Page 88 of Thunderstruck
Stomach clenching, I slip away from Cole and swim to where Wyatt is sitting. I hold out my hand, which he grabs, and I plant my feet high on the wall so he can pull me up and out. I grab my towel, wrapping it around my torso, and smile at the guys, who are all watching me.
“Cole and I are not dating,” I say as confidently as I can. “I don’t date my patients.”
“Why not?” Loren asks, frowning up at me.
“It’s none of our business,” Cole says. He hasn’t moved from his spot in the pool, and neither has he done anything to curb the longing in his expression. That’s not exactly going to help things, but I also don’t want him to stop looking at me like that. “She doesn’t have to tell us anything.”
I can’t stop my smile as his defense warms me from the inside out. “It’s because,” I say, though I’m probably going to regret being honest, “I can’t trust my ability to make decisions lately. And I like working with you guys, so I don’t want to ruin that.”
A few murmurs spread through the guys as they look at each other. Wyatt speaks first. “Say we think you shouldn’t let us hold you back from something you want,” he says slowly. “Would you date one of us then?”
My eyes flit to Cole, whose eyes have somehow gotten darker in the last few seconds. “Maybe.”
“But it would be me, yeah?” Grayson says, giving me a wide grin.
Loren punches him in the arm. “It would obviously be me.”
“You’re the only one who made her lose at chicken fighting,” Grayson argues.
Loren jumps on him, dunking him under the water, and suddenly the guys still in the pool are all joining in a sort of brawl that makes me glad I’m on solid ground.
Regrettably, Cole lifts himself out of the pool on the other side, drying off with a towel without looking my way, but before I can head his direction, Wyatt touches my arm.
“You can be with him, you know.”
I blink, tearing my eyes away from the corded muscle in Cole’s back to look at Wyatt. “What?”
Though he smiles, the expression looks almost defeated. “Cole. I think we all knew he had your attention from the beginning, though none of us wanted to admit it.”
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that our glances and stolen moments haven’t gone unnoticed, but I hoped we had avoided making things awkward with everyone else. I frown, shaking my head and tucking my towel tighter around me. Now that I’m out of the water and away from the warm bodies of the team, I’m starting to get cold in the air conditioning.
“Cole and me, it’s a bad idea,” I mutter. Movement pulls my eyes back to Cole, who pushes through the door to the hotel without looking back. I already miss him, but I need the distance before I start letting myself think I can have him.
“Why is it a bad idea?” Wyatt asks, folding his arms. “He’s clearly into you.”
“Him and everyone else,” I mumble, wincing as soon as the words leave my mouth. How vain can I be? “I didn’t mean—”
“Hey, you’ll hear no arguments from me.” Wyatt chuckles, shaking his head as if he can’t understand anything I’m telling him. “We all like you for a reason, Carissa. If Rihanna is the one who gets your heart going, then none of us are going to stand in your way. Believe it or not, we’re tough guys. We can handle a little rejection now and then.”
I’m not sure I believe him, but before I can call his bluff, he jumps into the pool with a shout and joins the brawl.
Shivering, I stand there for another minute, trying to figure out what to do now. If Wyatt is right, the team won’t go back to hating Cole if I start dating him. That’s one obstacle down, even if it doesn’t lessen my fears of something going wrong and costing me a job I’m really starting to like. But why am I so afraid? It’s not like Cole is harboring a secret family, and I know he would never deliberately hurt me. My reasons for staying away from him don’t stand up on their own anymore.
Cole has his own reasons, but again… If the team is okay with us dating…
Unsure what this means for us, I grab my flip flops and Cole’s abandoned shirt, slipping the warm fabric on before I head around the pool to the same door Cole used. He’s probably halfway to his room by now, and I am desperate for a shower to warm up, but as I pad down the hallway in my bare feet, shoes and towel in hand, I’m thinking I might text him as soon as I’m rinsed off so we can talk about this whole timing thing. What if theright time is now?
Oh, but what if he doesn’t agree? That might be worse than waiting. After the way he nearly kissed me in the elevator, it feels silly to worry, but if he still thinks we need to keep our distance, then I don’t—
A hand grips my arm, tugging me into a vending machine alcove right before the lobby. I only get a moment to study the intense determination in Cole’s eyes before his mouth is on mine. Hungry. Needy.Perfect.
Dropping everything, I melt into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling myself closer. He groans as my fingers find his wet hair, and his warm hands slide beneath my thighs to lift me up and better match his height. He leans me up against a wall and coaxes the kiss deeper until all sense of reason leaves me and there is nothing but this man and his mouth and this kiss.
Cole kisses like something inside him needs to be set free, his bare shoulders taut beneath my fingers as he expertly moves his lips against mine and keeps me suspended against the wall with the weight of his body, my legs locked around his waist. One of his hands is in my hair, the other pressed against my waist, and every place we touch burns with electricity. For all the enthusiasm in his efforts, Ifeelhis restraint and the way it seems to slip more and more every few seconds, like whatever control he has will soon be hanging by a thread. I’m all for it, doing my best to match his every action because I have been desperate to experience this for so long.
He pulls away first, mouth lingering against mine as he breathes heavily and presses his hand to my cheek. “Carissa,” he whispers, my name on his breath like a balm against my swollen lips.
It’s a terrible reaction to the world’s best kiss, but I laugh. It feels like the only thing I can do when I’m unraveling from the inside out. Everything about that kiss exceeded my wildest imaginings, and I will forever be changed after tonight. Reality won’t be the same. “Where did that come from?” I breathe.
