Sutton used to get embarrassed by the way she full-body blushed, self-conscious about how red she’d become, but I love it. Loved making her blush, then and now.
“Look at me.” I assist in bringing her gaze back to me.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s your name.”
“No, Cooper. What does it mean to be yours?”
Oh.
It means that you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved or wanted. It means that you are the first and last thing I think about when I go to bed—fuck, with her, she also consumes every other waking thought. I don’t know where one ends and the next one starts. It means you are the one who grounds me, but also makes me feel alive. It means you are my home, my family. It means that I’d do anything for you, to make you happy, to have you.
I’d give up hockey if it meant having Sutton.
“It means this.”
I cup her cheeks and pull her lips to meet mine. Sutton is on her toes to reach me. Her hands curl around my biceps to stabilize herself.
Her lips part, and I seize the opportunity to slip my tongue into her mouth.
My hands slide up her cheeks, palms resting high on her cheekbones. Fingers sliding into the roots of her auburn curls.
Sutton’s kisses sting. A shock to my cold and dying heart. Reviving me with bursts of color and life. The waves of doubt and societal pressures recede, drawn back by her. She coats me in a layer of stillness, peace, of comfort.
We keep kissing. Our tongues and lips are now dancing. You’d think we’d been doing this for years with the way we are in sync.
She lets out the littlest, most delectable whimper when I drag her bottom lip between my teeth.
I don’t know how I’m ever going to return from this. Kissing her again. Tasting the way she’s sweet, slightly innocent, but there’s a creature in her that’s clawing its way to the surface.
I always knew she was the start of my world, but I think she’s going to be the end of it too.
Sutton grabs my hand.
Her eyes never leave mine, her head turned over her shoulder, as she leads us blindly to the bathroom, snatching the key off the bar counter where we set it earlier.
The hand not in mine pushes open the bathroom door. Sutton steps away from me, spinning on her heels. Irises flaring, the hazel shifting to a blue-green with each sharp inhale.
Giving her space, physically and mentally, I push my back into the door, flipping the lock behind me.
I want her. I want her so bad, but I’m going to let her take the lead here.
She’s always held the leash to my heart. A collar wrapped around it, a dog tag hanging from it that says:If lost, return to Sutton Davis.
“I—” Her bottom lip disappears between her teeth. Hands flexing at her sides. Eyelids rapidly blinking. She’s thinking this through.
My little genius. My little overthinker.
I’ll accept whatever outcome this is, but there is one I’d prefer, and I sense it brewing in her.
“Do it,” I encourage.
“Do what?”
“Whatever is spinning in that beautiful mind of yours.”
“You mean it?”
