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He crouches down beside me, sliding a hand up my good arm to pull me into a sitting position. His rugged face is tan from the sun, his blue eyes brighter than the sky above. “Death of me, you know that.”
“You love it.”
He sobers. “I do. C’mere.”
I reach for him, locking myself on his body as he carries me to the kitchen. I bury myself in his neck, his masculine scent intoxicating my senses. He smells like the Coop, full of fire and brimstone and American white oak.
Cole sets me on the counter, and I wait while he puts on a record.
It’s taken a week for me to feel back to normal. Cole’s been relentless about me resting. He wanted to postpone the launch party, but I refused to let him. His parents deserve it. His brothers deserve it.
We’re having the launch party next week, and everyone will celebrate.
Because the darkness is behind us.
A feat I never thought possible.
In the week that followed that night, Langford’s FBI contact came to Copper Run Ranch. It took hours of questioning, but I told him the entire story. Sammy. His death. Why I ran. Since Please is dead, they can’t prosecute, but they’re looking into everyone who has ever purchased or funded his films. They have a list of men a mile long. A terrifying thought about how monstrous men can get when they want something they can’t have.
So far, the FBI’s recovered twenty girls kept prisoner in houses across the United States. Belle’s facing human trafficking charges for her part in dealing out girls to Marcus D’Angelo like they were drugs.
“You saved those girls, Delilah,” the agent told me. “Without you turning over the evidence, we never would have caught this monster.”
Melly’s safe at home and healing. She has a good therapist. Something I need to get too. I’ll never get over that awful night. Nightmares plague both Cole and me, but we always wake up together.
I survived that night because of Cole. Because of Lucy. It was her voice I heard, urging me to hold on, to fight for myself.
Now, I can get on with my life. Put away my suitcase and find a peace I never imagined possible.
Cole returns to me as the ranch house fills with Hank Williams’s melancholy croon.
“Old music,” I tease.
“Can’t dance to this, darlin’.” His eyes crinkle in a smile that makes my heart leap. It’s the best sight I’ve had all day.
“I can dance to anything.” I stare at him with half-lidded eyes. My heart spins as he steps between my legs and runs his rough hands up my thighs. Nothing restrained or casual about the way he touches me.
The man’s addicted to me. But I feel the same way about him.
Cole removes his hat and sets it aside. “How ’bout I make some dinner, and we sit on the porch?”
“I’ll do anything with you.” I mean it. Anything with him, anything for him.
His chin angles down, the sweet, subtle brush of his lips ignites fire in my belly. He groans, moving closer as I wrap my legs around his hips, trapping him to me.
We kiss to the length of the song, tongues gliding together, hands wandering each other’s bodies. When it’s finished, we pull back, panting.
“Bedroom.” I hold tight to his massive belt buckle.
“Delilah.” His fingers run over my bicep, where my bandage is wrapped.
“But it’s been a week,” I protest, because it’s been too long since his hands have been on me. I arch a brow. “The doctor said it’s okay to be vigorous, cowboy.”
“Dinner first,” he grumbles, and I sigh, yielding to the command in his eyes. The man’s been fussing ever since I left Syd’s makeshift hospital.
“Whiskey first?” I ask hopefully.
Grinning, he briefly steps away from me to pull the bottle from the opposite side of the counter. I smile every time I see that beautiful label with my nickname. Gold woven through a delicate D. In a strange way, I feel like gold’s woven through me too. All those broken, cracked parts, never healed, but patched deep in my soul.
