Confessions in the Dark (11 page)

God, but he'd touched those. In the flurry of the moment, kissing her like a man possessed, he'd had that lushness pressed against his chest, his hand drawn toward those curves. The very tops of them rose above the neckline of her dress, the soft cleft between them a siren's song luring him in. He licked his lips, wanting his mouth on tender flesh.

What would she sound like underneath him? He could almost taste the sweetness of her. She'd be so hot around him, taking him into her body the way she'd welcomed him into every other aspect of her life, and he'd be so good to her. So thorough, taking the time to learn every inch, every spot that made her whimper or sigh.

Except—

Snapping his jaw shut, he forced his gaze toward her eyes. He was blatantly staring, ogling her in the worst, most objectifying way, and she'd be well within her rights to slap him for it. But no. Those soft green irises surrounded pupils gone wide with a need to match his own, and she wasn't looking at
his
eyes.

A rush of hot, male pride swam through him, filling his veins. This was dangerous territory he was wading into here. His promises, his anger, they'd been his companions all these years. They'd kept him safe. But all at once they threatened to slip away.

He cleared his throat, and her gaze darted up, her cheeks flushing with the same guilt he himself had felt. Flustered, she dug her teeth into the pout of her crimson lip, and damn it all. That wasn't helping things.

“Sorry.” She waved her hand in front of herself. “You just. You look really nice.”

His stomach twisted by a fraction. The woman had only really known him since he'd hurt his leg. She'd seen him in sweats and shorts and T-shirts. Of course the contrast was striking.

He channeled his annoyance at that into a quirked brow and a smirk. “You're surprised?”

“No. Of course not.” The color to her cheeks only deepened. “Just. Impressed.”

Something in him softened. This was a terrible idea. Just terrible. But with the hand he'd freed to open the door, he reached up. Ever so gently, he stroked a single fingertip down the line of her cheek. Color spread in its wake, and deep inside, a tension within him coiled higher and tighter. “You look beautiful.”

Glancing down, she twisted her hands around the strap of her purse. “Thank you.”

She didn't step away, and he didn't remove his hand. But she didn't edge in closer, either, and he didn't dare. It felt like they could have stayed like that for days and days, caught in the push-pull and the hum of static between their bodies. Promise bloomed, ripe and impossible in the air around them, and he was caught, hovering over an abyss he didn't begin to know how to cross.

But then he looked into her eyes again, and desire still shone in those depths, but there was something else, too.

They were ringed in red.

Brows furrowing, he slipped his thumb higher, stroking just beneath her lashes. “Are you all right?”

It broke the spell. One corner of her mouth twisted down, her whole expression flinching. “Fine.” She drew in a breath. “Just...some stuff with my sister.”

“Is
she
all right?”

“I'm not sure.” A shadow darkened her gaze. “I hope so. My mother's looking into it.” Before she could explain any further, a car's horn blared outside, interrupting her, and something like relief swept over her face. Catching his palm in hers, she gave it a squeeze before she let it drop away. “That'll be our cab.”

“Of course.” The one they'd decided to take in case she wanted to have a second glass of wine tonight.

Allowing himself to be distracted from her aborted attempt at an explanation, he followed her out into the hallway, stooping to lock his door. At the top of the stairs, she held out a hand for one of his crutches, and he passed it to her without argument. Taking the first step down, he gripped the railing with all his might to keep his balance.

But it was a losing battle. Forget his knee. She'd already thrown him and his life so far off-kilter, he didn't think he'd ever recover.

He wasn't even sure he wanted to.

Serena'd worried for a minute as she'd been getting dressed that things with her sister would distract her from making the most of the evening. She shouldn't have doubted herself.

Or more realistically, she shouldn't have doubted Cole.

Their taxi had dropped them off outside the restaurant where the benefit was being held right on time. As she'd clattered around on her heels to the other side of the car to let Cole out, her breath had already been up, her pulse racing. She'd been in confined spaces with him before, but sitting side by side in the backseat like that, his bad leg splayed out to keep it straight, their ankles brushing with every swerving motion of the cab...

Worse, with him looking like
that
—polished and dapper, and she'd thought he was attractive before. When he actually tried, it nearly took her breath away. Closed in together, he'd smelled of the richness of his aftershave, like warm male and spicy woods, and even now, sticking close by his side as they wandered their way through a reception hall, all she wanted to do was lean into him, let her nose guide her to the point of his jaw and the hollow of his throat so she could bury herself in that scent. In him.

She clenched her fingers tighter around her clutch to keep from reaching out.

So of course, he chose precisely that moment to lean in.

“On your ten o'clock,” he said, the smooth roll of his voice just adding to the numb delirium taking over her senses.

She tried to be all stealthy as she took a glance in that direction, but sneakiness wasn't exactly her forte. Nothing in particular caught her attention anyway. “Hmm?”

“Blond man in a navy pinstripe suit.”

She peeked over there again, and wow. Cole's eyes were sharp. “Oh.”

She wasn't entirely sure how she'd missed him the first time, honestly. The man had half a head on just about everyone else there, and his shoulders were strong and broad, his jaw sharp.

“People keep going over to him. Must be important.”

He had that right. “Dean of admissions.”

One Grayson Trousseau. Notoriously reclusive, always staying squirreled away in his office. She'd tried a half-dozen times on her little visits to find an excuse or an opportunity to bump into him, but to no avail.

“Excellent.” Without another word, Cole started off toward the man.

Serena's hand flew out before she could stop it, catching on the fabric of his jacket, and God. He was pouring off heat. She managed not to react to that as he pulled up short, glancing back at her with one brow raised.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We're going to go introduce ourselves.” He said it as if it were obvious, and it was, wasn't it? The entire point of attending tonight had been the chance to get some face time with the people who would determine Max's fate.

But...“Can we just do that?”

“Of course.”

He didn't wait for any additional comment. She found herself pulled along in his wake, and she could say that much about accompanying a man on crutches. People did tend to move to allow them through. As they neared their target, they passed a waiter with a tray of flutes, and she didn't hesitate. Slipping her wrist through the strap on her bag, she reached out and grabbed two—if Cole didn't want his, she'd drink it herself. She took one fortifying sip, then hurried to keep up, only falling back into step with him as he was inserting himself right into a conversation.

“Yes, but we don't begin to introduce quantum conceptualizations until far too late in STEM education, anyway.”

A half dozen pairs of eyes all turned toward Cole as one, Serena's included. Had those even been words he'd just spoken?

One of the men recovered first, and Serena's brows only rose higher when she recognized him as the chair of the science department. “Too true, Mr....”

“Stafford. Dr. Cole Stafford.” His smile was tight, but he extricated a hand to extend it toward the man. As he gripped his palm, he nodded to Serena. “And my companion is Serena Hartmann. An acclaimed teacher who's worked with some of yours in the past. Her nephew, Max, has you top on his list for next year.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Gazes turned to Serena, and she was regretting taking those champagne glasses now. Shifting them to one hand, she shook with everyone in the circle, nodding at all the names she'd been stalking so relentlessly on the school's website and social media, her throat tightening up when she got to Mr. Trousseau himself. She was pretty sure some words managed to pass her lips, but she didn't hear a one of them.

How had Cole done that? The charm he'd turned on in front of Mrs. Cunningham the previous week was out in spades, an easiness to him she never saw in their day to day.

And a coiled element, too. A strain.

Like it took work to be so polite, so witty. And it struck her. This was a mask. An appealing, unreasonably compelling mask. But the man beneath it was the one she'd met on that very first day. The one he showed her again and again as he revealed even more of his story. Making cookies together or tutoring her nephew. Drinking tea out of the mismatched mugs she'd made with her own two hands.

The conversation Cole had inserted them into resumed around them—something about increasing rigor in science and math education. Not exactly her strong suit, but apparently it was Cole's. The man had told her he wasn't a fan of teaching, but he certainly had a lot of smart, insightful things to say about it. Heads around the circle nodded, considering gazes going more and more admiring.

Until a pause in the discussion, when Grayson Trousseau turned to her, his blue eyes sharpening as they focused in on hers. “You said your nephew was applying to Upton for the fall?”

Serena's heart got stuck in her throat, her tongue thick and heavy, her mouth dry. Blinking owlishly, she nodded. Cole gave that tight smile of his again, swooping in.

“Max Hartmann. Terribly bright boy.”

“Well, I'll have to keep my eye out for him,” Mr. Trousseau said. “Sounds like the kind of applicant we're looking for.”

Dizziness swept over her. All at once her tongue came unglued. “Thank you. He's really got his heart set on it.”

The man nodded. “It's been a pleasure to meet you.” With that, he made his excuses, extricating himself and heading for the bar.

The group as a whole drifted apart not long after. Still a little light-headed, Serena let Cole lead her over to a high top in the corner. Shifting his crutches, he pried the flutes from her hands and set them down, taking her purse from her, too.

Concern trickled into his voice. “Serena?”

She reached out, grabbing his hands in her own. They were so warm, the strength in his fingertips and palms squeezing back as she held on.

She lifted her gaze to his. “That was amazing.”

“It was?”

“You. You were—
incredible
. Do you realize what just happened? You got the dean of admissions—Grayson Trousseau. He knows Max's name now.”

Then she spotted it—the smug, low-smoldering glow to his little half-grin. He knew exactly what he'd done. He knew what it meant to her.

“Why, I could—” She stopped herself before she could say it.

She could kiss him, was what she could do.

Shaky, she let go of his hands, feeling the loss of his warmth in the places deep beneath her skin, where her attraction to him simmered. And sometimes threatened to boil over.

Dropping her gaze, she reached for her flute, draining the last of it, but it did nothing for the desert of her throat.

A wariness had crept into Cole's gaze, yet when she set her glass back down, all he did was nudge the other flute closer to her.

She shook her head. “It's yours if you want it.”

“You look like you need it more.”

Maybe she did. She took a more measured sip from the spare glass before pushing it away. Steadier by a fraction, she looked up at him.

“Thank you,” she said, and it came out too intense by half.

The smile she got in reward was so real, though. So gorgeous and unself-conscious. So free.

“It's the least I could do.”

It wasn't—not by a long shot. But that he'd said it was and that he'd meant it...This man had helped not only her, but her family.

And what she was starting to feel for him wasn't simple attraction. It wasn't that at all.

I
t was a good thing they'd had so much luck hobnobbing during the cocktail hour, because it looked like at dinner they were striking out.

Stomach sinking, Serena leaned in close to Cole as they approached their assigned table, murmuring under her breath, “I don't recognize any of those people.”

“It's not full yet,” he said, all reassurance, and urged her on.

She smiled as she pulled out a chair. Introductions were made, names that only vaguely registered as she kept half an eye on the front of the room. The entire administration of the school was here, and nearly all of the senior faculty. All the people who would likely have a say in the admissions process—or who would at least be listened to if they happened to put in a good word. Restless, she shifted in her seat. It was too much to hope that any of them would choose to join them here. The room was practically overflowing with people who had more of a claim on their time. But they were sprinkled around, scattering themselves at different tables.

And then the sole remaining chair beside hers pulled out.

She jerked her head up, her gaze traveling the length of a navy pinstripe suit before settling on twinkling blue eyes.

She smacked her knee on the underside of the table in her scramble to rise. “Mr. Trousseau.”

He waved at her dismissively, motioning for her to sit back down. “Grayson, please. Serena, right?”

“Yes.” Why did the word have to come out so breathless?

He nodded to Cole. “And Dr. Stafford?”

“Cole.”

Reaching across the table, he introduced himself to the other couples seated beside them.

Couples. It made a spot light up in Serena's brain. “Is someone joining you?” She stopped herself from saying wife. “We can get another chair, or—”

“No, just me.” He shot her a rueful smile, like there was a story there. But clearly not one he wanted to dwell on. He addressed the table as a whole. “So what brings you all here tonight?”

As the man on the other side of Grayson chimed in about being an alumnus, Serena took the opportunity to look to Cole, not even bothering to mask her glee. Less than surreptitiously, she nudged her elbow toward Grayson as she raised her brows in disbelief. They'd already managed to make a good impression earlier, but getting to have a whole meal with this man? It was beyond her wildest dreams.

Cole smiled in reply, but it wasn't quite as unreserved in its approval as it could've been.

She let her brows lower, mouthing, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” As if to prove it, he placed his hand over hers beneath the table, giving it a quick squeeze, and for a second, she almost forgot what she was so excited about.

Worse—or maybe better—he didn't take his hand away. He just left it there, broad palm atop hers, the stroking of his thumb sending shivers of warmth shooting up the bare skin of her arms.

“Are you cold?” Grayson's voice interrupted her reverie, and she twisted around, blinking in confusion as the man tugged at the lapels of his jacket. By way of explanation, he said, “They always keep it precisely the wrong temperature at these things. Two warm for us men and too cold for the ladies in their lovely dresses.”

Oh good Lord. He was offering her his jacket, wasn't he?

If anything, she was overheated, and Cole's hand clamping down only intensified it.

“No, I'm fine, thank you,” she choked out.

At that, Cole's grip relaxed, and she sat there, fully waiting for him to let go the way he always did. Every time they danced too close and he made her heart soar. He always took it back, or worse, said it was a mistake.

But not this time.

Her breath went shallow. All around her, conversation resumed. She participated in it, even. But her focus just kept coming back to the impossible. The inexplicable. The hidden play of fingers against her skin.

Let. Go.

Cole kept willing his own ruddy hand to do his bidding, but it was no use.

Serena looked and smelled so good, she was sitting there beside him in that slip of a dress, and he never should've touched her in the first place. But her flesh was as smooth and soft as he remembered it. He wanted to laugh. One little touch, one moment of reassurance, and it had been the worst kind of mistake.

He didn't know how to stop. Especially not when—

Grayson laughed at some inanity from one of the other women seated at the table. Cole gritted his teeth. He was playing nice tonight. For Serena's and Max's sake, he was on his very best behavior. Charming and dapper and not punching smug, self-important blond deans of admission in their perfect fucking teeth.

Jesus. The man didn't have to just be powerful, at least to Serena's gaze. He had to be attractive, too. Educated. She was hanging on his every word, and Cole's grip on her kept incrementally tightening.

He cursed himself bitterly. Jealous, ridiculous
fool
. How many times had he pushed her away? And now he physically couldn't seem to stop holding her hand, and why? Because another man was paying attention to her? Offering her his jacket, even?

Cole's stomach shuddered and sank. He should've thought to do that. All that creamy skin left exposed by that dress—of course she had to be freezing. Had he been thinking, he could've had her wrapped up in his coat and in his scent, but that was the effect she had on him. His brain went to toffee, sticky and slow.

He forgot to think of all the reasons he needed to let go.

Finally, he was saved by servers coming around. As a salad plate was placed in front of him, his fingers unlocked. He pulled back and straightened his spine, unable to look at her for the shame of it. Every time, the loss of her touch was a near-physical pain, and he kept forcing himself to experience it. Dancing far too close to her flame. Sooner or later, he was going to burn.

By the time the entrees arrived, he'd more or less recovered his composure, though he still gripped his silverware hard enough to bend the metal. Grayson presided over the table, coaxing people's entire life stories from them as if it were his job. Maybe it was.

Cole's knife skidded across his plate with an indecorous screech as the man turned to Serena.

“And what about you, my dear?” He darted a glance at Cole. “Your companion here said you were a teacher?”

“Yes.” She set her utensils down and brushed a lock of golden hair behind her ear, trailing her fingertips down the column of her throat to fiddle with her necklace. “Seventh grade. Public school, though.” She said it half apologetically, as though that were something to be ashamed about.

Cole frowned. If anything, she should be proud of what she did. He opened his mouth, about to say as much.

But Grayson spoke first, neatly sidestepping the issue altogether. “And is that something you've always wanted to do?”

“Since I was in middle school myself.” She glanced away, eyes taking on that particular gleam they got when she was getting worked up about her profession. “I had an amazing teacher. One of those who really inspires you, you know?”

Heads around the table nodded, and Cole leaned forward. This wasn't a story he'd heard before. Probably because he'd never asked.

“My sister, Penny.” Her voice cracked by half a fraction, but she hid it well. “She was an honors student. Always the best at everything. She had her flaws, sure, but at school at least...” A ruefulness colored her smile. “Let's say she wasn't an easy act to follow. Teachers expected me to pick things up as quickly as she did, and when I didn't, they always seemed so disappointed. But not this teacher. She made me realize—” She cut herself off, throat bobbing. “Teaching isn't about the kids who could've done it on their own. It's about the ones who need you. Who need to be noticed or encouraged.” She shrugged. “I want to be that person, and teaching where I do, working with the kids I do, I get to change people's lives.”

The room was loud, practically rattling with all the clinking and chatter. But the silence that descended over their table seemed to wash it away. Cole swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

This woman. He wanted to take her hand all over again, consequences and temptations be damned. He wanted to worship her.

He wanted to give to her what she was apparently so prepared to give to everyone else.

Self-consciousness seemed to steal over her, and she dropped her gaze, picking up her fork and poking at her potatoes with the tines.

Grayson recovered first. “Noble,” he said, though there was something strained to his voice.

Cole shook his head. His throat was still parched, and he grasped for words. The only ones he could find were “You're amazing.”

Whirling around, she turned the full power of her vivid green eyes on him, making him feel pinned. He curled his fingers hard into a fist. It had come out too reverent, too awed by half, and yet it didn't begin to encapsulate a fraction of what she did to him.

She inspired him. She drew him out of himself—made him want to teach and love and be part of the world again. Part of
her
world.

For a moment, the room around them receded, their gazes locked. And he could do it. He could touch her. He could let himself.

But before his hands could begin to uncurl, Grayson cleared his throat. “And, Cole, you said you were a doctor?”

Cole's mind was a haze, all his thoughts turned to this slip of a woman who brought him to his knees, who threatened to change
his
life. The moment, crystalline and perfect, shattered around him.

He tore his gaze away. “I...” He tucked his hand beneath the table, jabbing into the meat of his thigh as if that could clear his thoughts. He shook his head. “No. A professor. I was a professor.”

In another life.

“Oh? And now?”

Nothing. The same, stale anger of the last few years nipped at his heels. He did
nothing
.

But then it came to him.

Strangled, his very lungs threatening to close, he said, “I do some tutoring.”

And it was the most satisfying thing he'd done in years.

Grayson's brow furrowed, and Serena laughed, a high, clear sound that soothed something inside of Cole.

After that, the rest of the dinner hour passed in a blur. Small talk about careers gave way to theater and the new show at the Art Institute and the mayor's latest scandal. Finally, someone stepped up to a podium at the front of the room. With gratitude, Cole tuned the parade of speakers and presenters out, the meaningless self-congratulation washing over him until—

“And now,” a voice boomed over the microphone, “we invite you to relax and enjoy the musical stylings of the Tony Stephens Band.”

Out of nowhere, the room erupted in music. Cole started, dessert fork clattering to his plate as he whipped around.

In his distraction, an entire band had set up. He recognized the tune, an old jazz standard Helen would have loved, would have forced him to dance to, and he would have gone. For her he would have.

She wasn't the only one.

He turned back to Serena, and his heart was an impassable terrain of barbed wire and mud, littered with tire tracks and blood. But her eyes were beautiful. They were hopeful.

Right until the moment they fell.

Her mouth struggled to keep from curling down into a frown. Looking just to the side of him, she said, “You probably need a few more therapy appointments before you can dance, huh?”

Bollocks. He'd been so enraptured, so consumed, he'd nearly forgotten. His hand went instinctively for the crutches resting against the corner of his chair, the throbbing ache in his knee resurging.

Whatever had been rising in him fell, too.

“Probably.” He nodded, his voice strangled.

But he hadn't known how strained it could become.

“If I may,” Grayson said. “I know a step or two.”

Something complicated happened around Serena's mouth. She twisted around in her seat to face the man, the pretty pink of her flush sliding down her neck toward her chest. She glanced to Cole, a question to the tilt of her chin.

It was like watching their moment fall away all over again.

“Please,” he said, the words acid, “don't let me hold you back.”

There was reluctance in Serena's posture as she stood. As she took the hand of another man. She glanced one last time at Cole. “You're sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Tethered in place in so many ways, bound to where he sat, he watched them walk away.

And something inside him snapped.

Well, at least Serena knew what it was like to turn into a pillar of salt now.

The whole way out to the impromptu dance floor set up in front of the band, she kept taking backward glances. It was futile. She knew that. But the look on Cole's face had been so miserable as he'd urged her to go. He understood how much securing Max's place at Upton meant to her, and he hadn't tried to hold her back. He clearly hadn't been happy about it, though.

Her heart tugged hard at her chest as Grayson held out his arms. She stepped into them, leaving more than enough room for the Holy Spirit, her hand stiff where it rested on his shoulder. It was so wrong to be gazing past him, staring back at their table, at the twin points of those dark, brooding eyes that she could practically feel boring into her.

To go even more rigid in this mockery of a dance when she watched that figure rise and start a slow, aching walk toward the door.

Warm fingers tightened around her palm, and she sucked in a breath as she refocused.

“Let him stew,” Grayson said.

She felt like something you'd find stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

“I'm sorry, I—” She didn't even know what kind of excuse she could hope to make.

Fortunately, she didn't have to make one at all. “It's fine.” Grayson's smile was kind, his eyes clear. “You clearly have a...complicated relationship.”