Cole: The Wounded Sons, Leah Sharelle [the reading list .TXT] 📗

“It took a long while for Creed to get past his grief and guilt to see me, both of us forced into a marriage he didn’t want, but I did.”

Feeling uncomfortable, like I was prying even though it was Memphis who was openly sharing her private life, I squirmed on the cushion, waiting for the reason for the story.

“Things happened, things I won’t go into, but eventually Creed saw me, saw what I was to him. He fought against the guilt and the pain and found his light. Me. Creed is the way he is because he loves me. And loving me means he has to let me do things he’d rather I didn’t do, like signings.” Memphis winked at me, making me giggle.

“Did you get the same love he had for your sister?” I couldn’t help but ask. I had no idea that Creed used to be Memphis’s brother-in-law, or that she even had a sister. In her bios in the back of her novels, Memphis went by Willow Rose, which made sense now, but she didn’t give out any personal information other than stating she was a mum of beautiful kids and married to her own personal alpha.

Leaning forward, Memphis caught my hands in hers, holding them flat to her chest where her heart laid.

“Feel that? It beats for him, and if Creed allowed people to touch him other than our children or me, his would be beating just as hard. I not only found that love with Creed, but it is one hundred times stronger, deeper and it will never end.”

Cole’s face suddenly appeared in my head, his black eyes so much like his father’s looking down at me as we make love. The onyx orbs really were a window to his soul, and what I saw in them every time he gave them to me truly took my breath away. The same way he was taking my heart each and every minute we spent together.

As if I wished him to appear, Cole and Gabriel walked through the big wooden doors, entering the main room. Had I not seen him, I still would have felt his powerful presence, that was how in tune I was with him.

Memphis and I were sitting in a corner of the room for family only, so Cole was yet to see me, taking advantage of my secluded spot to just … watch him. His big muscled body was dressed in the usual black tee, black jeans and black boots. His aviators still covering his eyes as he and Gabe made their way to the bar. He looked like he had put in a long, hard day of work at the gun shop, doing something for Booth on the outdoor gun range. Dirt streaked his biceps, and there was a sweat patch darkening his tee on his chest. Thankful that Memphis couldn’t see my blatant ogling of her son, I continued to drool over my man as he accepted a tall glass of what I suspected was soft drink and not beer. His massive hand clasping the frosty glass bringing it to his lips and taking a long gulp.

Shamelessly, I watched his neck tilt back as he drank, his throat working hard to swallow as much of the liquid as he could. Beads of sweat trickled down his thick neck, and I had the sudden urge to lick those delicious droplets and anywhere else my tongue desired.

Hmmm. Yum.

As if he heard my silent wanton moan, Cole stilled, his glass paused at his lips, he turned sideways, his gaze zeroing directly on me.

Busted.

An almost undetectable lift at the corner of his mouth appeared as he continued to drink while looking at me.

Take off your sunglasses and give me those eyes. I silently willed him from across the room, my facial expression fighting to stay calm. My tongue begging to lick my lips.

Smirking into his glass, Cole’s lips twitched as he put down his glass and made a show of taking off his aviators, hooking them into the neck of his tee and smiling at me.

My god, he makes my pussy throb so good.

Without thinking, I rubbed my thighs together, then crossed them and squeezed, desperate for a little relief from what the sexy stud across the room was doing to my libido.

Cole followed the movement of my legs, his eyes darkened, his mouth hardened, and from here, I swore I could see the pulse at the base of his throat ramp up.

So turned on by our covert flirting, I missed what Memphis was saying to me until she tapped me on the leg.

“Oaklee, are you listening to me?”

Not taking my eyes from Cole, I coughed to remove the passion-filled lump in my throat.

“Sorry, Boss, what did you say?”

“I asked you if you have been in love?”

Still standing at the bar, Cole held me captive with his intense eyes and mouthed a simple. ‘Hey baby,” to me, a subtle wink following.

Mouthing the words, ‘hey honey,’ back to him, I reluctantly turned to look at Memphis, her expression patient and interested.

Moving my gaze back to Cole, I licked my suddenly dry lips.

“Yes,” I replied in a breathy whisper, “yes, I know what it is like to be in love.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

COLE

Fuck I wanted to get Oaklee back to her place and see how wet her pussy was. My sexy, sassy Temptress had that dreamy look on her face, a look I have gotten to know well.

Oaklee was feeling needy … for me.

Forcing myself to turn away from Oaklee talking with my mum, I concentrated on what Gabe was blabbering about, or tried to with the sound of Oaklee’s giggle over on the other side of the room.

It was getting harder and harder to keep myself from touching her around my family, no longer satisfied with waiting for our time alone at her small house.

Guilt plagued me day in and day out since