“You didn’t lock it,” he says with a grim look.
“I was hoping the same guy would break in again,” I mutter and kiss his jaw.
He slams the door shut and flips the deadbolt. Heat shoots through my sternum and collects between my thighs. I reach around him and flip a light on.
Cooper sets my bag on the floor and takes us into the living room. I gasp at the sensation of being weightless for a second as he falls with me onto the couch.
“Where were we?” he asks.
I smile and roll off his lap to stand in front of him.
His heavy-lidded gaze coats me in honey as he settles back into the cushion, knees spread wide, watching me slide my skirt up my legs and climb back on.
“You drive me crazy,” I murmur across his lips.
He tilts his head back as I sit slightly above him, taking his hat off, setting it to the side, and run my fingers through his hair. He nips my lower lip and slips his hands under my hiked-up skirt, squeezing my thighs.
My back instinctively arches, pressing my hips into him, and his belt buckle grazes the warm skin of my inner thigh, sending a shiver over my back. I toy with the hair at the base of his neck, and his eyes close. I study him, noting every freckle, scar, and the way his mustache covers his lip, the way his lips part on a hot breath.
With his eyes still closed, I lean in, ghosting my lips over his. Our noses brush and my pulse flutters, and I kiss him, lightly grazing my tongue against his, and he leans in, moving to catch up with my retreat. Then his hand clasps the back of my neck, holding me in place, and a husky moan burns its way through my lungs.
Cooper releases me, giving us a chance to breathe, and he frowns. “You’re shaking.”
I take my hands off his shoulders and clench them behind my back. He leans forward, mouth grazing my jaw as he takes my wrists and guides my hands to his chest. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m at your mercy,” he says gently.
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
He slides his hands up and down my thighs. My hands finally stopped shaking, and he looks at me with adoration in his lush green eyes and shrugs. “Whatever you want,” he says.
“Is this your way of getting me to stay? Are you trying to rope me in with your gentleman in the streets and freak in the sheets play?”
He throws his head back, laughing. “I appreciate you think I’m capable of being that smooth, but no, that’s not what this is. I meant what I said, and I say what I mean. You could tell me to get on the floor and bark like a dog, and I would.”
I snort looking down at him. “I’m not going to tell you to do that.”
“This isn’t some kind of ploy, stubborn. Though I will do everything I can, this is a result of my determination to get you to stay,” he says with a knowing smile.
I look away, realizing I’m entirely out of my depth, but I need to tell him.
“I’m thirty-one and I’ve never had sex, but it’s the reality,” I blurt, looking at the picture above the dining table. I’m sure he already guessed that, seeing as he was my first kiss. My dating life has been full of frustration, including the sexual nature.
Cooper brushes my hair back and cups my cheek. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I mumble, still looking at the picture of mountains.
He chuckles, and my heart plummets to my stomach.
“Mae, look at me,” he commands, rubbing my cheek with his thumb.
I shudder and slowly force my eyes to his. I need to face this — him. I’m not ashamed of being a virgin. That’s not the problem. But I’m nervous about how he’ll see me. It’s clear he has plenty of experience, and I feel like a loser.
“Though I like that you think I’m a freak in the sheets, that was not my expectation tonight. I hope I haven’t given you a reason to think that. We can stop whenever you want,” he says.
“You haven’t,” I mumble.
“A one night stand is not how I’m going to get you to stay,” he says.
“It wouldn’t.”
