Page 115 of The Exit Strategy

I don’t even feel guilty for keeping her up all night. Not when I can still hear her orgasmic screams like my favorite playlist.

“I did.” I smile at her, unable to keep it inside.

“The good stuff?”

“I’m nearly thirty, Junie. I only make the good stuff. I even added the right amount of oat milk.”

She frowns, her arm outstretched but not yet taking her mug in her hands.

“Juniper.”

“What?” she snaps back.

“I’ve been bringing you coffee every afternoon.” I step closer. Close enough that my body heat makes her shiver. “I know what you like.”

She considers that while I study her reactions.

A sigh escapes me when she steps forward on what I can only describe as tentative legs—like she thinks the rules might be different in the morning and nobody has briefed her on the new ones yet.

“I assume this is where you tell me that we made a terrible mistake.” Her tone is flippant, dry, protective.

My little Viper, searching for the exit.

Her hostile energy vibrates off her, so I press my hands to either side of her hips on the edge of the counter and lean in until her face is three inches from mine and she has nowhere else to go that isn’t…me.

Her throat works overtime, emitting a soft, garbled sound of distress.

The muscles in my face and neck relax. “Not a mistake, baby.”

“Cole.”

I never knew my name could evoke such panic in that single syllable.

“Not a mistake, Juniper.”

“I’m just?—”

“Not.” I press in closer. “A. Mistake.”

“What I’m saying is?—”

“I know exactly what you’re doing. You forget, baby, that I. Know. You. I understand you as Juniper. As Junie. As Viper. As Spite-Berry. Igetall versions of you.”

She closes her mouth, furrows her brow, then opens her mouth again, only to close it a second later.

The next time she opens it, I kiss her.

Slow. Unhurried. The kind of kiss you give when you have the whole morning and no intention of rushing a single damn thing. Her mouth tastes of my toothpaste.

“Did you use my toothbrush?” I ask against her lips.

“Your mouth touched every inch of me last night.” She shrugs. “It seemed like the most sanitary thing we’ve done in the last twenty-four hours.”

I choke on a laugh, and she fists a hand in the front of my shirt, then she kisses me back, and for about thirty seconds, there’s nothing in my kitchen except the two of us and a growing question about what’s next.

Then she bites my bottom lip. Lightly. A warning shot.

I pull back an inch.