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The house is getting chillier by the hour. Without Emmy asleep in my arms, I’d be cold. Colder than usual in here. I glare at the empty fireplace. The cottage has oil heat, so I didn’t give the fireplace much thought, knowing that we’d have heat as long as I kept the oil tank out back full. Which it is. According to the guy who came to check it right after we moved in, there was still twenty-one inches of oil in it. I guess that’s his non-technical way of checking–measuring the contents with a long dip-stick–rather than doing some complicated math.

It’s almost eleven when I finally carry Emmy to her bed. I turned on her electric blanket earlier to make sure it was nice and warm for her. She doesn’t even move when I lay her down and pull the heated covers up over her. She sleeps like a baby. Most of the time.

I’m going through the cottage, turning off lights, when I hear a knock at the door. It’s loud and heavy, almost thump-like. My first thought is that it might be Jason. His persistence seems to know no bounds.

I creep to the window beside the door, prepared to peek through one corner to determine who it is before I answer it, when I hear a voice. It’s deep and familiar, and it sends a tingle of awareness down my spine.

“Eden?”

It’s Cole.

My heart lurches. It’s late. Something must be wrong.

I wrench open the door to find him leaning against the doorjamb with his head hanging down. My first thought is that he’s hurt.

“Cole, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

I look him over, using the light coming from my open bedroom door to check for blood on his clothing. I see none, which only calms me minimally.

“You,” he says quietly.

“Pardon?”

He raises his head and pins me with his potent stare. “You. You’re what’s wrong. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

I don’t know what to say to that and he doesn’t give me much time to think before he slides his hands into the hair at my nape, his thumbs holding my face still, and crushes my mouth with his.

I welcome it, welcome him. I’m not even going to deny it. I crave him like I crave sunshine and air and water and love. His scent, his taste, they weave a sensual spell around me, flooding my blood with heat and need.

He tilts his head and deepens the kiss, his tongue playing alongside mine, promising delights that I’ve never known and never had much interest in.

Until now.

Until Cole.

When he pushes inside, I don’t resist. I’m lost in all that he’s making me feel and my brain is turned completely off. I hear the slam of the door as he kicks it shut and that’s the last thought to register until I feel his hands at my breast.

My nipples are painful points and I moan into Cole’s mouth when he pinches one between his fingers, rolling it through the material of my lacy bra and single-knit sweater.

“I need to be inside you,” he groans, his other hand falling to my butt and squeezing, pulling my lower body into his. I feel the long, hard ridge of his erection and moisture floods my panties. “I can’t think. I can’t eat. I can’t even grieve anymore. It’s all about you. Everything is about you.”

It’s as he speaks that I smell the alcohol. It serves as a bucket of cold water in my face. Apparently Jason was right. He’s been with Jordan. Drinking.

I push at his chest. “Cole, wait.”

His hands are everywhere, teasing and taunting, awakening feelings I doubted I’d ever feel at the hands of a man. But I have to ask him about Jordan. I have to know before this can go any further.

“Cole, please.”

“Please what? Please take off my clothes?” he says in his throaty voice, his hands tugging at the hem of my sweater. I push them away, but they come right back. “Please touch me? Please taste me? Because I will. I’ll touch you until you can’t think. I’ll taste you until you beg me to let you come.”

Part of me thrills at his words, but part of me needs room, needs time. Needs him to stop for just a minute. Another man and another voice is standing between us, touching me in the same ways, but scaring me rather than pleasuring me.

“Cole, stop. I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want to feel. I need to feel.”

He’s not listening to me and the scent of alcohol seems to be getting stronger and stronger, dredging up memories I’ve tried for years to bury.

“Cole, please,” I plead, pushing at his hands, trying to keep my composure. My chin is trembling and I feel the icy fingers of panic clutching at my heart.

“’Please.’ I love that word on your lips,” he confesses, still not grasping the hysteria that I’m spiraling toward.

“Cole, stop! I mean it!” The more insistent I become, the more it seems to provoke him. “Cole.”

“Eden,” he whispers, the slight slur to the word taking me back in time.

I have to get away. He has to stop touching me. I can’t breathe, but it’s not in a good way.

I sink my fingernails into the backs of his hands, dragging them away from me. “Stop!” My words ring through the room, shattering the silence that falls between us when he finally lifts his head. I feel on the verge of a full-on panic now and I can’t hold back the tears. “Get out of my house!”

He looks stricken, but also confused. Now I can see the dazed way his eyes stare into mine. He’s drunk. This isn’t the Cole I thought I knew. The Cole I knew would never do something like this. But maybe I didn’t really know him at all. Maybe the Cole I thought I knew was nothing more than a product of my imagination.