Page 77 of The Plus One Professional
“I got cold,” I lied. The truth was, in the middle of the night, I’d had to use the restroom, and it felt strange to walk around naked with him in bed, so I’d put on a shirt.
His hand shifted to the front of my body and cupped my breast as he whispered against my neck, “I would have kept you warm.”
A smile pulled at my lips as my entire body lit up with tingles. His thumb and forefinger tweaked my nipples as his thigh moved between my legs and nestled against my sex. As soon as I felt the muscle in his quads rubbing against my core, a shiver of pleasure raced up my spine. He continued massaging my breast as my hips began to grind against his leg.
I’d never come by humping someone’s thigh, but it seemed that Cole was the master of first times for me. I’d never come from solely vaginal sex before. I’d always needed some stimulation to my clit. The first night when it happened, I assumed it was just because it was new and exciting, but then it happened again last night.
I was just about to lose myself when Cole’s phone rang. He froze, and for a second, I thought he was going to ignore it, but instead, he turned and grabbed it off the nightstand. When he saw who was calling, he cursed beneath his breath before putting the phone to his ear.
“Hey, is it okay if I?—”
Whatever the caller’s answer was, it caused him to pull away from me and sit up on the side of the bed. “Okay. Okay. It’s okay. No, it’s okay. I’m on my way. I’ll be home in a couple of hours, and I’ll take care of it. No, it’s fine. Don’t worry. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay, love you, bye.”
He lowered the phone, and his head hung in defeat.
“Is everything okay?” Obviously, I knew it wasn’t and internally facepalmed at my lame question.
“Um, yeah, there’s a situation with some prescriptions.” He turned and looked down at me. There was so much pain in his eyes that I wanted to cry. For a moment, I was sure he was going to elaborate and tell me exactly what was going on. I waited, but he just shook his head. “I just need to get home to take care of it.”
“Oh, okay.” I sat up and started to walk to the bathroom to get ready to go, but I found myself being pulled back toward him.
He was still seated on the side of the bed, and he pulled me in between his legs. His arms wrapped around me as he hugged my waist. My first instinct was to, once again, ask if he was okay, but it was clear he wasn’t. His cheek was pressed against my belly, and I ran my fingers through his hair.
“I don’t want to go.” His arms tightened their hold. “I don’t want to leave you.”
There was a finality in his words. I knew this wasn’t real, we weren’t real, yet I still felt myself tearing up at the thought of this being over.
“I know. I don’t want to go, either.” My voice cracked, and I quickly sniffed back the emotion clogging my throat.
I was not going to romanticize this and make whatever was going on between us into something it wasn’t. I’d spent over half my life doing that. And for what?
Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I forced myself to take a step back. Literally and emotionally. I needed to put this where it belonged. It was an amazing weekend. That’s it. Nothing more.
When I moved out of his embrace, his shoulders slumped as he looked up at me. There was so much going on behind his eyes—so much more than he was telling me. I wanted to ask him what it was. To beg him to let me in. But why would he? I wasn’t his girlfriend. We weren’t together. We weren’t even dating.
“I’ll just get dressed and pack. I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes.” I grabbed clothes from my suitcase and headed into the bathroom. After using the restroom, washing my face, and brushing my teeth, I pulled my hair up in a bun and threw on jeans and a T-shirt. When I came out, Cole headed into the bathroom, and I finished packing.
Less than fifteen minutes after Cole got the call, we were putting our bags in his SUV and driving away from the vineyard. I stared in the side mirror as the entrance got smaller and smaller.
It had only been three days ago that we’d arrived, but it felt like a lifetime. I’d been so nervous about what the weekend would bring; I’d just wanted to get it over with. Now, I wished I could go back and do it all again. Well, at least the parts that I was with Cole.
32
COLE
Oldies softly playedas we made our way down the highway. We were half an hour into our drive, and neither of us had said a word since we left the vineyard. I didn’t know the cause of Bailey’s silence, but I hadn’t spoken for two reasons.
One, I was calculating the cost of refilling Sara’s prescriptions. When Bailey was in the bathroom, I’d emailed Dr. Miller, hoping that he’d be able to call them all in today, even though it was a Sunday.
Carly was hysterical when she called earlier. She’d been trying to do a good thing by letting her mom sleep in. She’d been in the kitchen making the boys pancakes when she realized she couldn’t hear them playing video games anymore. The apartment had gone silent. Whenever you didn’t hear the twins, it was a problem. She found them in their room, and they said that they’d just been playing, but her sister Spidey-senses told her they’d been up to no good. Upon further investigation, she entered the bathroom and discovered empty prescription bottles on the floor. The twins had emptied out all of Sara’s medication and flushed the pills down the toilet.
Her seizure medications, steroids, anti-rheumatics, anti-inflammatories, and pain management medications were all gone. Half of the prescriptions weren’t covered by insurance to begin with, so I knew I’d be out of pocket for those. But since this was an unexpected refill, I wasn’t sure her insurance was going to cover the ones they normally did.
That meant I’d have to use the glass savings money. This morning was a perfect example of why I couldn’t be in a relationship. It was ‘Exhibit A’ in the case against my having a personal life, which made the second thing on my mind totally insane.
As we drove along the highway, I was seriously considering telling Bailey everything. I’d almost told her right after I got off the phone. The look in her eyes as she stared up at me had been so vulnerable, so raw, and so real that I wanted to tell her about Sara and the kids and my responsibility to them. I wanted to tell her that they would always be my priority, but if she gave me a chance, she would be, too. I wanted to tell her that the weekend we’d shared together had been the best three days of my life. I wanted to tell her how I felt about her. That sometime over the past year and a half, I’d fallen in love with her. Hell, I was pretty sure it happened before I even knew her name.
But I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say anything at all. I told myself it wasn’t fair to her to put that sort of burden on her. She’d hired me, or at least thought she was hiring me, to come to the wedding this weekend. She hadn’t asked me because she was actually interested in me.
