Page 32 of The Forbidden Trio

She wanted to shake him off—literally and figuratively—but he was rightthereand it was too damn hard.

And oh God, she was pressed up against him tight enough to feel thathewas hard.

Her body wanted him. Wanted to simply give in and rub up against him and purr.

But there was too much history between them. She was not going to risk the serenity she’d worked so long for,foughtfor, over a sexual infatuation that would not die. That and the memories of the best sex she’d ever had. Even if that sex was with Cole—rock star, bad boy biker, inherently sex on a stick.

The risk was too big, and she wasn’t sure she could fight her way out again if she gave in now. She had paid too high a price.

Her mind flashed back to one of the last painful nights of their marriage.

Startled awake in the middle of the night by a noise in the kitchen. Again. She threw her robe on, pulled the belt tight and made her way downstairs. Cole drunk or high or both, hanging onto the counter for support while he stood blinking in front of the open refrigerator, a carton of orange juice spilled heedlessly at his feet. Still so damn beautiful, in some terrible, tragic way that hurt her heart.

“Cole, I told you, you can’t do this anymore. I can’t take it.” She hated the desperation in her voice. Where had their happiness gone? Why didn’t he seem to care what he was doing to her? Tothem?

“Sorry, baby.”

“Please don’t call me that when you’re loaded.”

“But you are my baby.”

He started to move toward her, a crooked smile on his face, but all the charm it once held was gone, drowned in his addiction. She could have been anyone. He didn’t even see her most of the time anymore, and certainly not now, when he was loaded. Again.

She put her hands up in front of her like a shield and took a step back. “Not like this, I’m not.”

He blinked, looking confused, as if he didn’t understand why she was pushing him away. But it was his behavior that had caused this chasm between them. And that chasm hurt like hell.

“C’mon, baby. It’s all good.”

“It is not all good, Cole. None of it is good anymore.”

She had to swallow the tears. She’d spent too much time crying in the last year.

It was the sense of utter betrayal that really got her. Betrayal of their vows. Of the love they had for each other. Oh, she knew he loved her. He simply loved his Jack Daniels and his Vicodin more.

“You’re sleeping on the couch, Cole. And tomorrow… tomorrow you need to find somewhere else to sleep.”

It hurt her to say the words. To turn her back on him. But she had to do it.

She’dhadto do it. And it still hurt. She couldn’t go through it again.

Squirming, she pushed away from him, fighting down the emotion that wanted to overwhelm her.

“I can’t go there, Cole. I don’t want to talk about my fears with you. Or being your girl. Or my fuckinghair, for God’s sake! This is… ridiculous. Impossible.”

But the sheer masculine beauty of his face—a face thousands of women would have killed to be close to—and the sincerity of his tone were getting to her. That, and the pure chemistry that still sizzled and snapped in the air between them like static electricity before a storm.

The past was the past. Wasn’t it? How was it possible that she still responded to him like this? She couldn’t seem to think straight.

“Have dinner with me tonight. We can talk.”

Her mind spun with images of them together in the darkness, with nothing but the light of the moon shining on their naked bodies through the windows of their old house in Venice Beach… Those images drove the other ones away, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or if it was bad, but this certainly felt better.

“Tonight?” she asked uncertainly.

“Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up wherever you tell me to. Here. Your home.” An air of command in his voice even while he was giving her options. How did he do that?

“I didn’t say I was going.”

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