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I don’t want to let go. I know if I let go, all the other stuff that keeps getting in our way has the potential to sneak back in. If I stay right here, it’s just the two of us. We don’t have to worry about the secrets we’re keeping. We can just be , and there’s something so magical and comforting about that—something I’m not ready to let go of just yet, and so I continue to cling onto him.

My brain knows the truth. Eventually we’ll have to let go. I have classes in the morning, and he has responsibilities to get to as well. We’ll need to see my dad. I’ll need to lead the interns this week while I fight for the social media position. There’s a million things on each of our plates, but somehow they all fade into the ether when I’m with him and all that matters is this .

He pulls me up by placing his hands under my thighs, and I lay my head on his shoulder as he carries me through the house to the couch. He sets me down onto the sofa lounger seat, the longer cushion that can accommodate both our bodies, and he climbs up to hover over me, his lips inches from mine as he peers down at my face.

I stare up at him, totally content and comfortable here in this place.

“Every time I look at you, it’s like this wave of something just washes over me,” he says softly as he continues to gaze down at me. “At first I thought it was love, but I think it’s something so much bigger than that. It’s just fucking home , Gabby. I’ve bounced around the last few years, and honestly nothing has felt like home since my dad died. But you…you’re home . You’re the place the compass points to when I get lost, and I don’t want you to ever forget that.”

His words touch a place in my chest that goes far deeper than just my heart. They brand onto my very soul, and there is where they will reside until the day I die.

“I love you, Cooper Noah,” I whisper, tears trickling from my eyes.

“I love you too, Gabriella Rose Sunshine Grant.” His lips drop to mine, and he kisses me so tenderly and with the kind of authenticity that only serves to validate the words he just spoke.

He breaks from me long enough to pulls his shirt over his head, and I run my fingertips along the cut ridges of his abdomen before he pulls my shirt over my head, too. He unhooks my bra and helps me out of my jeans before taking care of his own.

And then he’s making love to me right there on his couch, our bodies racing toward the brink of pleasure as I dig my nails into his skin and he growls my name into my ear, our quiet whispers and moans speaking our language for us as he rocks into my body. His lips find my nipple as my body bends and bows under his touch, and he continues to drive into me as he manages to thrill every single erogenous zone seemingly simultaneously. The words we spoke hover around us like a warm blanket, and as I tip over the edge into the abyss of pleasure, I know this is it for me.

There will never be another man like him. Not for me. I will never love like this again. No one will ever make me feel the way he does—not just in moments like these where he physically knows my body so well, but in every moment where we connect beyond the level of physicality. He just gets me, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and we have to find a way to go public with what we have because I can’t keep living with the best thing that ever happened to me as my best-kept secret.

My alarm wakes me too early the next morning as I scramble to shut it off, forcing me out of the warm cocoon of Cooper’s arms.

I spot a text from Justin that must’ve come in late last night.

Justin: FYI Mackenzie was on a rampage last night. I’m faking a friendship with her to get her to keep her mouth shut for you, but she told me you’re fucking CN. How does she know? Delete this text.

“Shit,” I grumble.

Cooper reaches over for me and bats my phone out of my hands as he pulls me closer into his body, and I giggle.

“I need to get up and get ready for class,” I remind him.

“What are you cursing about at this ungodly hour?” he asks.

“It’s not like it’s five in the morning,” I point out. “It’s six-thirty.”

“It’s still dark. I don’t do dark mornings.”

“If I got naked, climbed on top of you, and called myself Dark Morning, would you change your mind?”

That draws a sleepy chuckle from him. “Yes, then I would definitely do dark morning.” He thrusts his hips against me.

“Are you ever not hard?” I ask.

“Yes. I am not hard in the three minutes after you’ve made me come. But otherwise, when you’re around…all the blood seems to run straight down to the big man as he begs for a chance to score with the hottest girl he’s ever seen.”

“That’s quite a speech coming from someone who still has his eyes closed.”

“Five more minutes,” he demands, and he pulls me back down, peppering my neck with kisses.

“Sorry, pal. I set the alarm for as late as I possibly could. I need to get up, and I need to deal with something.”

“Fine,” he mutters, and he finally lets me go. “What do you need to deal with?” He sits up.

I wave at his abs, and he gives me a funny look.

“What are you doing?”

“Waving to the abbies,” I say. I walk over and point out one of the muscles near the bottom. “This one’s my favorite, but don’t tell the others.”

“He wants a kiss,” Cooper says, and I lean down to kiss my favorite ab. He takes the opportunity to grab the back of my head and tease me like he’s pushing me down, down, down.

“Too early to get up, but not too early for a blow job?” I ask with a raised brow when he lets go.

He grins and shrugs innocently. “It was worth a shot.”

“If you behave, maybe later, but I really do need to get to class.”

“And you have to deal with something that caused you to curse. What was it?” he asks.

“Justin said he’s faking a friendship with Mackenzie to help me out. She told him we’re sleeping together.”

He sighs. “We need to stage that breakup pronto, then.”

I nod as I put on my clothes from last night. “Do it today. I’ll be in after class, and I’ll ask her if I can talk to her, and then you just walk up and do it.”

He twists his lips. “Why do I have to be the one to end it?”

“Because she’ll never believe that I’m the one ending it with you. It just wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because we’re not playing in the same league, Cooper. You’re the older, worldly, all-star athlete, who could have his pick from any woman in the world, and I’m…me. I’m the younger, inexperienced college student who’s more well-known for her famous father than on her own merit.”

“I hate it when you talk about yourself like that. I wish you loved yourself the way I love you.”

“My vagina couldn’t take that sort of workout, my friend,” I say dryly.

He laughs, and I press a kiss to his lips before I take off for home, praying that our plan works.