Page 77

“How come Barbie isn’t pregnant?” Cooper asks.

My brows dip as he glances at me in the rearview mirror. His mother is in the passenger seat beside him.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because Ken came in another box.” He cracks up at his own joke, and my cheeks flush that he just told a dirty joke in front of his mother.

“Cooper Michael!” she says, smacking him in the arm, and he holds the spot of the offense for a moment in the sort of dramatic acting I always thought athletes were taught in athlete school to make any injury appear far worse than it actually is.

“What? It’s funny!” he says, still laughing.

“It’s disgusting. I didn’t raise you that way,” she scolds, pursing her lips even though they’re tipping a bit into a smile, as if she’s thriving having both her boys in town at the same time.

“Connor told it to me,” he says defensively, and I giggle at that.

“I love how you’re both adult men in your thirties and you still blame each other,” I pipe up from the backseat.

Cheryl turns around to look at me. “Girl, I have about a million stories of these two stinkers getting into trouble. Being a boy mom is never a walk in the park, let me tell you. More like a leap through the park and climbing a rock wall before jumping into a den of lions.”

Cooper rolls his eyes. “That’s a little dramatic.”

“Dramatically accurate,” she counters.

I giggle at the two of them, and my heart twists for a beat that I don’t have that same kind of bond with my own mother…that I don’t have siblings to get into trouble with.

At least I have my dad, and he’s been so incredible to me.

My heart twists the other way for a beat as I think about how he’ll really feel when he finds out about Cooper and me.

What if it hurts my relationship with him? It’s still so new, and the thought of doing anything at all to compromise it has me feeling a certain way.

We arrive at the hospital, and Cooper grabs my hand once we’re inside. He’s careful outside when he could potentially be spotted by the media, but once we’re inside, it seems like he’s more comfortable with the idea of being close to me. Or maybe he just needs to be closer to me to help carry him through whatever internal feelings he’s experiencing as he watches his brother get stronger each day.

When we arrive at Connor’s room, we find there are already some guests in there. Cooper grins at a woman holding a baby plus a man standing beside her, and he pretty much ignores his brother in favor of greeting the couple while Cheryl moves over to talk to Connor and get a read on how he’s feeling today.

Cooper glances back at me while I stand awkwardly by the doorway. “This is Gabby,” he says to the couple. “She’s, uh…she’s a good friend here visiting.” He leaves it at that, and I get the very clear sense that he’s not ready to share our status with these people. “Gabby, this is Marissa’s best friend Isabel, her husband Bryce, and their daughter Olivia.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say with a wave.

“May I?” Cooper asks, and he nods toward the baby.

“Of course,” Isabel says, and I stare as she hands the baby over to Cooper, who takes her like a natural into his arms.

I watch as he bounces a little while he stares down at the baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket, and then he smiles at her.

And holy shit…my fucking ovaries explode.

It’s like all the estrogen in my body rushes to the same place at the same time and causes an explosion of epic proportions.

I watch as if I’m watching my future, as if I’m seeing Cooper hold our baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket as he bounces and smiles down at her and whispers sweet gibberish to her.

I want it.

I want the picture I see. I want to create life out of this bond we share that will leave behind a legacy of our love. And I want to do it over and over.

I know very little about babies and what it takes to care for them. I know there are sleepless nights and a whole host of new anxieties and worries that accompany them, but as Cooper glances up, that smile still playing at his lips, and meets my eyes across the room, I know for sure that he’s the man I’m meant to do this with.

My God, he’s gorgeous as he stands there holding her, and it taps into some different sort of need I didn’t know existed.

The need to give him children. The need to protect them and care for them because they are part him and part me. The need to see him as a daddy, to give him the family he’s always wanted. To give him everything he’s always wanted.

Maybe that’s the thing about finding your soul mate—you start to want the same things at the same time because you’re connected by the thread holding your souls together.

I don’t care that I’m young. Hell, my parents were young, too, and as it turns out, they didn’t plan for me. Imagine what a life would be like for babies who are wanted, who are planned for, who are loved beyond all measure by both their parents?

I want to do that with him, and I hardly can even stand waiting another moment for it all to begin.

I mean…I know I need to wait. Obviously. We’re in a hospital right now, so I can’t exactly just have him knock me up right this second.

I scroll in my memory down the hallway we just walked. There was a closet, some offices, other rooms holding other patients…my mental rewind pauses on the offices.

No. Not in a hospital.

But in the guest room at Marissa and Connors house? That’s a maybe.

Or the closet down the hall.

The bathroom?

No.

The elevator? Maybe…

“You want to hold her?” Cooper asks, breaking into my totally inappropriate thoughts.

I nod. “Do you mind?” I ask Isabel.

She smiles and nods as if to say go for it , and Cooper carefully hands her over.

I’ll be honest.

I’ve never held a baby this small before.

I’ve held very few babies in my lifetime, in fact.

I’ve never changed a diaper.

I’ve never understood that new baby smell people talk about. I’ve never wanted much to do with babies at all, really.

But having Cooper hand over this little bundle feels like it changes everything.

“How old is she?” I ask, smiling down at her as she looks up at me.

“Two months,” her mother says.

Two months.

God, two months ago I didn’t even know Cooper. It’s sort of amazing how much has changed in my life in such a short time. I went from a single girl about to start her senior year of college to thinking about how I want babies and marriage and a future with a man twelve years older than me.

Life moves at an alarmingly fast rate, and I want to cling on and enjoy the ride with Cooper.

I glance over at him as I hold the baby, and I see it there in his eyes.

The same things I’m feeling.

Is this real life? I’m not quite sure, but I’ve never experienced a pull like this before. He is experienced, and he’s never felt it, either.

Whatever the case, one thing is for sure.

It’s time to start rethinking the priorities and expectations I’ve outlined for myself. I don’t want to jump into anything without thinking it through first, but I’ve had the last six weeks to think it through.

And I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life than I am about a future with Cooper.

I reluctantly hand back Olivia, and Cooper asks if he can talk to me for a minute out in the hallway. We head out there together, and then he presses his hand to the small of my back and guides me toward the elevators. We get in, my brow furrowed as I wonder where the hell he’s taking me, and I’m about to ask when someone else steps on, too.

Damn. I was hoping we could make out a little.

We get off on the level where we parked, and he guides me toward his mom’s car. He gets into the backseat instead of the front, and he pulls me in next to him.

“What the hell was that back there?” he demands.

My brows knit together. I have no idea what he’s talking about, and I can’t tell if he’s angry or joking or…something else. “What was what back where?”

“You being all sexy holding that baby like you wanted me to put one in you. Don’t you look at me like that if you’re not ready, because I will fuck you right here, right now, and get the ball rolling.”

I gasp a little, and I shift as his words press an unbearable ache between my thighs. “I, uh…” I pause as I try to collect my thoughts, but the fact is I was thinking of a place we could screw and suddenly we’re out here in the privacy of his mom’s car. The backseat has tinted windows, and he parked sort of at the end of a row, and it wouldn’t be that hard for me to get on top of him. I shake the thought out. “I don’t know what I want, but I do know I want you.”

He leans over toward me, and then he shifts us so he’s hovering over me. His lips drag along my neck. “I want you, too. I want a future with you, Gabby. I want everything, and I feel like it’s all within our reach.” His mouth moves over to mine, and he kisses me like he’s starved and my mouth is what’s going to give him sustenance.

He doesn’t have much room, but somehow he manages to drive his hips to mine. “I don’t have a condom, but I need to feel you.”

“I don’t either, and the pull out thing worked last time.” My words are breathless against his lips.

“It’s risky,” he warns.

“I know.”

He won’t come inside me.

We’re fine.

I gaze up into his eyes, and the thought of little feet pitter-pattering down the hardwood floors in his new house, of an angelic face with Cooper’s bright blue eyes looking up at me with love and adoration, of creating something out of this incredible thing we share…it doesn’t sound so bad.

Either way, I know how it works. Mia had a scare our freshman year of college, and we learned all the things. I’m not in the ovulation zone right now. It would be safe for him to pull out.

He shoves his hips against me again, and he’s so hard and ready. He wants me. I want him. I need him. I need to feel him, especially after the realizations I’ve had today.

He stares at me for a few hot beats as if trying to get a read on what I’m thinking, and then he nods. “You’re sure?” he asks one more time.

“I’m sure,” I say, and I pull his neck down so his lips are on mine again. I pause and pull back. “But just for the record, I did start the pill.”

His jaw drops open. “And you didn’t tell me?”

I shrug. “Just wanted to see where you were at. And it’s noted.”

He raises a brow then starts to grapple with my jeans, which I pull down and kick off, and he unzips his own pants and pulls out his cock, already leaking at the tip with desire for me.

God, I get hot when I think about what I do to him.

He strokes himself a few times before he slides his cock through my slit, up and down, hitting my clit a few times before he slides in.

“Oh my God,” I shriek as he drives all the way in.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so goddamn perfect,” he says, and his lips move to mine.

There’s just something gloriously magical about his hard, thick cock pumping inside me with nothing between the two of us. He holds onto me as he drives his hips to mine, and I feel the pleasure mounting as he fucks me in the back of his mom’s car like we’re two horny teenagers who can’t wait another second to be together.

“I fucking love your hot cunt,” he murmurs close to my ear. “It’s all I think about when I’m not with you.”

“Oh God,” I moan again. “Fuck me harder, Cooper. Harder!”

He slams into me, and something about this entire experience is explosive and sexy and hot all at once, and the feel of him and his cock and his mouth and his dirty words drive me right to a climax.

I’m mid-orgasm, my body clenching and contracting over his, when he starts to pump harder and harder. He spills into me, the first time he’s come inside me without anything between us, with a mighty and fierce growl.

He gently pulls out when it’s all over, his pleasure leaking from me. He stares down at the mess we made together, and then he reaches in the front seat where his mom keeps a little pack of tissues. He cleans me off first and then himself, and we both get dressed and straighten ourselves up for a minute, drawing in deep breaths as we hold hands in the backseat.

And a tiny little part in the back of my brain that absolutely defies my normal logic can’t help but wish I wasn’t on the pill at all since we just wasted a chance at creating a new life together.