She pursed her lips and her eyes grew thoughtful for a moment. He could see the question hovering but she made no effort to voice it.

“Ask your question, Ren.”

“It’s really none of my business,” she said ruefully. “Just a thought that occurred and I’m not even certain why I want to know.”

“Ask it.”

“These women. Serena and Angelina. You spoke of being attracted to and of being …intimate …with women that belonged to other men. Are they …” She took a deep breath. “Are they the women you spoke of?”

Cole went soft at how small her voice sounded. She was trying so hard to pretend only a passing interest but he remembered what Lucas had told him of her previous relationship and the promise he’d exacted from Cole about having other women. As if he could even bring himself to look at another woman with Ren at his side.

“Look at me,” he said in a tender voice. “First, you’re it for me, Ren. All I want. The only woman I need. I have no desire—feel no desire—for another woman when I have perfection staring me in the face.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes rounding and then sparkling with delight.

“Now to answer your question because I’ll never be anything but honest with you. I have touched Serena. Intimately. But not in the way you’d think. Damon is very, very possessive of her. He doesn’t share. He trusts me and I spend a lot of time at his club, and so he would often have me prepare Serena. For him. For his attentions. It was part of his process. He’s very methodical in all things. That’s as far as things ever went with Serena. And I never had any desire to take things further. They are dear friends. She and Damon both.”

Ren nodded her understanding, relief lightening her eyes.

He touched her and then shifted so he could sit up to hold her because he considered that the next might not be as easy to hear.

“Angelina …she was different and in order to tell you the difference, I need to go back and tell you of my role at The House. A role that I basically made for myself and one I was content with.”

She nodded again but the frown was back.

Unable to resist, he leaned forward and pulled her down into a long, heated kiss. She melted instantly, so sweet and unresisting. He could honestly spend all day doing nothing more than touching her. The next two weeks were going to be hard because all he wanted to do was lock himself in a room with her and make love to her until neither of them could take anymore.

But what he had to do was show her his life. How her life with him could be. He couldn’t afford a single misstep. Not when his entire future rode on convincing her that he could be the man she needed.

“Now, about Angelina. She belongs to Micah. Completely and utterly belongs to him. He’s so crazy in love with her. He’d do anything and everything to make her happy.”

Ren sighed. “That so wonderful.”

He could hear the wistful note in her voice and he wanted so badly to tell her that she could have that. She could have it and more because if she stayed with him, not a day would go by that he wouldn’t show her how very precious she was to him. Had always been.

“Micah is also …hard. Darker I guess you could say. Angelina fits him well because her desires and needs are every bit as dark as his. He’s fierce and demanding but he loves her so damn much.”

“He likes her to be with other men,” Ren guessed.

“Yes and no. You see, it’s kind of complicated, his and Angelina’s past, which is why he fought her for so long. He was once married to a woman he loved very much but he shared her with Angelina’s brother, his best friend. They both loved her. She was with them both.”

Ren frowned and cocked her head. “Then how?”

“I know. It all sounds like some kind of soap opera, right? Hannah, his wife, and David, his best friend, were killed in a car accident. Only it wasn’t really an accident. They were murdered by a man who was obsessed with Angelina, who at the time was far too young and David was extremely protective of her.”

“Oh my God. That’s horrible!”

Cole nodded. “So Micah leaves Miami, comes here. He’s grief-stricken. It took him a good while to get over what happened. And then comes Angelina who had been in love with him the entire time. So you can imagine all the conflicting emotions that Micah was feeling when confronted by this gorgeous, now grown-up, Latina bombshell.”

“He didn’t take it well, I’m guessing,” Ren murmured.

She leaned forward now, seemingly absorbed by the somewhat twisted story. Okay so it was a lot twisted looking back.

“He pushed her pretty hard,” Cole said. “He didn’t believe that she knew what it was he really needed and wanted. He didn’t believe that she knew what she was getting into.”

Ren snorted. “Typical know-it-all male. Always knows better than the female what she wants or needs.”

He eyed her balefully. “Anyway, if I can continue, I’ll get to my point.”

“Ah yes, what was the point of this conversation? I’ve quite forgotten.”

He smacked the side of her ass. “Disrespectful baggage. I’ll have to punish you for that later.”

The shiver that stole over her body delighted him. And stirred his blood like crazy. He couldn’t wait to have her spread out before him. Helpless. Dependent solely on him and his mercy. Provided he had any.

“Now, the thing is, back to my role at The House, because this kind of ties in. I did a lot of preparing. I touched. But mostly observed. I never had actual intercourse with the women there. I was tempted a few times but it wasn’t the right situation. I liked being at the club. I enjoyed the lifestyle. But mostly I was an outsider looking in. Until Angelina.”

Ren battled her frown. She tried not to allow him to see her reaction. She went still and he could feel the battle she waged with herself. It was obvious she still carried the scars from her previous relationship and it pissed him the fuck off that some bastard had actually cheated on her. Her! Who the hell in their right mind would even look at another woman when they had Ren at their feet. A willing submissive. Eager to do his bidding, to please him. She was so beautiful inside and out and he hated this son of a bitch for making her doubt that inner beauty.

That this asshole had paraded these women in front of Ren—hell he’d probably fucked them in front of her—all the while sending her the message that she wasn’t good enough, that nothing she could do would please him.

If he did nothing else in these two weeks, he’d show her that no other woman existed for him except her. She would know without a doubt that while she may submit to him and give him the most precious gift a woman can give to a man, in reality, she wielded absolute power over him.

“So you had sex with Angelina. Was she your first? I mean, from The House?” Ren asked.

“Well, yes and no. Micah invited me over. He trusted me. There were things he wanted that he didn’t feel comfortable doing himself.”

Ren’s eyebrows raised and he could see the interest gleam in her eyes.

“Hot wax,” Cole explained. “He didn’t want to hurt Angelina and I have experience with the practice. Micah did not. He may have tested her limits and maybe even tried to push her away and to prove that she couldn’t take what he would demand from her, but he would have died before hurting her.”

Ren donned a thoughtful, musing look. “I think I might like this Angelina. Except the part about her having sex with you.”

He chuckled. “There were other men present. Two others, to be exact.”

Her eyes widened again. “So she had sex with all of you?”

Cole studied her reaction closely. She seemed intrigued and he wasn’t sure how to take that. He wasn’t big on sharing. It was one thing he had in common with Damon. Before Angelina, he’d never even participated in a threesome. He was too damn possessive to share a woman he cared about with another man. But he could understand the appeal better now.