The Sway (13 page)

A
fter lunch
, Cole and I made our way back to his room.

“Let's have naptime.”

He squeezed my hand three times and pulled me into a cement doorway, pressed me back until my body came in contact with the cool wall. He then placed his hands on the sides of my head and leaned his body against mine, nipped at my ear, and trailed kisses along my neck.

“I have a surprise,” he said before pressing his lips against my mouth softly.

I parted his lips and let my hands wander up his muscular back. He kissed me harder, possessing me completely. He backed away an inch and leaned his forehead against mine.

“Come on. Before I decide to skip your surprise.”

I pouted out my lips and then smiled. “You are turning me into a pouting girl. I am not a pouting girl. On to the surprise. Lead the way.”

Cole pushed off of the wall and tucked me into his side. Instead of breaking off to head toward the living quarters, we went toward the back of the house. We stepped out onto an expansive patio that overlooked the valley sitting in the base of the Catskills. It was snowing, leaving the area looking fresh and clean. He pulled me in the direction of a detached garage, where he scanned his card at the door.

Inside sat an array of luxury cars. He grabbed a set of keys hanging from the wall and an SUV's led headlights lit up.

“Where are we going?” We had to pack and leave for Prague in the next four hours. “We can't just go play hooky right now. I mean, I would love to pretend like the world isn't on the brink of world war three, but Cole…” I sighed as he opened up the passenger door. “We have responsibilities to our country, to all of humanity. We can't go for a joyride.”

He leaned in and kissed my lips softly. “We won't be gone long.” He winked at me and closed the passenger door.

He walked around the front of the car, smiling to himself. I wanted to be spontaneous. Live in the moment, for this moment. I'd always had such a strong grip on my responsibility and control. The next few days would be challenging emotionally, physically, and mentally. Could I be this girl? The girl who was spontaneous? I was allowed to act my age every once in a while. Right?

The car door slammed shut. “You ready?”

I took his hand. “Yeah, let's go.”

As the garage door opened, the blaring sun against the crisp white snow proved about as much fun to look at as stabbing a pencil in your eye. I squinted in response. Cole smirked at me and leaned into the back to hand me a sunglasses' box with a bow on it.

“How did you—”

A kiss from him cut me off.

“I had Harrison pick them up after we left the Bahamas. I just haven't had the right time to give them to you.”

I popped open the case and a pair of black sunglasses looked back at me. I slid them on my face and pursed my lips. “How do I look?”

Cole smiled at me and shook his head. “You're always gorgeous,” he replied softly.

I blushed and then stuck out my tongue. “All those slick words, when you already have me.”

I slid the glasses down the bridge of my nose and looked him in the eyes. Cole was still new for me; a boy responding and caring for me was like breathing on Mars. I mean, hell, I was still a virgin. Not like I wanted my first time to be at school, and since then, it just hadn't been important. I chewed on my bottom lip.

“You have got to stop looking at me like that or we won't make it out of the garage.”

His eyes heated when I released my lip from my teeth and as he hissed a breath in through tight lips.

“Yeah. We definitely need to leave now.”

I pushed my sunglasses back up my nose. “I never said we couldn't. Let's go, babe.”

Holy cow! What had I just said? My hand quickly slapped across my mouth.

Cole smirked. “Babe, huh?”

“Apparently.” I laughed.
What's done is done. Gotta roll with it.
And it did feel kinda freeing to have admitted that aloud, and also to myself.

He pulled out of the garage and we took off into the bright afternoon light.

“
I
know
where we're going,” I said after nearly twenty minutes of comfortable silence.

Cole smiled, showing his teeth. “I would hope so, considering you've been here before.”

He turned off of the main road onto a gravel one. We bumped along for a minute or two before he turned right and approached a metal gate encompassed by a stone wall. We pulled up to the keypad and the gate slowly slid open. The Thomas cabin. I had only seen it from the outside when we were here last. We parked and went out to helicopter pad off the back of the property.

I had remembered the house as a quaint bungalow. Seeing it again, I realized that although charming and cottage-like, it was still huge. The front porch had oversized chairs on it and continued off toward the side of the house.

“So your dad built this?”

Cole nodded and shifted the car into park.

“He had it built. We came here when I was little, in the summers. Most kids went to the Hamptons.”

He smiled. I could practically see the memories dancing in his eyes. He shook his head a little.

“When my mom died, we stopped coming here. My dad sold the house to me for a dollar a year or so ago. So it's mine.”

He opened his door and went around to the trunk where he lifted out a weekend bag that I hadn't seen. I was watching him in the trunk, over my shoulder, and he smiled at me.

“Harrison,” he said, before I could even ask how the bag got there.

Cole was a romantic. I had a boy who was a romantic. I folded my arms into myself and hugged a little with a smile. Cole was my boy.

The door opened and I stepped out into the brisk air. The snow had stopped falling and the blue sky was breaking through the trees. The sky was never as clear as right after a snowstorm. Being here was like being in Utah. So much like home, but better. Because now, Cole was here.

As we were walking up the front porch steps, he laced his fingers through mine. Heat spread through my body.

“Is it always like this?”

“Always like what?”

I lifted up our hands. “Is it always going to feel like this?”

“I'm not reading you right now. It's damn hard, but I'm not.”

I smiled at that. “Well, would you, so you know what I am trying to say?”

Tiny prickles of awareness ran along my neck as Cole let my emotions wash over him. His eyes were closed but he smiled. I was blushing—my face, my chest. I was sure my pinky toes, were blushing, too.

Cole opened his eyes and dropped the bag in his other hand on the porch. He pulled me to him and crushed me to his chest. “Damn. It looks like we are both lost.”

I laughed. “If being lost means being with you, then I don't ever want to find my way.”

I kissed his chest, because he was too tall for me to reach a higher part of his body. He released me and dug in his pocket, producing a key.

“Come on. I need to tell you something.” He picked up the bag. I followed behind him and closed the door behind me. “Hold on. Stay here.”

He took the stairs in the entry of the house two at a time. I heard a thud upstairs, assumed he had once again dropped the bag, and then some shuffling of drawers. Cole then walked back down the stairs.

“You okay?” I devoured the sight of him moving through the house.

He held a photo album in his hand. When he held out his other hand to me, I took it and he guided me toward the family room. I threw a quick glance at the large stone fireplace and the floor-to-ceiling corner windows that let in light and nature. The kitchen sat back behind the couch Cole was pulling me down to. He flipped open to the first page.

The picture was of a gorgeous woman with light hair, and it was old. The resolution wasn't great, but it was obvious that Hank was the man in the picture. It seemed like he had hardly aged. The woman had a toddler on her hip, who was giving the camera the biggest, cheesiest smile. I ran my finger along the boy's face, that of Cole as a child.

“This is my mom,” he said softly.

“She's stunning.”

Cole nodded in agreement. I had seen a picture of her in the Bahamas. She looked happier in this one, though. Complete.

“She was the best,” he added.

“What happened?”

He flipped through the pages and I briefly saw images of a happy family.

“One day,” he started and took a deep breath. “My dad and I came home. We had been here fishing. Having a boys' weekend. I was ten.”

I reached for his hand and squeezed it gently three times, urging him to continue.

“When we got home, the closets were empty. No.
Her
closets were empty. All of the pictures of her in the house were gone. There was a note saying she couldn't do it anymore.”

He stopped and turned to look at me. His eyes had glassed over, but no tears had escaped yet.

“She just left. My dad looked for her for years. I don't really know if he ever stopped. One night, she was there kissing me good-bye and zipping up my jacket. The next, it was like she was completely erased from my life.”

I inched closer to him. I couldn't even imagine. I gave up my life and my teenage years with my parents willingly. Cole had had no choice. How had it affected him? I was just learning how much it had affected me. Did it shape him? Was I who I was because I'd spent the last seven years on my own?

“The thing about having abilities or being Transcendent … if you find someone and fall in love, that's it. The connection that is made, if both people feel it—they are
it
for each other. It's permanent. We are a monogamous sort of weird people. This connection is the reason my dad doesn't think my mom is dead. He said he would know. He would know if she was, because the connection would be gone. I think that's why he can still get up everyday and live.”

He then looked at me with resolve. “Julia, you're it for me. You asked if it would always feel this way and I know it will. I saw it with my parents. I know how I feel. I know I sound crazy—” he ran his hand through his short hair, “—but it doesn't feel crazy. It feels right.”

He looked at me, through me, all the way to my soul. He released his emotions, opening himself to me. I had to close my eyes to take it all in.

Colors swirled as his emotions danced across my eyelids. He wanted everything. Nothing and no one else had ever been what he needed or wanted. It was me, though. He wanted
me
.

I opened my eyes and climbed onto his lap, straddling him at the waist.

“They say you can't fully love someone until you've lived. But I wouldn't be living if I wasn't with you,” I said.

Cole smashed his lips into mine, claiming me. I leaned away and took a long look at him despite the fact that my lips itched to kiss him.

I kissed his collarbone and trailed my mouth up his neck. He shivered involuntarily.

When his lips met mine, I knew. I'd never find this with anyone else. Regardless of my inexperience or age, this feeling, Cole—he was once in a lifetime. He parted my lips with his tongue, asking permission. I took it as a challenge in an attempt to possess his mouth.

Cole stood up and I kept myself wrapped around his body. He grabbed my butt and squeezed just a little. He laughed as I started kissing his cheek, his jaw, and his neck as he carried me up the stairs.

He laid me down on the bed and then proceeded to meld his body to mine. My hands had a mind of their own, because I was pulling his shirt over his head before I even knew I was doing it. I'd seen his bare abs and chest before, but holy hell. I hadn't seen them with his eyes looking at me that way. So much to take in. His love, this connection, a lifetime of Cole.

“I've never…” I placed my palm on his chest, pushing him up a few inches. “I don't know what I'm doing.”

My tone sounded breathy and soft, like someone completely different. I trailed my fingers down his abs and traced the muscle line. “I mean, I've kissed guys before.”

Cole let out a hiss between bit teeth.

“But nothing more,” I concluded, feeling myself blush, becoming a little less confident.

He leaned down and kissed me softly. “We don't have to do anything. I just needed you to know how I feel, away from everyone else.”

He skimmed his fingers along the bottom of my shirt, sending goose bumps rising across my stomach. I rolled him over so I was on top of him. His hands slid to my hips but didn't go any farther.

“Jules, I'm no expert in this arena. This is going to be new for both of us.” He closed his eyes briefly.

“You haven't?” I was sure the surprise mixed with relief read in my voice … but my god, I was glad I wasn't the only virgin in the room.

Cole shook his head. “No, not like this.”

Every inch of my skin was heated. I wanted this, him. I needed this. My heart was beating out of my chest, my breathing hitched.