Page 61 of I Wish I Would've Warned You

“Say it,” he growls.

“What?”

“That you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

And that’s when he lets go.

He spills into the condom with a curse and a gasp, his hands gripping my hips as if I’ll disappear.

After, I collapse against his chest, and we just lie there. Tangled. Quiet. Everything slowed down to the sound of our breathing.

When I glance up, he’s already looking at me. Like he never stopped.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod. “Better than okay.”

He runs a hand down my spine. “I wasn’t gentle.”

“You didn’t need to be.”

He kisses my temple. Then my jaw. Then the corner of my mouth.

“You ruined me,” I whisper.

“You promised not to blame me.”

“I lied.”

He smiles, and I know I’ll never be the same.

20A

EMILY

The days that follow are a blur of heat, skin, and stolen time.

Cole and I can’t seem to stop.

We sneak into rooms like fugitives on borrowed time, like the whole house might catch fire if anyone ever found out.

The laundry room. The art studio. Once, the outdoor shower behind the pool house. We nearly get caught leaving the laundry room when the housekeeper walked in early to sort towels. Another time, we had to freeze behind a wall of hedges while a staffer ate lunch on the far side of the garden, completely oblivious to how breathless we were—how flushed.

It’s dangerous.

And addictive.

At night, we walk down to the beach barefoot, the wind turning everything soft and silver. He lays me in the sand and kisses me like we have forever. I kiss him back like we don’t.

There’s something unspoken in every touch. Like we know it can’t last. Like that knowledge is the exact reason we keep coming back for more.

He’s good for my writing in ways I didn’t expect. My poems are fuller, sharper, soaked in feeling I’d forgotten how to name. He reads my new pages without flinching—asks questions no one else would think to ask. And I can see it in him, too. The way he holds his brush like it matters again. The way his canvases are less restrained, more alive.

I understand why people say this kind of thing drives them crazy.

But I think it only feels this intense because it’s Cole.

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