Page 28 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)

My stomach flutters. But he can’t—“No,” I say firmly. “You can’t just decide to do something like that. You can’t conform your career to some snap decision because you think it’s what I want to hear.”

Now it’s Hopper’s turn to look angry. “Are you forgetting number five?”

“What?”

“Rule number five. ‘Never bullshit you.’ If I tell you I want to do a movie for you, I’m going to do a movie for you. You’re worth a movie, Chris. Fuck, you’re worth a career. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I don’t,” I say, louder than necessary. I can hardly breathe. I don’t want to let myself believe what I think he’s trying to say.

“I’m saying I—” Hopper snaps his jaw shut, cutting himself off.

“Fuck,” he mutters. He laces his hands behind his head.

Then he stands up. I think he’s going to walk away.

Because that’s what people do when things get hard, they walk away.

That’s what they do when their temporary teenager skips school.

Steals a dirt bike. Gets in fights when someone makes fun of the strange little tough girl for reading a romance book.

They pass her onto the next family. Make her someone else’s problem.

But Hopper doesn’t walk away. He reaches down to take my hand.

I could refuse. But my pulse is racing too hard, every cell on alert. He’s like Heathcliff on the moor with his tormented expression and hair whipping in the wind, and if I didn’t already know I had feelings for my boss, well, I know it now.

“I’m saying,” he says when I let him bring me to my feet, “that everything I want to do right now is to make you happy.”

“That’s because telling you what to do is my job.”

But Hopper shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.

” He takes a breath. “Chris. I fucking leap out of bed in the morning because it’ll be another day where I get to see you.

I check my phone every minute when we’re not together, just in case you texted and I missed it.

” He jams his hands into his jacket pockets.

“And I never fucking miss it, Chris. It doesn’t matter what it is, I’m happy to do it because you want me to.

To do a movie for you? It would be a privilege, okay?

” He looks skyward, his expression pained.

“What are you saying?” I ask him, not daring to guess or presume. Not doing anything now but feeling the thud of my heartbeat as I hold my breath.

“Chris,” Hopper says. “I’m crazy about you. And if you can’t tell, that just makes me want to?— ”

But I don’t let him finish. I can’t, because I close the two feet of distance between us and pull his face down to mine.

For a moment, he doesn’t move. I panic, pulling away, already imagining the apology, the humiliating ride back, the conversation where he lets me down easy—or fires me.

But then Hopper makes a sound like something’s released in his chest, and a moment later, his hand is pressed against the back of my head, his other gripping my back as he crushes his mouth against mine.

For a moment, it’s almost too much. Hopper’s hard body against me; the scent of him and the sea; the heat of his lips, his breath; the dart of his tongue as it searches for mine—I think I might fold in on myself.

He says something I can’t hear; a single syllable, repeated between frantic kisses.

Heat and need and want pour through me, emanating from some nuclear place in my lower belly.

I’m going to pass out. “Hopper,” I say, the sound coming from the back of my throat. Needing to warn him.

But just as I think it’s going to happen, my feet leave the ground, and then I’m wrapped around him, ankles knotted behind his back.

Hopper presses his hand against my back and head as he drops to his knees, lowering us both back down to the grass.

He hovers over me, cupping my face like he needs to make sure I’m there.

He’s still saying that word, and only now do I realize it’s my name.

Chris. Chris. Chris. Fuck, Chris.

Hopper hovers over me, the moon just over his head, the ocean roaring in my ears. Or is that my blood? This man. This man.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“What? What are you sorry for?”

“I’m your boss. This is—I don’t—it’s wrong. I’m wrong.”

“So why does it feel so right?”

For a moment, there’s silence between us. Then Hopper’s tipped his face down so his forehead is on my clavicle, and I realize his shoulders are shaking. He’s laughing!

“Hey!” I say.

“Did you really just say that?” he asks, his voice muffled in my jacket. “Corndog,” he whispers, kissing my throat.

“Excuse me!” I say, indignant. Embarrassed. Did I just say that?

But my embarrassment vanishes with the soft heat of his lips and tongue on my skin, inching lower, in the V of my half-opened jacket. Toward the hem of my dress. My nipples harden in anticipation of his touch. Because God, I need him to touch me there. In other places too.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” I whisper. Because for me, it is. It feels like this is what’s supposed to happen. That all our bickering, all that anger—was a front. A fragile, thin veneer on barely contained feelings of the opposite value.

I’m crazy about you, Chris.

“Yes, bangles,” Hopper says, his mouth gliding over my skin where my neck meets my shoulder. “It’s true. You feel perfect to me. ”

An engine sounds, and we both freeze. Suddenly we’re flooded with light as a car rounds the bend.

In that brief flash of headlights, I see the intensity of his gaze on me. There’s need there; want. I can see that. But there’s something else. Something hesitant. Something almost…pained.

“Hopper,” I say once they’re past. “Are you okay?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“We should get up,” I say. “This is a public place. You’re a public figure.”

But Hopper shakes his head. “Not yet. It’s not you, bangles. It’s…”

He trails off as he watches his hand, like it’s not under his control. His thumb and forefinger have found the zipper on my jacket—his jacket—and he pulls it down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. Shivers rocket through me.

But I can’t shake the look in his eyes. The sensation that he’s warring with himself.

Maybe he doesn’t want me. Self-doubt threatens to pour in, making me want to press a hand to his chest. To stop this torrent of feeling pummeling through me.

But as he presses the sides of my jacket out of the way, Hopper’s gaze turns liquid.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Chris.” His finger trails down my collarbone, onto my breastbone, over my hem.

His fingertips graze the curve of my breasts, right down the middle.

Heat pools between my legs, my nipples like glass, yearning for him to inch his fingers just a little wider. “Hopper,” I breathe .

“Today, at the party,” he says. “You looked like an angel in this.” He hooks a finger under the neckline.

“It’s just a dress,” I say shakily. I know that’s an old self-consciousness making an appearance. This disbelief that this man could want me when he has his pick.

But Hopper shakes his head, his eyes meeting mine. “No. It was you in this dress. You’re the angel, Chris.”

My heart thuds so loud it drowns out the world. Hopper kisses me once again, and every last bit of doubt melts away.

The kiss grows intense. It’s all tongue and clicking teeth and urgency.

We’re tangled up on the ground now, heat flooding through me as Hopper bunches my dress in his hand, gliding it up, whispering sweet words in my ear I can barely register.

My body is so overrun with endorphins I forget where we are.

I want him to take me right here on this cliffside.

His hands are on me, desperate and strong, hard but somehow infinitely gentle. “So beautiful,” he whispers again.

But I realize where his hands are a moment too late. His right hand has drifted up my hip, landing on the bare skin of my stomach.

On what used to be skin.

And he’s not moving. Not his hand, not his lips, nothing.

I gasp, shoving his hand away. I realize as he lets out a tiny grunt that I’ve hurt him, somehow. Physically. Bent a finger back as I tried to crush the sensation out of his hand. Maybe that will make him forget. Maybe that will distract him .

But Hopper’s not easily distracted. I should know that. He’s determined, just like me, when he’s latched on to something. His eyes are wide in the dark, his hand stiff. He looks confused for a moment. No, it’s not confused. It’s disbelieving. Bewildered. Like he’s seen a ghost.

“So, there it is,” I say. My throat is thick, my words tight. My heart thuds against my ribs.

You’re hideous. You’re weird.

“Chris,” Hopper says. “What—” he cuts himself off.

There’s no running away from it now, is there? That old humiliation roars in my ears. The foster mom yanking my shirt up. Don’t show this to the other kids. My first kiss jerking his hand away in disgust that bordered on fear.

Hopper backs up, like he’s the one who was burned. “You were in an accident.” His voice is low. Wary. Unlike the Hopper from a moment ago.

All that heat from a moment ago funnels into something sharp. Hard.

“It’s not from the accident.” I’m unable to hide the emotion in my voice. Anger masking something far more excruciating. “It’s a burn. It happened a long time ago.”

I can’t see properly in the dark, but I can see Hopper grappling with something. Horror, I think.

Why did I think that he might be the one to understand feelings without condition? Why did I think I could trust him?

“You hide that,” Hopper says, his voice barely a rasp. “You never want anyone to see.”

What the fuck? Tears prick my eyes. “Wouldn’t you? ”

He shuts down then, hard and cold as ice. He stands up, head in his hands. And I feel my heart—my hopes, my trust—shatter into pieces.