Veils of Rivalry Chapter 66

Blaise's POV

I can’t sleep. I keep staring at the streetlight outside the window. I’m on my front with my arms beneath the pillow. My joints ache from how long I’ve laid like this, waiting and waiting and waiting for Cole to come home. Is he cheating on me? Is that why he’s not responding to my messages? Did he find someone else?

A car drives by outside, its headlights briefly lighting up the room before darkness settles over my soul once more. I can’t remember the last time I felt this empty, this…broken. I thought he cared for me. I thought we had something.

Just then, the door creaks open, and every muscle in my body stiffens. My heart is in my throat as the bed shifts behind me. The urge is there to turn around and ask him where he’s been or why he hasn’t responded to a single message. But fear latches my heart, so I close my eyes and pretend to sleep instead.

Cole’s warm body settles behind me, bringing with it the scents of late night and citrusy cologne. I can feel him watching me, propped up on his elbow, staring at the side of my face.

I wait…

Soft fingers brush strands of my hair away, and my heart jolts like a spark plug at the sudden contact. Then he’s gone, and a tidal wave of hurt floods my chest. Why is fear so crippling? I’m just about to hurt him to get a fucking reaction out of him when he rolls back over and buries his nose in my neck. It’s gentle and soft so as not to wake me.

Why doesn’t he want to wake me? What is he doing? This isn’t Cole. He’s abrupt and forceful, yet sweet and… Fuck…I need to get myself together.

“Why can’t I stay away?” he whispers so silently I would have missed it if I wasn’t already hypertuned to his every breath.

The throb in my chest intensifies. Cole shifts behind me, getting comfortable. His breaths soon even out, but I can’t sleep, and when my father bangs on the door early in the morning hours, I haven’t slept a wink.

“Blaise, are you awake?” He tries the handle, and I scramble out of bed while Cole stirs.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I throw on a T-shirt and stumble across the room. Dad tries to peer past me when I open the door, taking up as much space as possible in the small crack. I’m acting suspiciously, but I don’t know how else to behave. My head is a mess.

“I’m awake.” I rub the crusty sleep from my eyes and fake a yawn.

Dad frowns, eyeing me with distaste like he only just noticed what are undoubtedly dark shadows under my bloodshot eyes. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you, too.”

“I’m going away for a few days for work. There’s food in the fridge and money on the counter if you need to buy anything else.”

He looks past me again, and I will my heart to stop thrashing like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest to attack his face like one of the monsters in the movie Alien. I can imagine it now— my heart leaping from my chest and latching onto his face, sucking his brain out of his nostrils like slimy goo, or maybe the monsters in Alien laid eggs? I can’t fucking remember. All I know is that I need him gone.

“Don’t get into trouble,” my dad says, and I smile politely.

The moment he disappears around the corner, I shut the door and blow out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Fuck, that was close.

I turn to look at Cole, who sits up in bed. His gaze is shifty, and I don’t like that one bit. When he slides his legs out of bed, I stomp across the room like I’m mad, but I’m not. I’m just… I don’t even know what I am. But I’m determined to wipe that uneasy look off his face.

Cole tries to rise to his feet when I near him, so I fist his T-shirt and shove him back down. “Where the fuck were you? I was worried.”

“I was out with Samson.”

“Not answering your calls?” Dropping to my knees, I work his belt, ignoring the way he tries to shove my hands away. My brain runs on a loop, ‘Suck him, and he will smile at you again. Suck him, it’ll make it all better.’

The difference between now and the other times is that he didn’t fight me back then—not really. But now he’s pushing me off. I fall back onto my ass and come right back, throat clogged with emotions I don’t even know how to decipher. All I know is that I need to fix this—the broken look in his eyes. The distrust.

“Stop it,” he says forcefully, and I rear up and slam my lips to his. We topple back onto the bed, me on top of Cole, pinning his wrists above his head and forcing my tongue into his mouth. He’s not kissing me back. It doesn’t matter what I do, he won’t respond.

He. Won’t. Fucking. Respond.

I rip his belt open and slip my hand inside his jeans and boxers. Despite the empty look in his eyes, he’s hard. Very fucking hard.

A breath whooshes from my lips as my forehead descends on his. His dick twitches in my grip, and I squeeze my eyes shut as I work his hard length, savoring each labored, harsh breath.

“Please,” I breathe, my voice cracking. “Let me touch you.”

Tiago’s voice comes back to me, whispering in the recesses of my fragmented mind, “Whatever you do, Blaise, you can’t force Cole.”

I frown, trying to shut it out, but the voice grows louder and louder until it’s screaming at me. Ripping my hand out of his jeans, I fall back, breathing hard as he sits up and scoots back on the mattress. Shame eats me up from the inside. I don’t like the way he looks at me. I’ve never been one to care about others’ feelings, but I do care about Cole. I care about him so much that it eats me up inside. I would do anything to get him to stop avoiding my gaze.

He climbs off the bed and walks out without another word, leaving me alone with the mess of emotions inside me. I suck in a breath and count to three. I try so hard to listen to Tiago’s advice: Don’t be clingy. Let him come to you.

But I can’t. My body defeats my brain, and I’m up on my feet, running after him.

I slam him up against the wall outside my room. Cole’s eyes widen at the look of sheer desperation I’m sure is painted on my face. When I try to cup his chin, he turns his head. Fuck me, he could just as well cut me with a knife.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” I plead.

A muscle tics madly in his jaw. “Nothing is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong?” I parrot, flicking my eyes between his, searching and hunting for the truth.

“That’s what I said.”

Tiago didn’t offer me any advice on how to deal with a situation like this. He made it sound so easy: ask what’s wrong. But what do I do when I ask what’s wrong and Cole won’t tell me? Like now. What then?

I try to kiss him, but he applies pressure to my chest and moves away. My brows knit together. “Nothing is wrong, huh?”

His jaw tics again, grating on my fucking nerves. Why won’t he just tell me why he’s angry?

He starts to walk away, and I tear at my hair. The fear inside me is quickly morphing and shifting into anger. It takes everything in me not to tackle him to the floor like we’re on the fucking football field. “Why do you always run away?”

Spinning around, his eyes flash with anger. “Now isn’t the fucking time, Blaise. Leave it alone.”

“No, I fucking won’t.” I storm up to him and shove him back. “You won’t talk to me. You say everything is fine. It’s clearly not fine.”

“You’re being paranoid!” he roars, and I stumble back a step.

“Just…” He sounds defeated, his eyes pained. “I’ll see you later, okay.”

This time, when he walks away, I let him.

If he loves me, he’ll come back… That’s what Tiago said.

And if he doesn’t…

I can’t let my thoughts go there.