CHAPTER 8
Tessa
Istep out of my bathroom barefoot and warm, steam trailing after me. The heat from the bath has softened the tightness in my shoulders, but it hasn’t quieted my mind. Now I’m wrapped in one of my robes—thick and absurdly soft—and my hair hangs wet, but combed, down my back.
I find Cole in the living room, one hand braced on the window frame as he looks out over the front yard. He’s been on high alert even though my house feels as protected as Fort Knox.
When we arrived about an hour ago, he walked me room to room, pointing out security additions I would never have noticed on my own.
The new porch light? Camera embedded in the housing.
The garage floodlight? Another one, low-light capable, wide angle, infrared.
No bulky black domes that scream “You’re being recorded.
” No obvious hardware. Just watchful eyes tucked into ordinary fixtures.
“The system doesn’t advertise,” he’d told me. “It observes and reports quietly.”
Every door and window now have contact sensors buried inside the frames.
Not the cheap plastic strips you see at big box stores, but internal magnetic sensors and vibration detectors calibrated to differentiate between wind and forced pressure.
If someone tries to jimmy a lock or score the glass, Cole will know by an app alert before I do.
Motion detection isn’t motion so much as heat mapping. The system reads temperature shifts, not just movement. A raccoon on the porch won’t trigger it. A man lingering against my siding at two in the morning will.
He showed me the kitchen island next, crouching to press a spot beneath the overhang. “Silent alarm,” he said. “Press and hold for two seconds.”
He demonstrated on test mode and exterior lights flared to full brightness. His phone buzzed immediately with a live feed from the exterior cameras.
“Jameson gets the alert at the same time as 911,” he added.
There’s another trigger under my desk. One in the nightstand drawer. All routed through encrypted channels Josie installed, which apparently means my Wi-Fi now does more than stream documentaries. It will even shut itself down if someone tries to mirror my data or hack my feed.
Even the smoke detectors have been upgraded. They don’t just sense heat, they monitor particulate patterns consistent with accelerants. If someone tries to burn my house down, the system flags it before the flames get started.
As he explained it all, I stood there trying to reconcile the ordinary familiarity of my home with the fact that it now functions like a fortified safe house. No wonder it took so long to get the work done.
From the street, nothing looks different. Inside, every inch is layered with protection and it should make me feel secure. Instead, it makes the danger feel real in a way it didn’t before. You don’t install this kind of system unless someone is coming.
Cole finished the demonstration by arming it, the house emitting a subtle electronic chime that sounded almost polite. “Welcome home,” he’d said quietly.
He doesn’t turn when I come out of the bathroom, but I know he hears me by the slight set to his shoulders.
“You’re brooding,” I say lightly as I step into the living room.
He shifts, glancing over his shoulder, and the look in his eyes hits me before I can brace for it.
It isn’t irritation.
It isn’t even frustration.
It’s hunger.
His eyes travel—slow and deliberate—taking in the damp ends of my hair, the robe knotted loosely at my waist, the bare skin of my legs. A flash of heat runs through me in response, automatic and undeniable, and for a split second the air between us crackles with a dangerous energy.
Then his expression hardens. “We need to talk.”
I don’t like that tone. It’s far too serious and volatility rolls off him in waves, causing me to pull the lapels of my robe closer together. “Okay.”
“I talked to a man named Brady,” he says, and the shift is abrupt enough that it grounds me. “He’s a Jameson agent currently undercover at the Seattle PD investigating a corruption ring. I asked him to look into Erik’s death and what was happening in the investigation.”
I move farther into the room, the softness of the robe suddenly less comforting. “What did he find out?”
He gestures toward the couch. “Sit.”
The tone isn’t commanding, but it’s firm enough that I obey without argument. I sink into one end of the sofa, tucking my legs beneath me. Cole takes the opposite end, putting space between us like he needs it to stay composed.
“Someone pulled the garage footage,” he says evenly. “It was a high-level favor and it’s since disappeared.”
My stomach tightens. “I’m not following.”
“Someone—maybe Gavin DelRey—paid a dirty cop in the PD to erase the footage.”
I consider the implications but before my brain can get to where it needs to go, Cole provides me the most important part. “They saw you. More particularly, they saw Erik hand you the flash drive.”
The room feels smaller. “They’ll assume I’m a reporter,” I conclude softly.
“It won’t take them long to ID you,” he growls.
The weight of that settles into my chest. I’d known this could escalate. I’d known digging into RainVest wouldn’t stay quiet forever. But knowing and hearing are different.
“So,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady, “I’m officially interesting.”
There’s an edge in his voice now, sharper than concern. “You’re officially a target. We need to move you to Jameson.”
I meet his eyes, trying to stay unaffected. “That was always a possibility, Cole. That’s not going to scare me into hiding.”
“It should,” he says, scooting a bit closer to me and leaning forward slightly, forearms braced on his thighs. “This is exactly what I tried to tell you five years ago. This job is too fucking dangerous.”
Once again… the old argument, wrapped in new circumstances.
“You don’t get to do that,” I reply, my pulse quickening for reasons that have nothing to do with fear. “You don’t get to weaponize this against me.”
“I’m not weaponizing anything,” he shoots back. “I’m stating a fact. You walk toward dangerous things and then act surprised when they bite.”
I push to my feet. “I’m not surprised. I’m prepared.”
“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.