the west wing. He’d warned it was a forbidden place to me…unless I wanted to get trapped in his bedroom.
Once upon a time, it was just a tease.
Tonight, I wanted to make it a reality.
It had been four days since our kiss—four days of avoiding him and sneaking through a house large enough to lose myself and still end up in his shadow. The Monarchs were away again this week, flying out tomorrow morning for the west coast game. Not many men went to bed early on a Friday night, and Cole was no exception.
I knocked, and it was like he knew I was coming.
I stepped into the largest chamber in the mansion, a room complete with crimson accented sitting parlor, full master bath, and a beautiful balcony overlooking the rose garden. My apartment might have fit within the walls, but the dark, sullen decor cast it in shadows. It made the space draw close. Smaller. Confined.
His own cage.
Black sheets draped his bed. Silk. Regal. Could a bed be intimidating?
“Did you get lost, beautiful?” His words rumbled through me, layering me in a curtain of shivers. “You know what happens to little girls alone in the woods.”
“Am I interrupting you?”
“Interrupting me?” His eyes flashed—blue and fierce. “I haven’t seen you for days. That’s one epic game of hide and seek you and Rosie are playing.”
“I needed time to think.”
“And I suppose you’re here to drop a grand revelation on me?”
“Something like that.”
I set the baby monitor on the couch, volume up. Rose didn’t make a sound.
I paced the room. How many women had been to the lair of The Beast? Any he liked? None of them? Cole talked about his prowess, but I couldn’t imagine him sharing his home, his space, his life with anyone. He didn’t do small-talk, and he couldn’t handle intimacy. Cole knew what he wanted, and any woman crazy enough to give herself to him understood what he had planned.
Was I that brave?
That stupid?
That curious?
“A little over two years ago, I got pregnant,” I said. “And I gave up everything. My education. College. My life.”
Cole let me talk. He hadn’t judged me, not like the rest of the world when I announced the pregnancy or held Rose on my hip without wearing a wedding ring. He was obviously terrified of my baby, but it hadn’t changed his opinion of me.
That was a rare quality in a man. In a person.
In a friend.
And I hadn’t considered him a friend until now.
“I haven’t had romance in my life,” I said.
Cole’s smirk grew. “You got pregnant without any romance?”
“Jasper wasn’t the most attentive.”
Cole crossed his arms, the muscles in his bare chest tensing. “I don’t know how a man could take his eyes off you, let alone his hands.”
That was the idea, and the rough growl in his words sent an intense shiver along my spine.
“I studied French literature,” I said. “The classics. But I was always looking for passion. Excitement. That moment of pure romance and ecstasy. It was my own little adventure without stepping foot outside the library. It was…safe.”
Cole exhaled. “There’s nothing’s safe in here, beautiful.”
“Do you promise?”
“Feeling brave?”
I was feeling a lot of things. “I spent my life wanting more than what I’ve been given—more than an office job or a loveless marriage of convenience that would only benefit my husband. But I got stuck longing for that life-altering moment for me and Rose.” I met his gaze. “I never chased after that wild unknown that I wanted. I didn’t know how to find it.”
“Until now,” he said.
“Until now.”
His jaw clenched. A warning or an invitation?
I don’t know why I explained myself to a man who wasn’t moved by grand declarations and moments of revelation. Cole acted. He took. He seized. Nothing about a night in his arms was cerebral or planned—it just was. Uninhibited and passionate.
Everything that once scared me.
The only thing I wanted.
“I need you,” I whispered. “For one night. Just to feel it. To experience it—and you. That power and strength and danger.”
“And what makes you think I’d give it to you?”
“Because I know how much you want me. You can’t stop looking at me. I felt it in your arms. I tasted it in your kiss. And I want you too, Cole.”
“Do you?” His voice lowered. “You want The Beast?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Was it my imagination, or did he grow? Cole towered over me, a pillar of muscle and fierceness that promised the ravishment I craved. Dark, despite the fairy tale blue