Page 106 of Iron Willed Warrior

I shivered. Trace was scary when he grinned like that.

“That okay by you?” Stanford asked. “You’ll be fine here with Bailey?”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with Cole,” I snapped. “You can save the rest of your opinions though, because I know what I’m doing.”

“Did I say anything?”

“You’ve said plenty.” I was being grumpy and petulant. Like a teenager talking to her dad. But I didn’t have the patience to do otherwise.

“Just let me know if you need me.” He patted my arm on his way out. Trace promised to lock up and said they’d return later on.

After the door had closed, I went looking for Cole.

In the hallway, doors led into a bathroom and several bedrooms. Cole was in the second bedroom, sitting on the made bed. I opened the door but paused there, leaning against the frame.

“Hey,” I said. “Is it okay if I come in?”

He looked up. “Sure hope so.”

That was a good sign. I came further into the room. “Cole, I’m sorry.”

“You lied to me,” he said evenly. Matter of fact. Yet his lack of anger made me feel that much worse.

I opened my mouth, ready with excuses and justifications. But he was right. “I should’ve told you that I was communicating with Stanford. I had a burner phone for giving him updates, and I hid it from you. I told myself I wasn’t reallyansweringto him, and he wasn’t giving me orders, so it was okay. That burner phone was just an insurance policy, if we had no choice but to ask Stanford for help. But I should’ve been honest. I did cut off contact a couple days ago. Before you and I…got intimate.”

“Why?”

“Because hiding it felt wrong. I wanted to trust you. Be your partner. Everything we said about the two of us, being in it together, that was real for me. Please believe that.”

“C’mere,” he whispered.

“What? Why?”

“Because I need to touch you, B,” he said softly. “And it’s killing me not to.”

I swallowed around the thickness in my throat. “It’s killing me too.”

“Then come over here.”

I crossed the room. Cole pulled me into his lap. I straddled him. He pressed kisses to my collarbone and neck, his arms going tight around my waist. Holding me close enough that I couldn’t fill my lungs all the way. But I wouldn’t pull away for anything.

“A week ago, I would’ve been furious to hear you were still updating your FBI boss,” he said. “I’ll give you that. I might have gotten a bit…feistywhen I learned you were an FBI agent in the first place.”

“Abitfeisty?”

I felt the shape of his smile as he kissed my cheek. “But after all the shit we’ve been through in the last couple days. Thatyou’vebeen through.” A shudder ran through him. “I don’t care about the FBI. Just tell me what you need. Tell me what happened while we were separated.”

He’d asked that same question in various ways since we’d reunited at the solar plant. Just now, he’d said it with so much care and tenderness that it made my eyes sting.

“It wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking.”

“WhatIthink isn’t the issue.” Cole looked at me with equal measures of protectiveness and righteous fury. “I swear, if Westwick hurt you when he had you prisoner, and you give me the go ahead, then I don’t care about the Protectors or the FBI or any damn thing butyou. I am going to make that animal suffer for it. Regardless of the consequences.”

I rubbed my fingers against the short strands of his hair. He relaxed by degrees under my soothing touch. I brought my hand to Cole’s face, and he turned into it, his eyes drifting closed.

“Westwick kidnapped me so I could spy on Eric Masterson for him. Other men, too. Westwick wanted me to sleep with them and pass their secrets back to him. But first, he wanted me to ‘impress’ him.”

Cole cursed, blinking his eyes open. But I kept stroking my fingers through his hair.

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