Page 20

The first thing Cole sees when he wakes is Olivia’s beautiful face.

The morning sun hits her sparse freckles, highlighting them like stardust, lashes fluttering delicately on closed lids.

There’s an angel sleeping across from him and the moment that thought enters his brain, he scowls at himself.

Needs to quit watching her, but he’s transfixed in a whole new way and that’s when he realizes he’s ass over heels for this woman.

She showed him the smallest amount of human kindness and, like a dog fed a hearty meal after starvation, he’s latched onto her.

The moment she saw the horrific remnants of his broken childhood and didn’t run, his efforts at staying emotionally distant crumbled.

Offered acceptance and even a dose of coveted affection, he’s completely lost, with no hope of resistance.

Cole’s back still aches, but he slept soundly last night. That unfamiliar feeling of being taken care of wrapped around him like an embrace and he drifted off easy.

She snuggles deeper into the pillow and he tries like hell to rationalize that he can’t be falling in love with her. Allowing those feelings to grow would be crazy.

That part of him has always been broken, and even if it wasn’t, it’s simply too early.

It’s only one-sided. She doesn’t feel the same and never will.

Kindness doesn’t equal attraction and he shouldn’t assume her being decent to him means anything. Having only a few awful one-night stands in his past has left him unfamiliar with all of this, and his fucked-up brain is exaggerating the situation.

Seeking a distraction, he forces himself out of bed, careful to avoid shifting it, and moves barefoot to the kitchen.

Wants to do something nice for her, especially after what happened last night, so he putters around the cabinets, rechecking what he already looted the other day.

There’s a box of chai tea bags in the back of a shelf and the teakettle on the stove confirms it’s a solid idea.

There’s no real breakfast food, but plenty of snacks, so he grabs granola bars and sets them down on the table, agonizing over the placement longer than he should before heating a can of corned beef hash. The type he’d put an egg over if they had a chicken, which they don’t.

There’s a winter flower bush right outside the window begging for one of its stems to grace the table next to her plate. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Flowers and food go together. It’s not romantic. They are only friends.

He marches out there and snags a pink one, putting it on the table.

Takes it away a second later. She’ll think it’s stupid.

Puts it back again. Women like flowers. It won’t hurt anything to leave it there.

Cole, having already prepared the plates, takes the kettle off the stove just before it whistles.

When Olivia emerges with Lucy in her arms, and a cat weaving through her legs, surprise parts her lips.

He fights the urge to squirm, rethinking his effort until she gives him one of those perfect smiles, like he’s the best thing she’s seen all day, all week. Ever.

“No one’s made me breakfast before,” she says, as if he’s given her five-star service. “I mean, not that you did it just for me. Obviously. Do you want something to drink? I can get—”

“No, I got it and…I did…do this for you.”

Her face lights up as she sits, and he pours tea into waiting cups. “Thank you.”

Rather than risk shoving his foot in his mouth, he shrugs and shovels a forkful of food in there instead.

“I love chai. I can’t believe you found some. You know, that’s one of the things I miss already. Coffee. Tea. Starbucks. I used to stop there on the way to the grocery store and secretly buy a chai tea to drink while I shopped. Not too often. Only sometimes, so he wouldn’t notice.”

“You’re one of those fancy coffee drinkers, huh?”

“There’s something to be said for a frivolous drink made by someone else. You don’t seem like a Starbucks kinda guy, though, or am I wrong?”

He sighs, admitting a long-held secret he kept from Wade at all costs. “Maybe I liked those mochas, and the peppermint ones at Christmas time. Not always. Just, you know, sometimes.”

She gasps with a wide smile. “And you gave me shit for drinking fancy coffee!”

“Yeah, yeah. This conversation doesn’t leave this room. I got a reputation to protect.”

He drank his in secret, too, but for different reasons. Wade would never let him live it down and Cole didn’t have the patience to deal with his bullshit because he felt like drinking coffee that didn’t taste like bitter gasoline.

“I liked the peppermint ones, too.” Her nose scrunches in that cute wrinkle he likes so much.

He wants to kiss her so badly it aches, so he looks away and down at his food rather than risk exposing what must be written all over his face.

“What do you think about a fighting lesson later?” he asks. “Feel up for it?”

She nods. “I feel fine, better than I have since this all started. Are you okay, though? Don’t overdo it for me. We’ve got some downtime.”

“I’m good. We’ll keep it easy. No body slamming or right hooks,” he jokes.

“I’m not allowed to body slam you. Got it.”

He scrapes up the rest of his food in a final bite. He’ll show her a few self-defense moves. Keep it simple. No chance at all he’ll get himself in another situation where he’s gone love-struck.

She needs to learn to take care of herself should the worst happen and it’s better to start sooner rather than later.

* * *

This was a shit idea. What the hell was he thinking? He has to get close to her to teach her how to defend herself. He wishes they could do this from opposite sides of the room, but that’s impossible.

She’s wearing a flowy tank top that’s been giving him dirty thoughts since she put it on, all that smooth skin on display, and damn if those freckles don’t scatter right down her collarbones and across her arms. He is no better than every other man left on this earth, he realizes sadly.

Lusting after her when he has no right. Thank god she can’t read his mind.

“We don’t have to.” She picks up on his hesitation. “We can rest today.”

“No. We’re doing this. It’s important. First lesson is that it only takes three pounds of pressure to rip someone’s ear off.

So, grab on and yank. Even easier to gouge an eyeball out.

That’s soft tissue. You can dig a thumb in and go to town on it.

Don’t try to do anything crazy if you can go for the easy stuff like that.

Second lesson, how to get away when someone’s grabbed you.

Stand right there. Ima come up behind and snag you. ”

Jesus, his heart has never beat so fast in his life. No amount of mortal danger he’s encountered compares to his excitement and fear of being that close to her. It’s not like they’re about to get naked in this dusty living room. He’s short-circuiting from impending proximity alone.

Her face is serious but tone teasing as she mimes an elbow hit. “Okay. Then I sock you, right?”

“Something like that. I like having all my teeth though, so not really.”

She turns away from him, looking over her shoulder with a promise that turns low and shoots right for his groin. “I’ll be gentle. Don’t worry.”

She would be, too. Gentle. If they ever…

No. Nope. Can’t go down that road. If he’s not careful, he’ll have to explain a hard-on and that’ll only make this worse. Then, she might leave him here to chance it out in the wild alone and he wouldn’t blame her.

It’s only a self-defense lesson. Nothing sexual about it. He’s the one making it weird.

Slowly, he approaches her, expecting a flinch on contact.

She’s as skittish as he is sometimes, but she doesn’t so much as twitch.

Lets him wrap his arms around her from behind and hold snug, even leaning back the smallest bit like she’s enjoying it.

It’s right about then that he realizes he’s rarely been this close to anyone for this long.

“How would you get out of this?” There’s no chance she hasn’t noticed how strangled he sounds.

“What if I don’t want to?” she replies, flirty and teasing.

That’s her personality, he reasons. She likes to tease, and it’s not about him. “Will you be serious?”

“Okay, okay lemme see. Can’t do the elbow to the face because you’ve got my arms pinned…head butt?”

“Actually, yeah. Aim for the nose, elbow to the ribs might work too if you have leverage. A heel slammed into the top of my foot is an option. Lots of tiny bones there.”

“Back of the head to the nose. Elbow in the ribs. Foot stomp.”

“Mmhmm. Go on, give it a try in slow-mo.”

It’s easy enough when they aren’t actually struggling. He’s on his way to controlling himself just fine until they move into the next practice pose and she turns to face him, then all the air in the room crackles and sparks like his sizzling nerves.

This is too close, too much. Her face is inches away, her chest is warming his, and if he weren’t hallucinating, he would be certain that her eyes have glanced down at his lips more than once. It would be so easy to close that two-inch gap.

“How do I get out of this one?” she whispers, as if they’re sharing a secret.

He gulps hard. “Bring the heel of your hand up between us and aim for the chin. Can also bring both arms up and then out, sorta like an airplane, then push my mine outta the way with your elbows.”

She follows instructions and they repeat the motions three more times, but on the final attempt, he doesn’t let go.

She tries again, confusion flaring clear across her face when he doesn’t budge and that’s when everything they worked on goes out the window and she panics.

That ghost left for dead on the subway floor manifests between them, prompting fear in her eyes.

“You’re safe. We’re just practicing. Think about your next move,” he says quickly, but it has little effect.