Page 30 of Riding the High

He looks stone-cold sober. How long has he been awake?

Cole stands and looks down at me with his hands on his hips. Scary-dad mode. Why is this doing it for me?Oh God, I slept with Cole.And while I don’t remember everything, the one thing I do recall is that it was …sofucking good.

I shake my head and nausea washes over me.

“Oh my God, Cole. What are we going to do? Can we just go down and ask them to reverse it—fuck, annul it? Fuck … fuck … fuck.”

“We only have two hours before we have to fly back,” he states in a monotone. Why is he calm? He’s way too calm. “You better wake up, have a shower. We need to figure this out.”

I nod, then swallow down a Tylenol, closing my eyes and silently begging for relief. I blow out a breath before inhaling another. Repeat.That’s it. Breathe, Ginger.

“This is a solvable problem. It might be one of the craziest mistakes I’ve made—alright, it takes the fucking cake—butthere’s an easy solution. People do this all the time. It’s Vegas. We’ll just … yes … that’s what we’ll do, we’ll get an annulment,” I say, rubbing my temples.

Cole starts to laugh, then turns to stare out the window. He suddenly doesn’t seem as calm as he did two minutes ago.

“I’m a cop, Ginger, remember? Pretty sure you have to not have sex, prove fraud or lack of consent to get the marriage annulled. Wedefinitelyhad sex and we definitely both consented.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I mutter, still rubbing my aching head, squeezing my thighs together to stop the ache between my legs and the memory of him between them.

Images of his rough hands all over my body take over. The way he touched me like he simply couldn’t get enough. How his lips never stopped searching my skin, his mouth on mine, worshipping me, just like he’d said he would. The things he said as he pressed me up against the hotel door the moment we shut it and he dropped to his knees, burying his face under my dress, tearing my panties aside.

“They can’t see you out there, Vixen, but they can hear you. Let them hear how much you like my tongue buried in your sweet cunt. Scream my name. Let this whole fucking city know whose wife you are.”

I clear my throat, wishing the one and only night I got to be with Cole I hadn’t been drunk, wishing I could remember it more clearly for future self-care reference. I blow out a breath, pushing what we did from my mind.

“Yeah, uh … definitely had sex,” I say, looking away, feeling the blush on my cheeks. “Don’t really remember it though,” I lie, finding it easier to pretend I don’t know what he felt like than admit it.

Wait—

“But we were so drunk—doesn’t that count for something?”

“Fucking Christ,” Cole bites out as he rubs his temples. “I know enough to know we can’t apply here. We have to do it where we live. Right next door to where I work.” He shakes his head. He’s definitely angry, but he doesn’t seem angry atme.He seems angry at himself. “I haven’t even been sworn in yet. One week on the job and the single-dad sheriff goes to Vegas, gets drunk and gets married to the incumbent congressman’s daughter? If that doesn’t scream small-town scandal, I don’t know what does.”

Oh God, my dad.

“Fuck,” I say, picturing my father’s face when this hits the local news.

I can’t take this in right now. I move quickly to swallow the rest of my Gatorade and stand, wrapping the sheet around me. Cole grins.

“This is not funny,” I say, struggling to conceal my body.

“It’s a little funny thatnowyou’re shy? After …” he looks away from me before he finishes his sentence, “… the things we did.”

Yep, definitely going to throw up. My head buzzes as I make my way away from the bed.Where the fuck is my dress?

“I’m allowed to be shy when I don’t remember anything from last night,” I say, peddling my lie again.

Every part of me remembers him buried inside me. That part I’ll never forget.

“Fuck, I’m so proud of you, Ginger, so ready to take all of me. And you’re going to, Vixen. Every last fucking inch.”

The memory of the dirtiest words any man has ever spoken to me mixed with Cole,myCole? Something about that affects me in a way I can’t put into words. I look up at his deep amber eyes. He’s still waiting expectantly, taking in every part of my sheet-clad body.

“Look, Cole, I just need my head to stop pounding and then,we’ll figure this out. Okay? No one ever needs to know.” I make a beeline for the bathroom, ready to pass out or be sick.

I hear him mutter something, but it fades as I shut the bathroom door behind me and drop to the floor, a million thoughts running through my mind. Holy shit, did we just ruin everything? And worse yet, why does this ring on my finger not scare me as much as it should?

Twenty minutes later, I feel semi-human and slightly calmer, the ring buried in my purse. My shower provided me with the time to think I needed to solve this. I’m going with my earlier play: denial for the win. I can simply pretend I don’t remember how it felt to have Cole’s body hovering over mine. Nothing will change. We can deal with this quietly, my father never has to know, the town never has to know. We can handle this.We can handle this.

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