Happily Ever Afton (10 page)

‘The kiss?’

‘Yes…
shhh,
’ she shushed him ‘it’s coming up now.’

Afton picked up the remote turning up the volume as the music swelled, the two characters on screen falling on to the sand in front of a roiling ocean in a passionate embrace followed by an emotion-filled lengthy kiss. The scene ended and there was a moment of still silence between the two people frozen on the couch. She used the remote to pause the movie.

‘Wow,’ Cooper cleared his throat, ‘that
really
was some kiss! Would you say that was the
best
on screen kiss ever?’

Afton pondered the question, ‘I think it all depends on the
type
of kiss you’re referring to.’

‘Type of kiss?’

‘Of course! For instance, you’ve got your ‘I adore you kiss’ when the hero realizes he’s met the woman of his dreams and vows to never let her go,’ she folded down a finger on one hand, ‘or the ‘foreboding doom kiss’ right before the hero gets it in the end and dies,’ she said folding down another.

‘Now that sounds like a good one – are there any more?’

‘Sure. There’s the ‘who will she end up with finale kiss’ – if the heroine finds herself torn between two men – one of them clearly absolutely wrong for her, the other absolutely right.’ Afton was silent for a moment, fingers stilled, soberly considering all the implications in her own life of the last type she’d named.

‘And of course I suppose you’d have to take the
longest
kiss in screen history into consideration as well.’

‘How long
was
it?’ Cooper tossed a kernel of popcorn into the air expertly catching it with his mouth.

Afton found her gaze momentarily riveted on those sculpted lips as they munched, pondering just what else they might be good at. ‘Er…just over three minutes – and it was in a comedy at that!’

‘Three minutes?’ Cooper snorted his derision, ‘That’s nothing!’

‘You’ve kissed someone non-stop for three whole minutes?’

‘Of course,’ he insisted, ‘if not longer!’

‘Not possible,’ Afton dismissed his claim outright. She lifted the remote to resume the movie, ‘you’d have to come up for air at the two minute mark.’

‘Care to put your money where your mouth is, Movie Queen?’

‘What do you mean?’ Her head twisted to stare over at him.

‘I’ve got a timer on my watch,’ Cooper laid out the challenge, ‘and I’ve got twenty dollars burning a hole in my pocket that says
we
could kiss that long with no problem whatsoever.’

Afton hesitated. 
Was this a wise idea?

‘Bawk, bawk
.  Chicken?’

Never
appeal to her competitive side! ‘You’re on!’

Afton removed the popcorn bowl setting it aside with the remote on the glass-topped coffee table in front of them. ‘Are you ready or do you need some time to warm up your lips?’ she jabbed.

‘I was
born
ready,’ Cooper countered, pantomiming loosening his shoulders and cracking his neck from side to side.

Afton giggled merrily. ‘Well what are you waiting for – put your money on the table, Stewart!’

With a silent chuckle of his own, he reached in his back jeans pocket for his wallet, extracting a crisp twenty-dollar bill, slapping it down onto the coffee table. ‘Hey – where’s yours?’

‘Don’t worry I’m good for it,’ she promised. ‘Did you set the timer?’

Cooper flicked back his shirt cuff and pushed a few buttons on the rugged multi-function watch on his wrist, ‘done.’

Afton quickly scooted next to him on the couch. ‘Okay, ready, set –
kiss!
’

She puckered her lips, shut her eyes and leaned her face close to his, keeping everything staid and businesslike. Cooper, however, apparently had other plans and he pulled her close into the strong circle of his arms.

Tick tock. Tick tock
.

Their lips clung and as the seconds racked up, Afton could feel the pace of his heart beginning to pick up as well – going from a steady
lub–dub, lub–dub
to a wildly galloping,
thumpity thumpity thump
. She could also feel her own heart keeping pace right along with his.

Cooper’s fingers strayed from their hold at her waist to move up her silk covered arms then glide gently over her face. They traced softly along the high arch of her cheekbones, sliding up into her hair she had brushed that morning after her shower until it was feathery soft and silky smooth and at the end of minute one, his tongue snuck its way between her lips. In the following few seconds Afton found her arms creeping up around his neck, her fingers curling into the thick dark hair growing low at his nape.

The pressure of his lips increased as they neared minute two. His breathing grew rapid and shallow, his body hardening against hers. Afton’s fingers left his neck to trail down his shirtfront, tugging open the top button – then two more so they could slide between. When her nails scraped over the hard clenched muscles of his chest, Cooper groaned against her lips and right at the two and a half minute mark, he rolled and pressed her down on to the couch beneath him, his lithely muscled frame settling heavily on top of hers.

Afton unbuttoned the remaining buttons of his shirt with shaking fingers, her mouth clinging desperately to his while his fumbling fingers reached in turn for the zipper at the front of her robe, beginning to tug it down…

Beep, beep, beep!
Time was up.

His head lifted, the dark eyes smoldering with a barely contained flame. ‘Double or nothing?’ he croaked out hoarsely.

‘I…I think I can handle that bet,’ she whispered shakily.

Cooper stared down at her before admitting in a raw serrated voice. ‘Afton…I want to make love to you.’

Was that a question?
Afton found she didn’t care to debate semantics just then.

‘Yes, Cooper.’ It was an answer she had been waiting to give him for what seemed a
very
long time.

Cooper lifted her in his arms as though she were as light and airy as their shared daydreams of this moment and strode purposefully towards her bedroom, pushing open the closed door impatiently with his shoulder. He stopped only when he reached the middle of the room and she glided down the long length of his body, sending shudders running through him when she reached the highly sensitized midway-point, until she stood on the very tips of her toes, looking up at him spellbound almost. Wanting this man as she’d wanted no other.

Cooper’s face grew grave with the intensity of his desire – wanting this woman as he’d wanted no other. His fingers were not quite steady landing on the zipper of her robe, sliding it down sending the insubstantial wisp of ivory lace she wore beneath sliding down next.

‘Flawless,’ he rasped before his head fell back on his shoulders, eyes closing tightly, overwhelmed at the sight of her,
finally
, naked in his arms.

Afton took over for him then, her hands reaching up to his broad shoulders pushing the shirt off so it fell to the floor landing on her abandoned clothing. His chiseled chest heaved when she took a step forward and placed her mouth softly right where his heart pounded, its frantic beating taking off again beneath her lips.

‘
Afton
!’

Cooper groaned a protest of unfair conduct when a pink tongue emerged to circle a flat male nipple before biting it playfully with her teeth. A fierce tremor began then continued on rocketing throughout him as her fingers moved down to the zipper of his jeans slowly lowering it, allowing them to drop to join his shirt on the floor a moment later, a pair of white briefs quickly joining the growing pile as well.

‘Afton, I’ve wanted this for so
damn
long!’

‘Me too, Cooper,’ she whispered with eyes now flecked with gold dust. ‘
Me too
.’

She moved forward ready for her second approach, but he’d let her have free rein over him for too long. Her whispered words had opened the floodgates and all of his pent up wants and desires were now rushing forth like a tsunami – and there would be no going back nor rescue, not that either of them had any doubts or second thoughts.

Cooper commandingly took back control, lifting her in his arms and laying her gently on the bed; joining her after quickly donning the protection he’d placed hopefully in his wallet on the first day he’d met her. His hands restlessly ran over her from the bottom of her dainty feet and slender ankles over her shapely smooth calves and thighs, sliding over a flat stomach, clutching at the full curves of her hips before stopping to cup swelling breasts that fit perfectly in the palms of his hands.

He wanted to taste them both at once, but he settled for moving his head slowly back and forth from one rosy-hued peak to the next until she began to move in a sensuous rhythm to match his. Cooper stopped abruptly. He wanted this to last as long as possible and
that
was not going to help matters any!

‘Afton,’ he gave a husky chuckle, ‘if you keep that up you might have to give me a nickname too and trust me – with you, I would much rather be known as
Slow Poke
than Speedy.’

She smiled at that and he traced the outline of her smile with his tongue, which turned into a searing kiss before his busy mouth moved on, wandering, nibbling, exploring. He lifted an arm to place a gentle kiss in the crook of a heavenly scented elbow, then followed along the indentation at the back of a bent knee with his tongue. His lips lingered in the perfumed hollow at the base of her throat learning that would make her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers clutch him harder against her as she gasped out a broken exclamation beneath him.

‘Cooper, please…whatever you do –
don’t stop!
’

No chance of that.

He
never
wanted to stop. Could make loving her his new profession – no paycheck required! ‘I won’t stop, Afton, not until you
beg
me to…’ the rough promise was slanted across her lips by his.

And he
didn’t
stop.

He made it his business to caress each weak spot, taste each pulse point,
feel
every inch of her against every hard, pulsating inch of him. But he held himself in check, a slight worry niggling at the back of his mind keeping them both from the ultimate satisfaction.

Afton was hopelessly lost in sensation, loving the feel of the surging hardness of him beneath her caressing fingers and pressing urgently against her writhing body. She tingled all over from the feel of hard male lips searching out secreted places, reciprocating by tracing the ridged indentations of a rippled abdomen with her tongue, tasting the salty sweat of him that made her ache even more for his final possession.

But she too became aware in the heady yearning madness of desire that there was a hesitation in him, a
stalling
that was causing beads of perspiration to crowd on his forehead as he hovered above her. Afton found her voice although it sounded weak and shaky even to her own ears. ‘Cooper, what…what’s wrong? Is it…’ she swallowed unsure, darkened eyes unknowingly anxious gazing up into his, ‘is it
me
?’

‘No!’
Cooper groaned the protest, his lips slamming down against hers. ‘Afton, no! It’s just that …you’re so tiny, darling – and I’ve wanted this so badly, for so long…’ His head lifted and he revealed his unspoken fear to her at last, a deep concern shading his eyes black.

‘I’m scared of hurting you.’

Afton’s smile after he voiced his hidden concern was the most beautiful smile Cooper could ever remember receiving from anyone, anywhere.

‘I won’t break, Cooper,’ she pulled his head to hers with a hand tangled in his hair to whisper huskily in his ear; ‘I’ll even
bend
if you like.’

When Cooper looked back later on that night which he would do, many, many times, those mind-blowing,
amazingly
erotic words were the moment of his last coherent thought. The rest was covered in a red mist of rapture with vague memories of plunging wildly into her over and over again. Of shouting out her name and hearing her call out his, of ecstasy, unbelievable ecstasy that tore the breath from his body leaving him panting when he reemerged lying with his head pressed against her breast much later.

‘Afton,’ he whispered when the sensual haze finally began to lift, ‘
is this heaven
?’

She gave another angelic smile, stroking stray strands of damp black hair back from his forehead. ‘A quote from another of my favorite movies, Cooper – and yes, I would say that we definitely visited heaven –
several
times for me in fact.’

With a heart-melting smile, Cooper rolled over on to his back on the pillow next to her and settled her closely into his arms with a contented sigh. As he quickly fell asleep, Afton found herself wondering, lying with her cheek cradled against the steady rise and fall of his broad chest, could heaven really last – or were happy endings only for the movies?

Chapter Seven

‘THEN YOU DEFINE
a date for me, Afton!’

Cooper glared at his reflection in the dresser mirror as he angrily thrust buttons through their waiting holes on his shirt. He was trying hard to keep his cool, but it was clear to him – and also to the woman observing from behind he knew, he was failing
miserably
, his temperature steadily rising to match the heat outside the shuttered bedroom windows.

Afton sighed. ‘Jason and I are just going to the Seattle Historical Society’s Founders Day Celebration, Cooper. I told you already how the paper is donating a bunch of old photographs to the Society’s archives and we’ll be the representatives from the Chronicle presenting them. It was all planned
months
ago – before we even met.’

‘So you dress up in something sexy, he picks you up in his car, you attend the event together and he drives you home afterwards.’