Page 111 of Never Alone
Nothing else.
Not coffee. Not a glass of water. Not the pasta in the blue container in the fridge. Not the second message Miranda had left me about the audit paperwork. Not Noah, who was already laughing at something Sam had said three streets over. Not the apartment that had been quiet for two weeks because I'd made it that way. Not the version of myself who'd been telling herself, for two weeks, that she didn't get to have this.
I got to have this.
He'd said so at the bakery.I'm not going anywhere.He'd kissed me twice and meant it both times. He'd come back to the apartment with me. He had kept his hand at the small of my back the whole walk to the truck and the whole drive home.
I had spent two weeks teaching myself how to leave him.
I was done teaching myself things.
I crossed the living room. Cole had stopped wherever he'd been going. He was watching me come.
I put my hands on his chest. I tipped my chin up.
"Tessa."
His voice was low. He'd been careful with my name since the bakery, and he was still being careful now.
"Cole."
I said it the way he had said mine.
He bent his head and kissed me.
I hadn't known, before that night, that being wanted could feel like being seen.
Cole's hands were careful. He kissed me slowly. His hand came up to my jaw and stayed there. His other hand was at my waist, flat, not moving. He kissed me until my breath wasn't steady. He kissed me until I leaned into him with all of me, and he had to put his arm around me so I wouldn't fall.
Then he pulled back an inch.
"Are you sure?"
His voice was rough.
"Yes."
"Tessa."
"I'm sure, Cole."
He looked at me. He was looking the way he looked at things he was thinking through, slow and careful. He wasn't pulling back. He was making sure.
I took his hand off my waist and put it on the hem of my shirt.
His eyes shut for one count.
"Tessa."
"I want this. I want you. Stop asking."
He didn't stop asking exactly. He just stopped using words for it. He took my hand off his and put it back at his neck. He kissed me again, deeper, and his hand went under the hem of my shirt the way I'd asked it to. It was warm. It wasn't in a hurry.
I don't remember the walk to the bedroom.
I remember the lamp being on. I remember Cole's hand at the small of my back, guiding me. I remember sitting on the edge of the bed and him standing in front of me, taking off his shirt because I'd asked him to with my hands. I remember the longline of him. I remember the scar on his shoulder I'd seen across the apartment a hundred times and hadn't let myself look at.
He pulled me up.
