I leaned back briefly, reaching onto the front seat for the small purse I’d carried. After what had happened between me and Mason, I’d thrown a condom into the side pocket of my bag, not really sure why I was doing it, but I was grateful as hell for it now.
Cole used the opportunity to run his hands up the sides of my waist, lifting the hem of my shirt but not taking it off. When I leaned forward again with the condom in my hand, he surprised me by catching my wrist again, stopping me from moving.
I pushed against his hold, but his arm had seemingly turned to steel, and it didn’t budge. My gaze caught his, and when it did, his grip tightened slightly.
“I was wrong,” he muttered, his voice raspy. “That day, in the locker room. I was wrong about you.”
My heart gave a little stutter in my chest, and I leaned back, blinking at him.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. During my first semester, Cole had cornered me in the girls’ locker room and accused me of trying to seduce his friends, told me I was a slut who would take whatever scraps she could get from any of them without caring who it came from.
And then he had kissed me.
I remembered it with painful clarity, because out of all the Princes’ cruelty during those months, that had been the thing that’d come the closest to breaking me.
My throat worked as I swallowed, and Cole finally released his hold on my wrist to draw his knuckles down the side of my face. His touch was gentle, but his expression was tortured.
“I wanted you. I didn’t know what to do about it, so I decided to hate you instead.” He shook his head. “And I was jealous as fuck that you had something with Finn.”
“Are you jealous now?”
His features twisted. “No. I just hate myself for what I said to you.”
I didn’t respond to that with words. What he’d done was awful and unfair, and no matter what the reason for it, there was no justification that would excuse it. Besides, even if I could’ve told him I forgave him for it, that wouldn’t have soothed over the pain he felt now.
Some hurts always stay with us as reminders to do better.
So I didn’t give him empty words of absolution. I just dipped my head and kissed him again. Our lips stayed joined as I felt him take the condom from me, and I scooted back on his lap to give him room to roll it on.
Fire burned low in my belly as he helped me rise up on my knees until I was hovering over him. I could feel him at my entrance, and my inner muscles clenched involuntarily, already craving the feeling of having him inside me, of being full of him. He was breathing in deep drags, his chest rising and falling under my palm as I braced myself above him, pulling my panties out of the way with my free hand.
This would change everything.
I knew it, on a level that went beyond logic or reason.
The four Princes and I had been to hell and back, and our time in the deep trenches of human awfulness had forged bonds between us that still barely made sense.
As I sank down onto Cole, as I took him into my body and watched him—felt him—shudder beneath me, something clicked into place, like a promise being sealed.
All four of them.
They were mine.
And no matter what Finn said, I was theirs.
Leah had joked about it in the car that day, that the Princes were a package deal. That if I was going to date one, I might as well date them all. She’d been kidding, but this was far beyond a joke or a dare by now.
It was monumental.
Life changing.
“Fuck,” Cole grunted, his hips jerking under mine. He trapped my hands on his chest with his own and scooted forward on the seat a little, giving me room to move against him.
He matched my rhythm as we began to rock our hips, and we didn’t kiss again, just stared at each other as our bodies fell into sync, chasing the pleasure that sparked between us.
By the time a car did drive by several minutes later, my head was tipped back, my bottom lip caught between my teeth, and what the driver saw or didn’t see was the last fucking thought on my mind. The muffled grunts and soft curses that spilled from Cole’s lips filled the small car, and when he grabbed my hips in a firm grip, I let him guide my movements until he came hard inside me.
My body was still wrung out from the two almost bruising orgasms I’d had earlier, but when I felt him swell and pulse inside me, my inner walls fluttered around him, something soft and sweet flowing through me like a balm.