“Prepared?”He stands too, closing the distance between us in two strides.“You were standing in a parking garage with a whistleblower who got run down by an SUV.”
“And I got the flash drive,” I fire back.
His jaw tightens.“That’s not the win you think it is.”
We’re too close now.I can feel the heat of him, the tension coiled in his body.
“This is my job,” I say, my voice lower now, calmer but no less firm.“You don’t get to resent me for it.”
“I don’t resent you,” he says, and there’s a rawness under the words.“I resent the fact that every time you do this, I have to imagine what it would look like to find you dead.”
The air leaves my lungs in a quiet rush.“Stop,” I whisper.
“Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me like I’m already gone.”
That does it.His expression cracks just enough.
He reaches for me without thinking, one hand sliding into my hair at the nape of my neck, the other settling at my waist, fingers pressing into the plush fabric of the robe.The contact is firm, urgent, and my body reacts before my mind can catch up.
“Cole—”
He kisses me.
It isn’t tentative.It isn’t gentle.It’s five years of restraint and frustration and unspoken fear coalescing into a single, vibrant moment.His mouth is hot and insistent against mine, and for a heartbeat I freeze—not because I don’t want it, but because I do.
Too much.
My hands come up to his chest, meaning to push him away, but instead my fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt.I kiss him back just as fiercely, just as desperate, and whatever argument we were having dissolves into a far more primal feeling.
Cole makes a rough sound in his throat and deepens the kiss, backing me up a step until the couch hits the backs of my knees.I fall onto it, and he follows, bracing himself over me, his weight solid and familiar.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I don’t.
Instead, I pull him back down, the robe loosening at my waist as my legs shift to make room for him.The tension that started as anger turns molten and urgent, every touch charged with the knowledge that we almost lost this—lost each other—without ever saying what still lives between us.
This isn’t sweet.It isn’t careful.
It’s need and fear and history colliding all at once.
When his mouth moves from mine to the sensitive curve of my neck, when his hands slide beneath the robe and find my bare skin, the last thread of discipline I’ve been clinging to snaps clean in two.
I want him too much to push him away.I don’t know what this makes us.I only know that right now, with the threat pressing closer and the past refusing to stay buried, I don’t want distance.
I want him… on me, inside of me.
The robe parts further when I shift my weight, and cool air slides across my skin.It isn’t the temperature that makes my breath catch.It’s the way Cole is looking at me—like he’s been holding himself back for years and isn’t sure he can anymore.
Cole looks pained but not conflicted.His shoulders are rigid, jaw tight, eyes dark and stormy.His mouth comes down on mine hard enough to steal my breath and touch my soul.I can feel the emotion flowing between us… possession and relief and frustration all tangled together.
I gasp into his mouth as his hand slides over my breast and squeezes.My hands move to his chest, gripping fabric, dragging him closer.The robe parts all the way, and his hands are everywhere, urgent and searching like he needs proof I’m real.
“Don’t even think about telling me to stop,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“The only thing I might tell you to do is go harder or faster,” I shoot back, breathless.
