Page 105 of The Exit Strategy

21

SOCK THIEF

JUNIE

I can’t sleep,and now I’m standing in Cole Whittaker’s kitchen at 11:47 on a Tuesday night, wearing his socks that I found in the laundry room because the floor is cold and I refuse to walk back to my apartment to put on shoes at this hour.

And it has nothing to do with the way he saidminethis afternoon as though I’m his personal forgone conclusion.

Mine.

It echoes through my mind like every forbidden fantasy come to life.

He’s a distraction—that’s the only reason I’m making so much noise while preparing my tea. It’s definitely not because I want to wake him up. The only reason I’m even making my tea over here in the first place is because he has better water—mine tastes like rust or copper or some other mineral I can’t name.

Fuck.

He’s coming. Everything I wanted and feared in one sexy package.

I hear him—the specific cadence of his footsteps. I’vememorized the footfalls of a man who’s determined to ruin my sleep indefinitely because even his presence still gives me butterflies.

He stops in the doorway—my breath stops in my throat.

A smile peels across my lips, knowing the first thing he’ll see are his socks pulled up to my knees, so I’m thankful I still have my back to him. “Before you say anything, your socks were in the laundry room, and I thought it would be warmer out.”

One heartbeat.

A puff of air that sounds like it hisses through his teeth.

Then his voice. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

God, that low timbre does unspeakable things to my self-control.

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking you made your tea without asking if I wanted any.”

Painstakingly slowly, I turn to face him. “You want chamomile tea?”

He shrugs. “No, but the principle stands. Maybe I just wanted to know you were here.”

Cole moves to the cabinet, and I step aside to give him room at the kettle, while we do the thing we’ve been doing for weeks now—occupying his kitchen at odd hours, moving around each other with the practiced ease of two people who innately know each other’s floor plan. He reaches past me for a mug, and his arm grazes mine.

Goose bumps rise to the surface of my skin. His hand pauses in midair, his gaze memorizing my flesh.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks. His voice, if possible, has dropped another register.

“I was asleep. Then I wasn’t. Then I decided tea was a better option than lying there doing a full forensic analysisof every conversation I’ve had in the last twenty-four hours.”

There. Honest without being in your face.

And Hudson thinks I’m emotionally stunted. If that’s not personal growth, I don’t know what is.

“Did the forensic analysis reach any conclusions?”

I take a slow sip of chamomile. “Jury’s still out.”

He leans against the counter opposite me with his arms crossed. The kitchen is too small for the both of us when he looks at me like that, like he’s waiting for the verdict with considerably more patience than I have and has no problem intimidating the jury if they don’t come to a satisfactory conclusion.