chapter one

Rhythmic bass pumped through the house, echoing from the speakers downstairs. It had silenced their subdued footsteps as they padded up the staircase, slinking away into the darkness of the bedroom. As entwined bodies manoeuvred toward the bed, clothes dispersing on their travel, the loud thump of Hazel’s hip hitting the bedpost brought the fieriness of their kiss to a halt. She winced, gazing up at Cole with watery eyes, his wide hand smothering his deep laugh.

“You sure you’re not drunk again?” he murmured, damp lips brushing the shell of her ear.

“Positive,” Hazel replied. “I wouldn’t dream of drinking after you rejected me yesterday.”

“I didn’t reject you,” Cole scoffed, head shaking at the absurdity of her comment. “I just didn’t want to fuck you while you were clearly intoxicated.” Hazel’s mouth opened, a smart retort dancing on glossy pink lips, but Cole’s hands grasping her rear and lifting her off the ground silenced whatever thought lingered. He let her fall against the mattress, the springs creaking beneath the weight of their bodies. His face hovered mere millimetres above hers, breath hot against her reddened cheeks. Brushing away the hair from her eyes, he grinned, pearlescent teeth glinting in the dull lights of his bedroom. “I wanted to make sure you remembered this.”

Shivers erupted across olive skin, punctuating the spaces between her freckles. Cole’s mouth found hers, his tongue slipping between the seam of her lips as his hand worked to pop open the button of her jeans.

Hazel’s hands curled around the nape of his neck. Her fingers tugged through the short hairs at the base of his skull, a deep groan echoing in his throat. The warmed skin of his shirtless torso spread across her bare skin, her t-shirt discarded somewhere by the bedroom door. Cole’s mouth shifted, drawing wet lines with his tongue against her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, before his fingers wrenched down the white lace of her bra, the supple flesh of her breast spilling from the cup. Cole groaned, his tongue rolling around the pink bud, sending Hazel’s back arching.

“What if…” she panted. The agonizingly slow twirl of his tongue around her nipple tortured her as his hand skimmed across her stomach, dipping down to the matching white lace of her panties.

“Fuck,” he growled, the vibration thick against her taut skin. “You’re so fucking wet, Haze.”

Hazel’s eyes closed, head pressing into the pillow as his fingers followed the intricate lines of her core. “What if Will comes in?”

Dark brown eyes snapped up, his lips pulling together in a tight line as he weighed out the severity of her question. The stillness felt excruciating. She had wanted Cole for as long as she could remember, but he was too old, too reasonable to mess around with her. Now, he was so damn close, all the ways in which it was wrong didn’t matter to her anymore. She lifted her hips, the scrape of his fingers against her clit making her gasp. In that moment, his mind had been made up.

“You’re leaving in a week, Hazel,” he whispered huskily, taking a moment to suck the swollen nipple. Chocolate brown eyes gazed up at her, now blacker than she’d ever seen them, as a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “There aren’t consequences anymore.”

Calloused fingers, formed through years of hard work, tore down her jeans, panties joining them in a discarded heap on the floor. Hazel’s hips lifted in a desperate scramble, Cole’s tongue continuing to move between one breast and the other. Detaching himself from her temporarily, he yanked off his own jeans, hastily opening the condom from his pocket and rolling it along his engorged length – as if reality could walk in and slap them in the face at any moment. Positioning himself between her thighs, he pressed himself against the slick folds, allowing just the tip to enter. Hazel gasped, eyes rolling back as she cinched her lower lip between her teeth. Cole’s eyes shifted, drifting between the glazed fieriness in her eyes to the reddened gloss of her lips. “You’re leaving, Hazel, and I don’t have to pretend I don’t want this anymore.”

His lips collided with hers, forceful and fierce, years of longing and desire unleashing as their bodies melted together and his hips sunk into the warmth of her, filling her in the way she’d only dreamed of for so long.