Sins of the Past (12 page)

He adjusted his aching cock. The thing hadn’t gone down since the moment he walked into her shop and saw her bent over in those tiny cut-off shorts with her round ass swaying to the music. His cock had instantly sat up and taken notice. Then her possessive kiss had him on the verge of coming in his jeans.

Cole knew he was going to have to tell Jacob about the kiss. The news was something that was better coming from him rather than Jacob finding out through gossip. He grimaced at the thought of how Jacob would react and hoped he hadn’t just lost his best friend.

Jacob’s truck was already in the driveway when Cole pulled up. He groaned as he got out of his car and marched up to the house. For the first time in a long while, he noticed his palms were sweaty and his pulse jumped. Cole let out a small laugh at himself. On their SEAL team, he was always known as the calm, cool, rational one. They were sent on missions to take down some of the world’s most dangerous and ruthless men and he never showed an ounce of fear. Now, he felt like he was marching toward his doom. He was scared to death to tell Jacob about the kiss. Not only because he could possibly lose his best friend but because if he had the chance, he had no doubts he wouldn’t hesitate to kiss Lorna again.

“Hey, man where you been?”

Cole jumped and turned toward Jacob. He had been so lost in thought he hadn’t even seen the man sitting on the porch. He saw that Jacob had his leg propped up and was rubbing his knee. Aware he was avoiding the man’s question to stall for more time, Cole pulled up a chair and sat next to Jacob. “What’s up? What did the doctors say?”

Jacob laughed. “Other than telling me that I was a stubborn bastard because I wouldn’t take no for an answer, they gave me a new brace and I’m no longer on crutches. I start physical therapy next week.”

“That’s great, man.” Cole hated to wipe the smile off Jacob’s face, but he knew he needed to tell the man what happened before he lost the nerve. “I went to see Lorna while you were gone.”

Cole waited for Jacob to say something, but the man sat silently as if waiting for him to continue. “I got bored so I went down to see her shop. We ended up going to that diner down the street to get some lunch. Some chick, I think Lorna said her name was Ashley, came up to the table and started hitting on me.”

Jacob cut Cole off with a laugh. “Oh, man, I bet Lorna wasn’t too pleased about that. She can’t stand the woman.”

Cole dragged his hands down his face before continuing. “Yeah, Lorna wasn’t too happy. In fact, she kissed me.” He saw Jacob’s whole body tense from the news and waited for the first blow to come.

“She kissed you?”

Cole winced at the flat tone in his friend’s voice. He didn’t know if Jacob was ready to kill him or not. One thing he was certain of was that he didn’t want the man to blame Lorna for what happened. “Technically, she kissed me, but I did nothing to stop it. Honestly, I didn’t want to stop it. Ashley was flirting with me and when she reached out to touch me, Lorna pulled my hand away. She told Ashley that I was hers just as much as you were, then she kissed me to prove her point. Ashley said something about her being just like her mother and then she stomped away.”

Cole expected cursing, fighting, or Jacob telling him to get his stuff and get out. The last thing he expected was laughing. He sat there stunned as he watched Jacob throw his head back and laugh. The man laughed so hard he had tears streaming down his face by the time he started to calm down. Utterly confused, Cole could only sit and wait for Jacob to explain what about the situation he found so amusing.

“Those two women have a lot of bad blood between them,” he said between breaths and chuckles. “I would have loved to see the look on Ashley’s face when Lorna claimed you. She did the same thing to me a few nights ago while we were at the fair.”

“So you aren’t mad?”

Jacob was quiet for a while before he answered. “As strange as it seems, no, I’m not mad. Honestly, it hasn’t bothered me one bit to see you flirting with her these past few days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m starting to care deeply for Lorna and if I saw another guy flirting or kissing her, I’d probably kill him, but for some reason with you it’s different.”

They both sat there quiet and thoughtful. Cole thought about what Jacob said and was shocked to find that he felt the same way. Over the last few days whenever he saw Lorna and Jacob kissing or touching, it hadn’t bothered him. He was envious of the fact that Jacob had such a beautiful woman, but he was never jealous or resentful of their relationship. He was starting to realize that every time he thought of Jacob and Lorna together his thoughts were that he wanted her
also
. Not that he wished he had her instead, but that he wanted her as well.

Cole frowned at the way his thoughts were going. Never in his life had he shared a woman with another man, but with Lorna, it seemed his thoughts were headed in that direction. He wouldn’t ever take her away from Jacob, but he couldn’t deny that there was a connection between him and Lorna as well.

“What are we going to do?” Jacob asked.

They spent twelve years together watching each other’s backs in some of the most dangerous places in the world. That meant that he and Jacob could read each other like a book. They probably knew each other better than anyone else in the world. So he wasn’t surprised that Jacob knew exactly where his thoughts were headed or his question. “Do you think she would be open to something like that?” he asked Jacob.

The man sat back and grunted. “It’s not my story to tell, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I think you should know everything about Lorna’s background before you start contemplating anything.” He reached into a small cooler that was tucked next to him and pulled out two beers before handing one to Cole. “This is going to require a few beers.”

Based on Jacob’s expression, Cole snagged the beer held out to him and settled back in his chair. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what the man had to say one bit.

Lorna punched her pillow for the thousandth time before bunching it back under her head. She looked at the clock on her nightstand and saw that it was only five minutes later than the last time she had looked. That’s how it had gone since the moment she went to bed at ten. Now, at three twenty in the morning, she was still no closer to sleep.

After she had left Cole at the diner, Lorna went back to her shop and threw herself into her work so she didn’t have to think about what she had done. She stayed at the shop working well past her normal time in hopes of wearing herself out so that when she got home, she would be too tired to think. It had worked up until the point of her head hitting the pillow. Lying alone in the quiet house, there was nothing to do but think and her mind was racing.

If Lorna had to admit it to herself, there was only one thing that kept popping up in her head over and over again. It was something she didn’t even want to admit, but Ashley’s parting words had stuck with her. She could still hear the woman’s voice in her head telling her that it had only been a matter of time before she turned out just like her mother.

Lorna was starting to wonder if there was some truth to the woman’s words. Why else would she have kissed Cole and claimed him in public only days after she had done the same thing to Jacob. She had meant every word of what she told Ashley, as well. Cole was hers. She wanted him just as much as she wanted Jacob.

Knowing she wasn’t going to get any sleep, Lorna gave up and got out of bed. She went into the kitchen and started the coffee pot before pulling things out of the refrigerator and setting them on the counter. By the time the coffee was finished, Lorna had a sandwich made and on a plate along with chips and a brand new package of Double Stuf cookies. She poured herself a mug of coffee and carried everything to the living room. If she had to think, then she was going to do it on a full stomach.

After settling on the sofa, she ignored the sandwich and chips. Instead, she opened the cookies and pulled one out. Twisting it open, Lorna licked the cream out of the middle and finally allowed herself to think about the kiss and what it meant. She wondered if Cole had told Jacob what happened and grimaced at the thought. If he had told, was Jacob angry? If he was, she hoped he directed his anger at her and not Cole. She deserved it since she was the one who kissed him.

Once the cream was all gone, Lorna sat the two cookie halves on the table and grabbed another one out of the package. Was she really turning into her mother like Ashley had said? It was a question she had asked herself over and over again long before the woman said anything. Her feelings for Jacob were growing more and more as each day passed, but if she was honest with herself, since the moment she had seen Cole standing at the door, she had felt something between them as well. Whatever that link was, it was growing each day as well.

Thinking of Jacob made her stomach flutter and her thighs tingle. He was the man she had given her virginity to and she couldn’t see herself without him. Unfortunately, the thought of Cole with Ashley, not just her but any woman, was too much for Lorna to handle. She wanted him to herself also.

Lorna sighed. She wondered when her life had gotten so complicated. She was sitting alone on her couch at three something in the morning, eating the cream out of cookies that she had no intentions of eating, and wondering if desperately wanting the two gorgeous guys across the street made her a slut like her mother.

Her mom was the screw-them-and-leave-them type of woman. Lorna thought of the man parade she had watched over time coming in and out of her mother’s door. “That’s not me.” She shuddered as she spoke. Maybe if she said it enough times out loud, it would make it true. “I’m nothing like her.”

Lorna couldn’t see herself allowing men into her bed that she didn’t even know only to have them walk out after they got a quick screw from her. She tried to imagine herself with someone else besides Jacob and only one face kept popping into her mind. Cole. Other than him, there was no one else. Just the thought of screwing some random man that she didn’t even know or have any feelings for made Lorna’s stomach turn. “Surely that means that I’m not like her. Right?”

Before she could answer herself, there was a knock on her front door. Lorna had a feeling she knew exactly who it was, but she frowned. What was Jacob doing there at that time of night? Laying the cookie halves on the table next to her growing stack, her stomach dropped as she stood and walked over to the door. What if he was so angry with her that he couldn’t even wait until morning to break things off?

She pressed her forehead against the door and took a deep breath before opening it. Sure enough, Jacob was standing on the other side. Lorna’s heart sped up, but not for nervous reasons. It was something that just happened whenever the man was near. His large presence was almost overwhelming as he stood there taking up the entire doorway.

“Where are your crutches?” she asked when she noticed the new brace on his leg. Jacob was leaning heavily on a cane and Lorna wondered if the thing would eventually snap from the man’s weight. It looked like a toothpick compared to him.

“I got rid of them today,” Jacob grunted as she stepped aside to let him in the house.

If the man was there to break things off with her, then she wanted it done in private and not on the front porch for the whole neighborhood to hear. It was bad enough that she was sure the whole town was already talking about the stunt she pulled at the diner.

Once she locked the door back, she followed him over to the sofa and took her spot back. She was tempted to bury herself under the throw blanket so that he wouldn’t see her face after he delivered his news, but she sat there with her hands folded in her lap instead. She deserved everything he was about to say. She betrayed the man. The least she could do was suffer the consequences like a woman.

Lorna was shocked when Jacob sat next to her. She had expected him to sit in the chair so that he was as far away from her as possible. Instead, he was so close that she rolled into him when his weight caused the couch to sink. She heard him chuckle at her loss of balance, but she ignored it. Lorna was distracted by his body heat. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle into his side and close her eyes.

As if reading her mind, Jacob lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder pulling her closer to him. “Look at me, Lorna.”

She was afraid to. She didn’t want to see the disgust on his face if she did look up. How could he not be disgusted with her? She had kissed his best friend all because she was jealous of him talking to another woman. Unfortunately, her choice was taken away from her when one of Jacob’s large fingers lifted her chin.

“I’m not upset with you.”

Lorna saw the truth shining in his eyes. There was no disgust or anger. “Why?” She was confused. The man should have been yelling at her, not sitting there with a grin on his face.

“Cole told me what happened and we had a long talk about it. It didn’t bother me that he kissed you.”

Lorna felt the breath leave her as if Jacob had punched her in the stomach. The man didn’t even care if she had kissed another man? She was falling in love with Jacob, but it seemed the feelings weren’t mutual. She fought to hold the tears back when her eyes started burning. There was no way she was going to cry in front of him. She tried to stand, but Jacob held her in place.

“I’m fucking this all up. That didn’t come out right.” Jacob sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. “If any other man had touched you, I would have been fighting mad, but it was Cole. He’s been my best friend for twelve years and has had my back through some of the most dangerous countries in the world. The thought of you two together doesn’t bother me. After some of the things that we’ve seen and been through, he deserves to be happy just as much as I am. In just the short time that I’ve know you, you’ve brought joy into my life. It was something I didn’t even know was missing until I met you. I want that for Cole as well.”