, following her with his heated, hard body.

“Loving you, Tess,” he promised. “With everything I have. With all I am, I love you.”

His lips covered hers, his tongue pushing past her lips with a determination, a heat she couldn’t deny. Her hands grasped his shoulders, her body arching to him as she groaned into the kiss. His lips ate at hers, his tongue plundering her mouth wickedly as his hands worked behind her back at the zipper of her dress, then stripped it quickly from her body.

He never broke the kiss, or lost the heat of his arousal as he stripped his pants from his hips, kicking them from his muscular legs. He didn’t miss a beat as he ripped the silk of her panties from her body.

“Mine,” he growled as his head finally raised, only to rake down her neck in a fiery caress, his tongue licking at her skin, his hands lifting her against him as they arrowed to her breast. There, his lips covered a hard, engorged nipple, sucking it into his mouth with a groan of arousal.

Tess arched to him, crying out brokenly at the fierce thrust of pleasure that clenched her womb and her vagina at the same time. Like a punch of heated ecstasy, her body bowed as he nibbled at the hard little point, his hand smoothing down her abdomen, his fingers parting the lips of her sex.

“Cole. Cole, please.” She was on fire, needing his touch now more than she ever had.

“Say yes,” he growled as his lips moved down her body, his tongue licking sensually, then his teeth nibbling with fierce, hot nips as he parted her thighs.

“Yes,” she moaned, arching against him. “Yes, Cole. Anything. Just please don’t stop.”

He licked a slow, long stroke through the shallow valley of her cunt, his appreciation voiced in a low, long rumbling moan. His fingers parted her, his lips covered her clit with a heated suction that had her hips jerking sharply, arching to his mouth. Her knees bent, her thighs clenching around his head as he sucked and licked at the little pearl of nerves that throbbed almost painfully.