Page 143 of The Exit Strategy

“Please, Cole. Please.” He made me beg, and I’m not even mad about it.

Slowly, he lifts me off his cock and eases me onto my back. He’s holding my thighs open, and he just…stares.

I’m so on edge I can’t take another minute, and my hand slides down my stomach, trying to relieve the pressure by pressing hard on my clit.

Cole smirks down at me, then he slides forward. The head of his cock bobs, and he rests my right leg against his shoulder while he guides himself to my ass.

I stare in awe as he uses his hand to hold himself to my hole.

Pressure. Pleasure. Pain.

I tense, and he clucks. Fucking clucks at me. “Relax.”

“You relax,” I spit back.

“I’ll never hurt you, Junie.”

Again. He’ll never hurt me again.

And I believe him.

He presses in, just an inch, and when I cry out, he gives me a minute to acclimate.

“Fuck. I wasn’t prepared for how tight, how right, how fucking incredible this would feel.” He moves a minuscule amount, just a slight rocking of his hips to open me up to him. Then he glides in another inch, and another, while I commit to breathing like women on TV who are about to give birth.

It burns until it doesn’t. There’s a release, and then he’s all the way inside me, his gaze wild and unmoored as he studies my face for every reaction. When I smile, just a tiny lifting of lips, he kisses me hard.

Teeth and tongues collide, and whatever control Cole was wielding snaps. He fucks me. He loves me. He never takes his eyes off mine.

It’s the merging of two souls that were always seeking permission to hold space for the other.

Permission has been granted, and when I come this time, it’s earth-shattering in a whole different way.

My walls are down, and now I’ll learn to love Cole the way we’ve both always deserved.

Together.

Forever.

Cole comes with a roar that’s sadness and hope in equal measure. Giving each other a first must have brought him to a similar earth-shattering realization because the expression on his face says it all.

Everything has changed.

I wake with a start,and it takes a moment to register why.

The sun is high in the sky now, but Cole is still next to me, holding me.

Watching me.

“Creepy,” I groan, then glance at the clock and nearly jump out of my skin for a second time. “Cole!” I shriek. “It’s almost noon.”

He grins. “Benefit of sleeping with the boss. He’s all for playing hooky.”

I’m…stunned. Cole is as much of a workaholic as I am.

Then his playful smile loses some of its shine. “But I know you want to head to Charleston today. I’m not intentionally keeping you from that mission. I fell back asleep too. I only woke up about ten minutes ago.”

I think I’ve made huge personal strides in the last twenty-four hours, and studying his expression now, I can’t help but wonder if he’s in the middle of the same kind of metamorphosis.