Ever After (32 page)

But Cole had never gotten to experience the fairy tale ending, had he?

I looked down, afraid to meet his gaze as I inched toward him.

"Come closer.”

Taking quick, uneasy breaths, I stepped between Cole’s knees where his hands were still on his legs. With me standing and him sitting, we were the same height.

Cole tilted my chin up.

My tear-filled gaze met his.

With the speed a cat would strike a helpless mouse, Cole’s hand slipped into my hair. He cruelly jerked me to him and used his other arm to capture my waist.

I let out a quick gasp of surprise.

“Shy. Nice touch. If you’re in there, Allie. I’m sorry.” Hesitantly, he closed his eyes and kissed my nose.

Looking down, a tear slid down my cheek. I didn’t know how to beat her. Grace was winning even in death. I turned my face from him. His hand in my hair didn’t stop me immediately. He was no longer forceful. Cole gently tugged my gaze back to him.

“Allie?” He looked deeper into my eyes and the mean, cruel Cole left.

Through tears I didn’t mean to let go, I finally broke. “My name is Annabeth Rollins, born 1864. The first time I saw you, you were carrying a sack of manure to the fields. I offered to help, but you called me a half-pint little girl, and then you dumped the manure on my shoes. I should have hated you, but I couldn’t. The first time you kissed me, you cried.”

Cole toppled off the stool, eyes wide. He pulled me from the gasoline soaked hay. Once out, his shaking hands slid up the sides of my face, his electric green gaze sparkling.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” His wide eyes reddened as he pulled my face closer. Our foreheads touched, our eyes locked.

What was I supposed to say? Which me was I? Which me did he love? Me or her? Both of us?

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

Sobs of relief, fear, love shook me.

“From the first day I saw you, I knew you were going to be complicated.” He pulled me in for the kiss I’d wanted since we’d first met. Those memories were distorted, but I was sure of one thing. I would love him every time I met him again for the first time.

We kissed until I couldn’t breathe and Cole’s shuddering interfered.

From outside the barn, “It’s about damned time. I’m ready for a nap.”

“I’m ready for some Doritos and Dr. Pepper. And some
Vampire Diaries
. I like drama so much better when it’s on TV.”

Cole and I laughed through our kisses.

I leaned back, unable to catch my breath, dizziness taking me.

“Let’s find some privacy. We should probably talk about some things,” Cole said, nodding toward the door. He lifted the long wooden arm that had locked us in and shoved the barn doors open.

I hadn’t had time to think about all the new obstacles Cole and I would face, but of course he’d bring it up and ruin the romance. I sighed. He was always cautious. I did love that about him.

We walked out into the night.

Cole’s thumb worked over my fingers as we walked in silence.

I had so many questions, but I was so used to him closing up on me that I really didn’t know how to start. I pulled my hand away and kept our pace slow.

I squinted at the grass as we walked. I had 20/20 vision. Was his vision better than mine?

“Just start wherever you want. Ask me anything. I just hope my answers won’t change your mind about me.” He sounded so different. So unsure of himself. The Cole I’d grown to know seemed so confident. “The only thing I’m confident of is that I couldn’t make it through losing you again. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little neurotic.”

“A little?” I laughed.

He sighed.

We walked toward the trails.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” I blurted. Oh, God. Why was I so impulsive? I couldn’t stop crazy stuff from falling out of my mouth.

“That will probably happen more often than not, the more we’re together. The old you is still a part of you.” Cole looked thoughtful. “I wish I could find more of the old me these days. Sometimes he gets lost.”

I wished I hadn’t pulled my hand away.

He reached back over and took it safely in his.

I smiled. That was kind of cool. Him knowing what I wanted almost before I did.

“As for your answer. Other than you, no.” He glanced sidelong at me. “You should be mad.”

“I don’t think that counts.” I slid closer to him and nudged him with my shoulder.

“If Dalton or Preston has one more unflattering thought in your direction, that number might change.”

“You’ll overlook it, like the gentleman I know you are, though you’ve not done a very good job at showing it lately. You have nothing to worry about with Dalton. He likes you. I didn’t know my way around, and I needed away. You made me claustrophobic, and Dalton offered to drive.”

“I guess I’ll let him live.”

“Can you actually see out here? It’s so dark.”

“Like night vision on a camera, I can see about a thousand feet ahead of us,” he said.

Fascination and attraction gave me chill bumps. “That’s kinda hot.”

“Yeah, well. Your attraction to me is not something we need to talk about in the dark without a chaperone.” There he went with that old-timey tradition and respect stuff.

“Hmm.”

“Don’t trip on that—” Cole caught me as I stumbled—“limb.”

I slinked closer in his arms with a smile.

“Knowing it’s okay to kiss you without the moral constraints of the 1800s is more difficult than you can imagine.” His heart pounding against his chest, Cole stepped into the shadows.

I could barely make out branches.

“It hasn’t always been like this.” His voice was low, gravelly, sexy.

“Like what?”

Branches crunched under his feet. “I used to be able to hold you without turning into a monster.”

“You’re far from a monster.” I took a cautious step forward. “Where are you?”

“I think I’ve traumatized you enough for one night.” His voice sounded funny.

“There’s really no need to hide.” I started into the shadows.

“No. Wait. This is something you’re going to have to,” and the rest came out as half-human, half-growl, “get used to.”

Sticks cracked and leaves crunched under the footfalls of something much bigger and heavier than me. From the shadows, glowing green eyes penetrated the darkness. A large feline stood as tall as Cole. With slow, calculated grace, the cat sauntered closer.

We gazed at each other for a few long moments.

His green eyes persisted to search mine. He paced twice in front of me, his long powerful tail switching back and forth.

“No wonder you eat so much,” I said.

He was massive. Lamps illuminating my memorial caused his coat to shimmer.

Magnificent.

He’d probably think I was a moron, but I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out. “May I?”

The tuft of whiskers pulled back. I’d never seen a cat smile.

I slid my hand down his back.

Where would his back end and his backside begin? So it did present some weird situations. But nothing we couldn’t get past.

His shoulder muscles quivered under my fingers, and the hair on his back rose. He’d have to eat ten bears a day not to starve to death.

I circled him. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

His nose only inches from mine, he walked me back to the stone wall of the clover bed. With his head, he nudged me back. I had to sit on the stone or I’d trip.

Cole stepped up one paw at a time and shoved me back with his head.

Lying on the clover, I shivered under his long, sleek body. Nothing had prepared me for this.

He leaned his head down, and the slick black fur on the side of his face pressed against mine.

I stiffened, not sure what to expect, but I refused to look away.

Black fur retracting, his skin took a gunpowder tint, then faded to flushed tan.

“What I want you to see is that this could become a problem,” Cole whispered.

Heat filled my chest as lingering cat eyes bore into my soul.

He lowered himself to me as the oval eyes spread out to human irises. So beautiful.

“I have tested myself around you. I ran before a change actually happened, but you should be warned. I can’t get past a kiss before the change begins. I haven’t mastered that yet.”

It took a few seconds to absorb his words. I couldn’t think of him kissing anyone else, and I certainly couldn’t ponder the thought of his naked body near another female, so I had to ask. “You’ve never made love?”

His eyes glinted green as he lowered himself beside me. “Until now, I’ve never wanted to. Other than dreams where you were involved, but even then I was unable to stop myself.”

“You don’t have complete control of the animal?” I made it sound like a disease.

“Where you’re concerned, I don’t have full control of me. Much less the animal. I can’t stop him. Yet.” His voice was soft but determined as his finger trailed my arm. “I have control of him a few seconds after I shift, but the first few seconds, I don’t remember. If I’m standing away from you, you’ll be fine, but if you’re in my arms, I don’t know what could happen. Being with me is going to complicate your life.”

“I like complicated.”

“It would kill me if I ever hurt you.” He looked off into the darkness.

“I love you, and the rest we can work through.”

“When my energy levels drop, I have to eat. Massive amounts.” He leaned in, his breath warm on my cheeks.

“So eat,” I said, finding a button on his shirt in the dark.

Cole took a deep breath.

I worked slowly.

“Red meat. I hunt animals in the wild, Allie.”

“Where do your clothes go when this change happens?” I continued to unbutton his shirt. I’d bared enough to see his chest muscles twitch nervously with every accidental brush of my fingers.

“Haven’t you been listening—”

I pulled Cole’s lips over mine and stopped his obsessive ramblings.

His arms immediately went around me. He gave in to what he’d held back for the last month. His lips moved against mine with an uncontrolled urgency, and his hands wandered my body. His breathing came in ragged spurts, his body shuddering with desire. Animal-like. Cole’s face jerked back from mine, but he said nothing. His chest rose and fell sporadically.

My heart fluttered in my chest.

“You’re going to have to start sometime. Why not now?” I whispered. With animal-like speed, Cole was no longer beside me but over me. His gaze traveled my face.

The stubble on his jaw was soft on my hand.

His erratic breathing slowed, but not much. A scared look flashed behind the desire in his eyes.

The new vulnerable him was so sexy I couldn’t resist. I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled his lips down to mine.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, but…” He groaned through kisses, his body still shivering. Heat raged through my body and then centered in my stomach. “Even if I were able to go through with it, Allie, we have to wait.”

My head swam.

His words didn’t make sense. He pulled back shuddering, but still under control.

Pulling him back to me, I shook my head. “We’ve waited long enough.”

His smoldering gaze locked with mine only a second before his lips crushed mine again.

I ran my hands down his shoulders and encircled his waist. I pressed my nails into his lower back, urging him, doing exactly the opposite of what he had begged me.

“Allie?” he whispered my name as a last attempt to find in me some doubt.

I kissed his tanned neck and pulled his hips even harder to mine.

“I will shift,” he warned me, almost unable to breathe, trying to make me see the complications shifting could create.

“You won’t.”

The fear in his eyes told me I should pull back and let him come to me. Every time I had ever forced him into a corner, he ran. I loosened my grip. That was the most I could do to give him a chance to stop if he wanted to.

Cole’s regret-filled eyes softened as he caressed my cheek. I’d been dead for so long, the whole world came to life with just a touch.

“Another reason we need to wait is that you are probably in a bit of shock right now. You need some time to get a grasp on things,” Cole said.

“I’m completely within my faculties.”

“Do you remember why I left your sister?” Cole asked me, pulling back, still breathing heavily. His words did not match his reaction to me. “I didn’t do things properly in that lifetime. I didn’t do what God wanted me to do regarding Grace. I gave in and sinned. I still operate under the old ways. The man and woman are supposed to be married. I didn’t wait then, and by playing with fire, you and I were burned. You suffered because of my games. I want this, but I want it the right way. Don’t hate me if I want to take our time.”

“I don’t hate you. I’m a little pissed. As usual,” I said with a fun-loving smile. “But I could never hate you.”

Staring into the darkness, Cole sat back in the clover, his arms propped on his knees.

“Well, we have all the time in the world. Right?” I tugged my shirt back around. I stayed lying on the cool green grass. Stars sparkled through the trees.

“Maybe with some time to get to know one another, things’ll get easier.” Cole pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it. He ducked his chin and his hair swept his cheekbones.

I had to find something to do to stop me from attacking him. God he was gorgeous.

“Have we met before? I mean, before this life?”

A little chuckle. “Yeah, in a library. Some things happened that shouldn’t have. I didn’t shift then. I’m not sure how or why, but I’m going to find out.”

“So, we?” Holy crap. I’d seen us in the library in town.

Cole was silent but a wicked smile perked the corners of his mouth.

“How did you die after the library? Another crazy suicide?” I said sourly, folding my arms across my chest.

“Something like that.”

Now I’d have to do a search of all the libraries in the world and look for suicides.

Cole smiled and shook his head. He took my hand and helped me up. “Save yourself some time. New York.”