Page 76

We stayed at the hospital as long as they let us. Marissa headed home to pick up the boys, and she brought them by to visit their dad. He’s doing much better, but with the infection, he needs to stay a couple more days, which means Cooper is staying a couple more days, too.

Which I suppose means I am staying a couple more days as well.

I texted my dad to let him know I arrived, and later in the day Cooper texted my dad to thank him for sending a friend.

My dad is practically pushing us together at this point, though I’m certain that’s not his intent.

The entire time we sat in Connor’s room, Cooper found ways to touch me. We were either holding hands, or his arm was around my shoulder, or we were sitting close enough that our legs were touching. At one point, he even pulled me down onto his lap while we sat on a bench near the window. We ate dinner at the hospital cafeteria, and Cooper laughed and joked with his brother, and everyone in the room—including Cooper’s mom—made me feel like an immediate part of the family.

It's as if everything is fine between Cooper and me, yet part of me fears it’s not. He nearly bolted because of the age thing, and I’m not totally sure he’s okay with where we stand right now. So for as much as I’ve forced myself to live in the moment all day, a little tremor of fear took root in my stomach this morning and it seems to have grown and grown as we make our way toward the conversation I know we’re going to have once we’re alone.

Part of me wonders whether he’s stayed as long as he has at the hospital today as a way to avoid the talk, but the other part of me logically knows he’s here to spend time with his brother—to soak it all in while he can.

It’s not until we’ve said goodnight to Cheryl, who went back home, and Marissa, who’s exhausted after a long day, that we head up to Cooper’s room to finally have that talk.

He sits and leans against the headboard and pats the bed beside him. I climb in and mirror his position.

“I guess we need to talk,” he says.

I nod and stare straight ahead, that fear that took root this morning exploding out into a tree of nerves.

“When all this happened with Connor, I felt myself retreating,” he begins. “It’s an old habit. I did it when my dad passed, though I was too young to recognize it then. I did it when I hurt my elbow, and again when Stacy and I ended things. And I started doing it with you, too. My first thought was how short life is, how I need to get a jump on the future I always wanted.” He reaches over and clasps my hand in his. “But when you showed up today out of nowhere, the truth slammed into me like a ton of bricks. Maybe the future I dreamed of is just that—a dream. But an even better dream is what I see in the future with you.” He turns toward me, and I slide my head toward him, too. “But the thought of a future without you feels like my worst nightmare come to life. So if you’re not ready, then I’m not ready. If you are, then I am, too. Whatever it takes to make this work, I want to do it. I don’t want to waste time, but if it means I get to be with you, then it’s not time wasted.”

I press my lips together in part to keep from crying and in part to keep from responding for a beat. “I don’t want you to settle for less than everything you want. I think somewhere in there we can meet in the middle.”

His brows rise in surprise.

I found the ring .

I almost say it, but I stop myself. Instead, I say, “I had a lot of time to think on the plane, and I felt it, Cooper. I felt you pulling away the second you found out your brother had a heart attack, and I need to make one thing crystal clear. You never, ever pull away from me. We’re in this together, and we face these things together. You talk to me, and you cry with me and yell at me and let it all out, but you don’t ever turn the other way. Do you understand me?”

“Yes ma’am.” His eyes look a little heated at my aggressive speech.

I sit up and turn toward him, pulling his hand in mine and staring down at it as I talk. “I don’t want a future without you in it, and I want you to have everything you’ve ever dreamed of having. I want to give you those things. Maybe not today or tomorrow, maybe not next week, but when we’re ready.” My eyes flick up to his. “And I don’t think it’s that far off. My goal was always to start and establish my career before I settled down, and that could be next year or five years down the road. But we compromise. We talk. We fight. We do it together.”

He leans in and kisses me. “I missed you that night I was in Boston and last night, and that time we were apart when I thought you were with Justin. I miss our banter, and our dirty jokes, and your body. But most of all, I missed the way we can both be so open with each other about everything. I’ve spent most of my life just keeping it in, but you make me want to let it out.”

“Right, and on that note…you’ve slept with thirty-five times more women than your brother?” I ask, raising a brow.

He wrinkles his nose. “Are you sure you want to have this conversation?”

“My number is four,” I say without missing a beat and without answering his question. I purse my lips.

“Four?” he practically thunders. “Who are these other three men I need to murder?”

I laugh. “You only have three to take out. I have thirty-five?”

He holds up both hands in surrender. “Connor was just teasing me. I haven’t slept with that many women. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be my first, but you’ll be my last.”

“How am I supposed to measure up to all that?” My insecurities are showing, but it doesn’t feel scary since we just finished a conversation about how we’re supposed to be honest and we’re in this together.

“To be honest, I haven’t kept count. It’s somewhere between ten and twenty, probably. I was with Stacy for five years, had a few one-night stands before and after her. And nobody, I mean not a single one of them, gives head the way you do.” He raises both brows as if he’s raising a challenge.

I roll my eyes. “You’re just saying that so I’ll suck your dick.”

He holds a hand up to his chest in mock disbelief. “How could you accuse me of such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.”

“Fine. But you thought about proving it for a minute, am I right?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He laughs. “That reminds me, want to hear a joke about my dick?”

I raise my brows.

“Never mind. It’s way too long.”

I giggle and shake my head. “I swear, your dirty jokes are the cheesiest.”

“You love them,” he says, and he shifts so he’s suddenly hovering over me, forcing me back into position beneath him…exactly where I want to be.

Exactly where I love to be.

I sigh with contentment as I stare up at him, a little of his weight warming me and holding me in place. His blue eyes are clear and sure as they focus down on mine. He drops his lips to mine and thrusts his hips at the same time, and he’s already activating multiple pleasure points all in one smooth move.

I let out a soft moan, and he chuckles before his lips move to my neck.

“You think you can do this quietly?” he murmurs.

“Not the way you fuck,” I whisper back.

“God, I love it when you talk like that.” He pushes his hips against mine again.

“I love it when you do that.” I tighten my grasp around his neck, and he drives toward me again, humping me on the bed in the guest room.

His lips find my ear and he sucks on my lobe for a beat. “I want to do it naked.”

“Then do it.”

He pulls back, his eyes hooded and heated when they land on mine. “I don’t have any condoms.”

My thought process on the plane returns to me. What would life be like to be a young mother, fresh out of college, having Cooper Noah’s baby?

The thought even in the heat of the moment makes me feel a shocking craving I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. It’s a craving for this man, for a future with him, for things I wasn’t sure I really wanted until he stepped into my life.

I want them now. I want them with him. But I also know that’s part of a bigger conversation we haven’t had yet.

“I brought some,” I murmur. “They’re in my suitcase.”

His eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning. “You are seriously the best.”

I lift a shoulder and shoot him a cocky smile. “I know. And it probably merits mentioning before you get overly complimentary that I stole them from your underwear drawer.”

He laughs and shakes his head a little, and then he leans down and presses a kiss to my neck. He drags his lips down toward my cleavage, and then he sits back on his knees and pulls my shirt over my head. He buries his face between my breasts, still covered in my bra, and he breathes deeply. “What’s mine is yours, Sunshine.” He moves off me and heads to my suitcase and locates the strip of condoms I grabbed just in case.

“Four?” he says, holding up the strip and letting them fall down in a row.

My cheeks heat. “I mean, I didn’t count them. I just grabbed some.”

He tears one off the strip. “Liar. You think we’re going to fuck four times while we’re here.” He unbuttons his jeans and pulls his cock out. He strokes it a few times before he tears open the condom, and I can’t help but watch as the ache between my legs intensifies and my body moves from wet to drenched with arousal for him.

“A girl can dream, can’t she?” I watch as he rolls it on, and then he jumps back onto the bed and hovers over me.

“We’ll run to the store tomorrow and get more.” His lips drop down to mine, and we kiss as if our lives depend on it as we seal all the promises we just made.

He backs away and helps me out of my pants and panties, and then he gets rid of his own jeans while I shimmy into a comfortable position. And then he’s back, his heat perched over me, that beautiful sensation where he bears down some of his weight and I breathe him in, his fresh, woodsy scent combined with the element that just makes him him , and I tilt my hips up to try to gain some friction from the erection hanging between us. He grips onto it and slides it through me, pumping it against my clit a few beats, and my eyes roll back at the feel as I let out a soft grunt.

“We have to be quiet.” He whispers the reminder close to my ear, and I nod, my eyes shining with lust as they connect with his. And then he pushes himself into me. His hand glides along my torso and lands on my breast, which he massages as he drives his hips against mine. His grunts are soft as he buries his face in my neck, and he lets go of my breast so he can lace one arm around me, pulling my body close against his as he makes love to me. His lips move along my collarbone as he whispers softly to me.

“Fuck, you’re so tight and wet for me, so fucking hot and gorgeous.”

My moaning gets a little louder at his dirty talk.

“Be my good girl and be quiet,” he says. “Take my cock, baby. Keep taking it so deep.” As he says those words, he pushes in as far as he can go and doesn’t move, but he lifts his face from my neck. My eyes are shut tight as I drink in the pleasure, and I only know he’s moved since I feel the cool absence of his mouth there. “Look at me,” he says. “I want to see your beautiful face twisted in pleasure when I make you come.”

My eyes open and meet his. His words and his face in my view and the feel of his cock as it twitches so deeply inside of me combined with the fierce love and adoration I see in his eyes is everything I want to live in forever, and it’s everything I need to catapult me into a vicious climax.

I can’t help it. I close my eyes, and I sink my teeth into his shoulder as I dig my nails into his back. He grunts loudly as he starts to come, too, the two of us thrashing our way through the ecstasy as one.

When it’s all over and our bodies start to relax, worn out and sated for now, he collapses over the top of me for a beat, his cock still inside me as neither of us moves to break the connection. It’s not a connection I want to break. It’s the way our bodies seem to speak best in the language that’s theirs and theirs alone. It’s the way I can feel physically closest to him as our emotional and spiritual bond strengthens and ties us together in a way that feels very much like forever.

It's pure and utter perfection, and as he slips out and I start to fall asleep after a long, exhausting day, I can’t help the last thought that rushes through my mind before sleep overtakes me.

It’s a picture of the future, of him getting down on his knee and presenting that Cartier box to me, and me nodding my head as I accept his proposal.

I don’t want it to be the future, though.

I want him forever, and I want our forever to begin right now.