Page 58 of The Exit Strategy

“Are you always this dramatic during storms?”

Asshole. He knows I am.

“Are you always this bossy during electrical repairs?”

“Yes.”

Even my nipples respond to his huskiness. I need to talk to Hudson. Maybe I can get him to rethink hiring me andallowing me to hide out in his condo from now until…forever.

Cole turns back to the panel. I hold the flashlight. The storm gets angrier. We exist in this tiny room together with air that’s too thick and charged to have anything to do with the breaker panel.

His hand drops to reach a lower breaker, and his shoulder brushes my arm. My bare arm. I don’t have a barrier today. And it’s not a graze. It’s contact. Solid and warm through his damp Henley, and I feel it in my teeth.

He doesn’t pull away.

Whydo I lean into it? Pull away, Juniper. Pull away.

“This one’s corroded,” he says, but his voice has dropped to a register that has no business being in a conversation about electrical…somethings. “I need to—can you hold the light closer?”

I step in—into the room, into him. The room doesn’t allow for subtlety. Stepping in means my chest is at his back. It means I can smell the cedar and rain and whatever pheromone this man secretes that makes my brain sign off.

My arm wraps around him, under his arm, closer.

It hurts my feelings.

My hand isn’t steady anymore, and neither is his breathing.

He works the corroded breaker loose, and his elbow draws back into my breast. My inhale is loud, and he freezes. My nipples could cut glass, and when his swallow is an audible gulp, I know he can feel it, grazing his skin like a needle into a vein.

His bicep flexes, forcing my arm to press more tightly into his side, which also presses my chest more firmly into him. My flashlight is now aimed at absolutely nothinguseful because my arm has given up on professionalism entirely.

“Got it.” God, his words are hypnotically thick. They coat my skin like a long lick from his tongue. The breaker clicks. Nothing happens because the generator isn’t online yet, but something in the air shifts. It has nothing to do with electricity and everything to do with the fact that he turned his head and now I can feel his hot breath against my collarbone.

Don’t look up, Juniper. Please, do not look up.

I look up just as his gaze drops to my lips—a trick of the light. To my chest—shadows dancing surely. To my eyes—I drop the flashlight and flee.

“Fuck.”

The word is a long, drawn-out groan and plea for…something as I retreat, but I don’t stop until I’m safely back in the kitchen, common ground, even footing.

My fantasies have gotten me into trouble before, so I no longer fuck around with fairy tales.

He enters the kitchen right after me, opens his mouth, snaps it shut, then heads back out into the rain, across the driveway, and into the garage.

Cole storms back into the house an hour later, but I haven’t moved. I just stand in the candlelight, staring into the storm because my flashlight died and I didn’t notice.

“It’s flooded,” he says, wiping his hands on the towel I gave him earlier. “Water got into the intake. I drained it, but it needs to dry out before I can restart it. It’ll take a couple of hours.”

The wind chooses that moment to rattle the windows, even sheltered behind the wooden shutters.

“So we’re stuck?”

“We’re not stuck. We’re waiting.”

“We’re stuck, Cole.”

“Waiting implies a plan. Stuck implies helplessness. I have a plan.”