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But it was pointless. He was so strong, it took nothing for him to strap my first knee and then the other, pulling me open. It felt like he was putting me on a pedestal to be displayed for him.
“I’m not done with you, sweetheart,” he said, brushing his hand down the inside of my thigh, eliciting a violent tremor from me.
“Please,” I begged, feeling my walls crumble, the last barrier of resistance evaporating under his touch.
“Mmm, that is such a pretty sound,” he said. “Please what, baby?”
“Please don’t torture me,” I begged. “Please don’t make me wait too long like this. I feel like I’m going to fall apart.”
Cole chuckled as he ran his fingers along my sides, tracing a pattern on my skin that made me squirm under his touch. “You’ll hold up just fine, sweetheart. Trust me.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said, struggling to find my voice amidst the roaring wind of arousal. “Why do you want to push me so far? What does it matter if I come multiple times?”
“It matters because I love making you feel good,” he said. “To see you writhe under my touch, hear your pleas for release—those things bring me immense satisfaction. I want to give you multiple orgasms tonight because I know how much you enjoy them, and I want to watch you come undone under my touch. I want to remind myself that you love me and that you’re not going anywhere. I...” He broke off, his voice lowering. “I want to feel like you’re here to stay. Like we really are okay.”
There was a stark vulnerability in his voice. The sexy menace had faded, and beneath it was a very real uncertainty—an uncertainty I’d partly sown. I didn’t regret my ultimatum. It had been an important part of me learning to operate and set boundaries for my own safety. I’d had to put my foot down so I didn’t become hopelessly enmeshed with Cole.
But the fact remained that it had triggered an old trauma. Olivia had left him, and from what I could piece together, she’d left at the first sign of not getting what she wanted. Remembering that, I thought of how hard it must have been for Cole to be on his own with Noah in the beginning. How hard it must have been to feel like he was responsible for the mother of his own child being out of their lives.
I took a shaky breath. “Cole,” I murmured, “you don’t have to convince me to stay by fucking me senseless. As fun as all of this is, I’m not just going to run away at the first sight of discomfort. And you making me melt into the mattress isn’t what I came to this relationship for, anyway.”
I wished I could see his face. I wished I could look him in the eye so he knew I was being sincere.
I heard a sniff. Then Cole’s hands went to the cuffs on my thighs, undoing them.
The silence continued for a while longer as he unbound my wrists. Then, he slid off the blindfold.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his breath hitching a little. I got myself upright and scooted over next to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. He looked at me, his eyes glassy with tears.
“Cole,” I said, laying my palm on his cheek. “Baby, no. Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I lied when you asked me what I was thinking about. I think after all of the tension between us got resolved, my mind relaxed enough to remind me how fucking broken I would be if you left me. I was just tossing and turning in bed, trying to rationalize that we’re good now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, sniffing and bringing up a hand to brush his tears away. “Everything in my life feels so fragile right now. I thought if we just had some nice makeup sex, I would feel better, but…”
“Did it help?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love fucking you, and it felt good to have you want me. You always make me feel amazing—you’re so attentive and focused on me...but it made me feel like I had something to prove. Like I had to fuck you silly so you wouldn’t see me as disposable.”
“Well, you don’t,” I said. “Cole, you’re so much more to me than a good lay.”
“But you were so ready to leave,” he said, his voice softly breaking.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “I wasn’t eager to leave; I didn’t even want to. But the only thing I want even less than leaving is losing myself in you. And I’m sorry the ultimatum was scary. I’m still figuring out this stuff, and maybe I was too heavy-handed. But I can’t...I can’t be where I was with Wyatt. I can’t be there ever again.”
“Am I like him?” he asked.
“No, you’re not,” I said vehemently. “I mean that. You are nothing like Wyatt, okay? This was just a bump in the road, Cole. I’m not leaving. We aren’t falling apart. And you don’t have to remind me how worthwhile you are by rendering me comatose with your penis. I love you, you doofus.”
Cole laughed. “Is it okay if I need more reminders of that?”
“Of course it is,” I said. “Cole, believe me, I don’t want a monopoly on being the one who always needs assurance. I want you to feel safe and stable with me, even when we’re at odds. I’ll try to be a little more careful with my threats going forward, okay?”
“You can’t blame yourself fully for that,” he said. “I really kept pushing the conversation back, trying to avoid it. I had my part in bringing you there.”
“And now we both know that, and we know a little more about the things that trigger us to lash out so we can be more conscientious of them,” I said. “You know, we got so close so fast that I think we sometimes forget that we’ve only been together for a few months. We have to give ourselves room to learn about each other and make mistakes.”
