Tidal (19 page)

“When you came back here with a

hard on?” I asked breathlessly.

He coaxed one of my hands from

around his neck, giving me a grin when I

tightened the grip my legs had on his body,

and kissed the inside of my wrist. “Further

back.”

I moaned as he skimmed his other

hand along the low cut, elastic line of my

panties. “That was our first night,” I

pointed out. I ignored my conscience when

it yelled at me that that night was only

twelve days ago. People had screwed a

lot earlier.

Yes, they had. So fuck off,

Conscience.

“We had to meet, right?” he asked.

“Lunch?” I squeaked, and he nodded

slowly. He drowned my surprise out,

slanting his lips over mine, demanding that

I open them for him. I did.

“I want to be inside of you, Willow. I

want to watch your face when I’m inside

of you, when you sigh, when you come for

me. And Willow?”

He was using my whole name again.

“Yes?” I asked.

He released me, standing me up in

front of me, with his hands on either side

of my shoulders to steady me. I

automatically moved toward him, as if a

magnet pulled me, but he shook his head,

keeping me in place.

“You’re going to tell me right now if

you’re not for sure,” he said.

“I want you, Cooper. I don’t know

what the fuck else I want anymore, but I

want this right now.”

That’s all it took. He gathered me in

his arms, holding me close as he carried

me to his king-sized bed. I sighed when he

sat me on the edge and scooted

backwards, until I was in the center with

the blankets bunched around my hips.

“You look so sweet,” he said. The

way his body moved as he crawled up to

me was the most sensual thing I’d ever

seen, and I gave a hoarse cry as he pulled

me beneath him, kissing my lips until they

were sore. “Relax.”

“What are you going to—”

“Just . . . do it, Wills.”

His fingers scorched my skin as they

traced up my legs, inside my thighs,

stopping at my center. I gasped and bolted

up when he stroked the outside of my

panties, but he squeezed my thigh.

“
Relax
. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Not my body, but my heart?

I fell back against the pillows, closing

my eyes as he dragged my panties off,

shivering when the cool air from the

ceiling fan above us hit my bare flesh. He

made a rough noise in the back of his

throat, and I felt the corner of my mouth

tug up. “It’s cold.”

“Open your eyes, Wills.”

The moment my eyelids fluttered apart

to meet his gaze, he dipped his head

between my legs, pushing his tongue

against me. “Mmmmm,” I moaned. I

started to lift my hands from where they

were bunched in the covers, but he locked

his fingers around my wrists.

“We’re alone and I need to hear this

from you,” he growled. “Let go for me,

Willow. Please?”

I had a feeling those words would stay

with me for the rest of my life, regardless

of what happened after tonight, so I

nodded. “Yes.”

And then he bent down again, with my

legs draped over his shoulders and the

soles of my feet sliding up and down the

hard lines of his back. When my body

went numb, he groaned; when I relaxed, he

sighed; and when I tensed up again, finally

going limp beneath his hot mouth, he

released a low, sexy moan.

“Cooper?”

“Yes?” He traced his lips up the

center of my body, as he slid my dress up

along with his kisses.

“Kiss me again,” I said.

When he reached my lips, I tasted

myself and mint, and I shivered as I sat up

a little so he could drag the white dress

over my head. I heard it fall beside the

bed. He shrugged my lacy strapless bra

down around my waist, and the cool

breeze from the fan made me shiver once

again, but then he covered my breasts with

his mouth, warming me, driving me crazy.

“Cooper, please?” I gasped, and he

groaned against my damp skin. He started

to pull away from me, from the bed and I

fell back against the soft sheets. “Where

are you going?” I murmured.

“The lights. I told you I wanted to see

all of you.”

My heartbeat raced, but for all the

wrong reasons.

“Don’t turn them on!” I whispered

frantically, scrambling up on my knees, the

mattress sinking a little. He turned back to

face me, and I grasped his wrist. “Please .

. . no lights?” I pleaded, surprised at how

desperate my voice sounded.

He leaned in to kiss me, in that

sensitive spot beneath my breasts, and

brought my hand between us, wrapping it

around him. “You’re beautiful, Wills. I

want
you. Surely—”

He was wrong.

I wasn’t beautiful.

I was damaged.

I felt stupid for letting myself forget

that.

“I can’t do the lights,” I whispered.

Gripping my hips hard with his hands,

he laid me back down, kneeling over me,

and mumbled against my skin, “Do you

know what this is doing to me? You naked

and so fucking shy?” Whatever I was

doing to him, it wasn’t anger. His voice

just sounded amazed—broken and sexy

and just a little rough.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I

hadn’t always been shy like this. That if

things had gone different, that if my body

wasn’t scarred, I probably would have

been the one jumping out of bed to flip on

every light in the room.

He trailed kisses down my belly—so

soft they felt like feathers teasing my skin.

Instinctively, I wrapped my arm around

my lower stomach, even though my bra

was already pushed down to hide the

vicious scar, the reminder of what had

happened the last time I fell so hard. When

his lips brushed across my wrist, he

looked up into my eyes.

I moaned—a mixture of need and

frustration.

Why did this have to be so difficult?

“Willow . . . are you okay?”

“I know that I want you,” I said

firmly.

That must have been enough for him

because he dug a condom out of the

nightstand drawer, sliding it on before he

lay back against the pillows. He motioned

me to him and I gasped when he dragged

me onto his lap, burying himself inside of

my body. Cupping my face gently between

his hands, he drew me closer to him until

our chests were smooshed together, until

our foreheads touched.

“I don’t want to let you go, Wills,” he

whispered, releasing my face to encircle

me with his arms.

I was going to die. From the way he

smelled and the way he felt inside of me.

From the sound of his breathing.

I dug my fingertips into his shoulders,

feeling his scar beneath my fingers and his

heartbeat beneath my own. “I don’t want

you to,” I gasped.

And then we became a tangle of skin

and sweat, of mouths and tongues and

hands. Of bodies and beating hearts.

Afterward, we clung together, strands

of my hair stuck to his body and his arm

wrapped protectively around me. His eyes

were closed, and I stared up at the ceiling

fan, watching as it spun, and I tried to

figure out whether I was dizzy from

watching it or from Cooper. When I caught

my breath and gazed over at him again, I

decided that it was because of him.

Always him.

I slid away, determined to find my

clothes, and he rolled over, skimming his

hands across my hips to stop me. I stood

anyway, breathing heavily, with the backs

of my legs pressed to the side of the bed

as he placed a kiss at the small of my

back.

As he slid his tongue up the curve of

my spine.

And then he pushed strands of dark

hair away from my nape, so that he could

touch me there too.

“Where are you going?” he

murmured.

“To put on my clothes . . .”

He spun me around to face him,

searching my eyes in the dark. “Why?”

“So you can take me home.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“No, but . . .”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked

in a rough voice. When he saw me flinch,

his blue eyes softened and he pulled me

back onto the bed with him, one knee at a

time, until we were kneeling together.

“I’m not one of those guys who’ll use you

and then tell you to fuck off, Wills. You’re

with me now.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t

know what any of that meant, but I heard

myself laugh and ask shakily, “Who said

anything about being together?”

We hit the pillows with our arms

tangled around each other and he sighed

into my hair. “
You
did, beautiful girl.”

Chapter Thirteen

I couldn’t remember the last time I

woke up next to someone where the

details of the night before weren’t a

fucked up haze or an altogether void. But

when the sunlight filtered unsteadily

through Cooper’s bedroom window,

pulling me awake, and I felt every inch of

his body pressed up against mine, every

touch, and taste, and sound from last night

came rushing back to me.

So I decided to count this Sunday

morning in Cooper’s bed—in his arms,

with my fingertips carefully tracing the

text of his tattoo—as the first time being

wide awake since what had happened

with Tyler years ago.

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream

when the long trick's over.

Cooper didn’t open his eyes until after

I’d moved my hands past his chest, to his

shoulder, where he caught my fingers

before I could touch the scar on his back.

He stared at me for a long time, before I

murmured the same thing he’d said to me

in his Jeep when we talked about Tyler,

“Someone hurt you.”

His gaze dipped to my mouth and he

brought my fingers to his own lips. “Just

an accident from when I was a kid,” he

said.

“In Australia?” I asked, and he lifted

his chin slightly. He raked his teeth lightly

over my thumb, sucking the tip into his

mouth. “You’re lying.”

Reluctantly, he pulled my finger out of

his mouth, rubbing the tip of it across his

lower lip, wetting it. It was so sexy that I

felt my breath leave my body. “Why do

you think that?” he questioned.

“Because of your eyes.”

He cleared his throat. “What about

them?”

“They’re not looking into mine.”

That brought his gaze back up.

Groaning, he raked his hands through his

hair. “Do you really want to know?” he

demanded, and I gave a little nod of my

head. He scooted himself upright, pressing

his back up against the headboard as he

squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“Alright.”

There was so much emotion in just that

one word that I immediately faltered.

Fuck. I’d pushed too hard. I rolled over,

onto my belly and propped myself up on

my elbows. “Cooper . . . you don’t have to

tell me,” I whispered. I shivered as he

reached out to skim his fingertips along

my face. “You don’t have—”

“Shhh, Wills,” he murmured, leaning

over to stroke his lips across my temple.

When he pulled away he was smiling. “I

was ten and my dad hit me with a fishing

rod.”

“I can see you’re going to joke with

me, so I”—but then I looked past the

dimple and the grin, past the relaxed

expression on his face, and what I saw in

his eyes stabbed me in the heart. They

were vacant.

He wasn’t fucking with me.

I swallowed hard, glancing away, but

he quickly maneuvered my chin so that I

was forced to face him.

“I didn’t tell you that to make you feel

sorry for me. It’s just a fact. My dad hated

me . . . I wasn’t something he wanted.”

The way he said it—in the same easy tone

he used when we discussed whether or not

to go surfing or paddle boarding—made

my stomach feel sour. A strangled sound

burst from the back of my throat. “And

there you go again, feeling bad,” he

muttered.

“How the hell do you expect me to

feel after you tell me your dad hit you with

a fishing pole?”

He narrowed his eyes. “People have

had way more fucked up childhoods than I

did. My mum loved me. That’s all I

needed —fuck . . . it’s all I still need.”

But his mother was gone. He’d said as

much to me before. “I’m sorry, Cooper.

So fucking sorry.”

He slid down in the bed, straddling

me, pressing his erection against my

bottom. He murmured something about

how inconvenient the sheet draped across

me was and then kissed the spot between

my shoulder blades.