CHAPTER 8 #2
Cole chuckles and kisses me again, deeper this time, and my body arches toward him instinctively, his clothing the only barrier between us.
His mouth moves down my throat, slow and deliberate, teeth grazing lightly before his lips follow.
Every place he touches feels amplified by adrenaline, by the fear still fading from my bloodstream and the knowledge that someone out there wants to erase me.
But here, I am anything but erased.
His mouth is on me, hot and unhurried, tracing down my collarbone to my breast, his tongue circling slowly before he draws me in.
“Cole.” His name comes out unsteady.
He hums against my skin and keeps going, in absolutely no hurry, one hand sliding up the inside of my thigh with agonizing patience.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, his voice rough at the edges.
“Then show me.”
That snaps whatever restraint he had left.
He stands just long enough to strip his shirt over his head and shuck his jeans, and then he’s back, all of him pressed against all of me, and I feel exactly what I do to him.
I reach between us and wrap my hand around his length.
I give a hard squeeze, the way I know he loves it, and his breath hisses out sharp through his teeth.
“Tessa.” A warning.
“Cole.” Not a warning at all.
He takes my wrist and pins it above my head, which has always been his answer when I push too hard, and then his fingers slide between my thighs and find exactly what they’re looking for.
I’m embarrassingly wet and he knows it, stroking slowly, watching my face with an intensity that makes it impossible to look away and impossible to stay quiet.
“Please,” I manage.
“Please what?” He knows exactly what. He just wants to hear it.
“I need you. Now. Please.”
“Not yet.”
I make a sound of protest that he silences by pressing his mouth to the inside of my thigh, and any argument I had dissolves completely.
His fingers keep moving, steady and relentless, while his lips drag upward with excruciating patience until his mouth replaces his hand and I stop being capable of coherent thought entirely.
My fingers curl into his hair. “Cole—”
He hums against me like he has absolutely nowhere else to be, like we have all the time in the world, and he intends to use every second of it.
The vibration of his tongue makes my hips roll and pump.
He responds by sliding his hands beneath me and pulling me closer, holding me exactly where he wants me, and that—the certainty of it, the complete control he takes without asking—is what pushes me over.
The orgasm rolls through me in a long, shuddering wave. I call out his name, broken and warbled, my whole body arching as he works me through every last tremor without letting up until I’m pulling at his shoulders, oversensitive and desperate.
“Okay,” I breathe. “Okay, now. Please. Now.”
He presses one last kiss to the inside of my thigh and moves up my body, and when his eyes meet mine, I shudder from the intensity. I remember how good he feels sliding into me and I’m breathless with anticipation.
Cole settles between my thighs, his hand to the back of one leg to spread me wide as he pushes in slowly.
Achingly, deliberately slow.
The sensation steals the air from my lungs but it’s not just physical. It’s a collision of past and present, regret and longing and everything we’ve lost the past five years.
He stills when he’s fully seated, forehead dropping to mine, breath uneven. “God, Tessa.”
I can’t speak and just pull him closer. I’m full… so very fucking full and I don’t ever want to feel anything else.
Then he begins to move, apparently done with slow because the rhythm that builds is fierce and unrelenting, his hips driving forward with a purpose that has me grabbing at his shoulders and arching up to meet him.
The couch creaks beneath us, the landscape lights flickering beyond the window, none of it mattering at all.
There’s only this and the way our bodies remember each other without a single moment of hesitation, like five years was nothing, like we never stopped.
His hand slides between us and his thumb finds the place that makes my back bow off the cushions, and he works it in rhythm with every thrust until the pressure inside me coils so tight I can’t breathe around it.
“Let go,” he says against my ear, low and certain. “I’ve got you.”
The release crashes through me hard and I bury my face against his throat, biting back a cry that escapes anyway.
My whole body shakes with it, clenching around him, and he groans deep in his chest and drives harder, chasing his own release with a single-mindedness that sends a second tremor rolling through me before the first one’s even finished.
Cole buries himself deep and goes rigid, my name from his lips low and strained, his grip tightening like he has no intention of letting go.
We stay tangled and breathing hard in the quiet aftermath. His lips press to my temple before lifting to look down at me, expression completely unguarded.
There’s no triumph, only satisfaction. No regret, only relief.
“You good?”
“Never better.” I run my fingers down his back, tracing the familiar planes of muscle. “What does this mean, though?”
“You mean us?” he asks, his eyes searching mine. “I don’t know but we definitely have some shit to figure out after we get you out of this mess.”
“Yeah… I guess we do.”
Maybe this is what we needed. It was always the unknown that Cole constantly fretted over, but now here it is. We’re both in the thick of it and he’s planted himself by my side despite his fears for me.
Maybe after he confronts this—and hopefully as I come out alive in the end—he’ll see that he can handle the dangers of my job. He’ll see that we can work through it together.
It never occurs to me that this isn’t feasible. It never occurs to me that we had our shot and missed it. This is a second chance and I’m going to grab on to it, and I’m going to ensure he does the same.