For a moment, the words—or the meaning, at least—didn’t quite register.
“Upstairs?” I repeated.
Felix rolled his eyes. Then his other hand came up, cool fingertips resting on my cheek. My breath hitched.
Felix broke into another smile, one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. The warmest smile I’d seen on him.
I was so busy admiring it that the kiss came as a surprise. Our noses bumped together at first, but then Felix tilted his face and we slotted together like puzzle pieces. All the knots in my stomach unraveled at once as his lips pressed against mine, as his fingers squeezed my hand—reassurance I didn’t realize I needed until it made all the tension I’d been holding melt away.
Felix was kissing me. He smelled clean and masculine and his fingers were stronger than I thought they’d be where they were cupping my jaw, tilting my face for a better angle, for more closeness. The inch or so of air between us heated so fast I was glad I’d taken my shirt off. When Felix pulled back—just far enough to breathe, our noses still touching—the whole world spun around me.
“Upstairs,” Felix confirmed. “Now.”
What was I meant to say to that?
“Okay.”
9
FELIX
“Ohfuckyes,”I murmured against Cooper’s mouth as he pushed me up against the bare wall of my temporary home, next to the enormous still-life painting of a basket of lemons that served as the only decoration in the place. He’d picked me up again, both hands under my thighs, strong and squeezing firmly as he used the rest of his weight to pin me in place and hold me up.
I locked my ankles around him, one hand in his hair and the other fisting the shoulder seam of his T-shirt, heat rushing south as he bit at my mouth.
I hadn’t dared to hope there was this kind of banked fire just waiting to be prodded under the surface, but I wasveryglad there was.
Cooper’s hand shifted on my good thigh, hitching it up over his hip as his palm slid down to my ass. The way he squeezed sent a pulse of pleasure straight to my cock, already throbbing with want, half-hard in my too-tight jeans.
Avery knew what they were doing when they insisted on these ones. I needed them open as soon as possible.
Which meant I was about to be a slut about this.
Six years of loyalty to one man who hadn’t shown me the same was more than enough. I could fuck someone I’d practically just met because I wanted to, because he was hot and I liked him and I was feeling needy.
“Show me yours,” I murmured against Cooper’s mouth, squeezing my thighs around his solid waist as I slipped a hand between us, groping the growing bulge at the front of his much more comfortable jeans. “And I’ll show you mine.”
Cooper swallowed audibly, glancing between my face and my hand. He gave a shy little nod, and that send a jolt of something that wasn’t quite lust up under my ribs. Aside from being hot, he wasadorable.
Adorable, kind, uncomplicated. I could have this, and it didn’t have to be a whole big deal. I wasn’t here forever. I was just waiting for the next thing.
In the meantime, there was big, shy, sweet Cooper who was looking at me like I was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen, and that felt good. It was the first thing that had feltgoodin a very long time.
I kissed him again as I flicked open the button of his jeans, fingers clumsy in my eagerness to get my hands on him. Cooper gasped against my mouth as his fly parted, letting out a shuddering breath that rippled through his whole body.
A smirk tugged at my lips. If that was how he reacted to thehintof someone touching him, I was about to rock his world.
He made a deliciously broken sound as I slipped my hand between his jeans and his underwear, cupping his length through the thin fabric. He felt as big as he should have been, in proportion with the rest of him, and another jolt of want hit me deep in my core. I would’ve liked to get a good look at him, but I didn’t want it enough to give up my current position.
“That for me?” I teased, pulling back to look him in the eyes. His pupils were blown, almost all the warm brown swallowed up by black, and he was looking at me wide-eyed. Eager.
Hewantedme. Fuck, he really,reallywanted me.
That felt good. Better than good.
I grinned at him. “Finders, keepers?”
He swallowed again, throat bobbing. God, he was gorgeous like this. Not that he wasn’t gorgeous in general, but right now I couldn’t imagine how anyone who’d ever had this would give it up.
