“What about the son?” I asked. “Maybe he can talk to his father and—”
“No,” Cole said firmly. “I did talk to him, and you’re right about Michael. He’s a hell of a lot more reasonable. But it’s Daddy’s show and it’s going to stay Daddy’s show until the old man kicks the bucket.”
“You can’t force that along.”
“Dammit, Kat, I can. I can and I will. Don’t you get it? Don’t you fucking get it? I love you, goddammit,” he said, and the passion in his voice nearly knocked me over.
“I love you, and I will take care of you. I will protect you. I will protect your father. I will goddamn make sure that nothing happens to you—that nothing happens to your father—and that these goddamn photos do not ever—ever—see the light of day.”
He’d pushed away from the table as he spoke and had moved toward me, forcing me backward to the far wall. Now he had me trapped there, a rack of shotguns to my left.
I was caged in his arms, breathing hard, trying to find the magic words to make him stop and back up. To make him think and figure something else out. Because there had to be a way out. Because I couldn’t live like this. Couldn’t live in the nightmare that was crashing down all around me.
“You’re all that matters, Kat. Ilya Muratti sure as hell doesn’t. He’s nothing to us.” He pulled me close and kissed me hard. “Say it, Catalina. Tell me he’s nothing.”
“He’s nothing,” I said, then pulled him roughly back to me. I needed his touch, his hands. I needed it rough and hard and wild.
I had no idea how we would get through this. How we could find an out that wouldn’t destroy him or me, but I knew that we had to. I knew, because we had to be together. Because I had to be the woman in Cole’s arms—and he had to be the man in mine.
“Christ, Kat,” he said, ripping my T-shirt up over my head. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me? Do you have any idea the extent I would go to keep you safe?”
“I do,” I said, fumbling to get out of my jeans, kicking them off, tugging at his. We were wild, frenzied. I needed everything from him then. I needed his protection, his touch, his love.
Dammit, we fit. Not just in sex, but in life. In the way we approached the world. In the day to day.
Most of all, in love.
“Kat,” he murmured, then lowered his head to my breast. I hadn’t bothered with a bra, and his mouth closed over me, sucking, teasing, biting. Sending ribbons of sensation coursing through me, shooting from my breast to my clit so that I was squirming under his touch, so aroused right then that I boldly slid my own hand down and stroked my own wet sex.
“God, yes,” he said, closing his hand over mine. “Do you know how hot that is? How hard it makes me to know that you’re turned on. That you want me?”
“There’s never a moment that I don’t want you,” I said, admitting everything to him, because he already knew it anyway, and there was nothing left to hide from this man. “Please,” I said, hooking my arms around his neck and then pulling him to the ground with me. “I need you inside me. Now. Please, Cole, now.”
He didn’t hesitate, and as I spread myself open for this man I adored, he buried himself inside me, his body pounding against me, as if by the force of the motion he could make the world outside of us go away.
“I love you,” I said as I felt the pleasure rising up and curling around me.
“I love you,” I repeated, because I needed to know that he’d heard it, too.
“Everything you are,” I said as he thrust harder and deeper, as if each pounding attack on my body was meant to punish himself. “Everything you’ve done. Don’t you get it, Cole? You’ve stripped me raw and put me back together again, and I love you for it. I love you desperately.
“You gave me the world,” I said, as I felt his body tighten inside mine, then shudder in the sweet throes of release.
“You gave me everything,” I said, as my own orgasm rolled through my body like a shock.
“Don’t take it away from me,” I murmured, my body sated and my voice exhausted. “Don’t rip it all out from under me. You promised me once that you wouldn’t ever leave me. I couldn’t stand it if you did. You have to know I couldn’t stand it.”
He pulled me close, breathing hard. “But you could withstand those pictures being in the world?”
“If that’s what it takes,” I said, realizing for the first time the full extent of what I’d been saying to him. “It would be awful. But if that’s what it takes to stay with you—to really and truly stay with you—then I could handle that and more.”
He was silent, and I groaned in frustration. “Dammit, Cole, what do I have to do to prove it to you? Send the photos out as goddamn Christmas cards?”
He pulled me close, his body shaking a little with what I finally realized was laughter. “Probably nothing that extreme,” he said. “But, Kat, I need to know that you’re sure.”
“I am.” I stroked his head, his face. I looked into his eyes, because I needed to make sure he understood just how deeply I felt these words. “I can survive anything if I know you’re at my side. If you really want to protect me, take me away. Take me to Europe or New Zealand or some tropical island so I’m not near the Internet or television or people I know. But don’t do anything that risks them taking you away from me. Because I will tell you right now—if they arrest you or if Muratti’s people hunt you down, it will kill me. And that will be on you.”
He studied me. “You’re really sure?”