24 24 “I’m not sure if waking up to you all crazy-eyed and smiling at the ceiling is a good thing or not. You look a little bit nuts.” Cooper’s sleepy eyes warily assess mine. “You OK?”
I nod and continue gawking at nothing with a goofy smile on my face. Spending this past week at Cooper’s place while he nurses his ACL injury has been a different—but not entirely unpleasant—experience. One of the upsides? Instead of sneaking out of the sheets for a workout before I wake, he stays put. Today, on my last day in town, I end up grinning at the ceiling as soon as my eyes drift open, savoring the feel of his big arm and bum leg draped across my body.
One of Cooper’s hands sneaks up under my sleep shirt, coming to rest against my belly. “It sucks that you’re leaving today. I had a plan for us and we didn’t get to do any of it.”
“You had a plan? Just one? Seems odd.”
Cooper’s hands are big enough that he can easily pinch the flesh on the underside of my breast as a reprimand. Hard enough that I let out a little squeal, but not so much that my nipples don’t also somehow appreciate his brand of punishment.
“You’re hilarious.” His fingertips skim the spot he just pinched, soothing the sting into another kind of ache. “I just had a bunch of ideas in my head about how it was going to be while you were here. The first time you came to visit, it was new; we didn’t know what this was. This time we could have done a bunch of boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. Instead, I ended up dragging you to my orthopedic consults. Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
By tagging along on Cooper’s appointments, I learned that (a) Friday Night Lights isn’t too far off base with their story lines, and (b) the inside of the human knee is a terribly complex world, far more than I would have guessed.
Cooper’s previous MCL injury, along with the hamstring strain he’s been nursing for weeks, merely set the stage for this new tear. Add in what he already asks of his body as a receiver—years of taking off downfield like a cannon-fired shot, launching sideways to elude tackles, and landing on unforgiving AstroTurf under the crushing weight of a linebacker—means those knees of his are taking the brunt. Even I could plainly see the brutal evidence of those demands on the MRIs the doctor showed us. Cooper is essentially a thirty-two-year-old guy with the knees of a decrepit, osteoarthritis-ridden senior citizen.
Given all of that, he has big decisions to make. Surgery will mean he’s out next season. If he takes a wait-and-see approach, focusing on rehab, it may not work. Which means he’ll still need surgery, and the delay could leave him sidelined for yet another season. Two seasons in football are like dog years. He’ll be thirty-four, which is elderly by football standards.
Cooper curls his body closer to mine, moving his leg so he can trace his hand lower on my belly.
“Do you want to know what my plan was?” A kiss lands on my neck. “All the ways I intended to make this trip worth your while?”
I grin at the ceiling again. “Sure. Lay it on me.”
Cooper traces his lips against my jaw, then dips his face, kissing along my clavicle.
“First, you would have gotten here in time for me to see you before the game. Early enough for me to have you before I had to get to the stadium. At least once, just to take the edge off. That way I’d know you were in the stands, properly fucked and satisfied, while I took the field loose and ready. We would have won the game—”
“You did win,” I interject.
He sighs and drops his head to rest on my chest. I slip my fingers into his hair, stroking my nails gently against his scalp.
“I know, but I wanted you to see me at my best, not limping out on crutches.”
“I saw you mountain-goat-slash-Spider-Man your way into the end zone. All those women in the suite thought I was certifiable, the way I was cheering. Me and my foam finger.”
He lifts his head and looks me in the eye. “Yeah? You were cheering for me?”
I nod. He bites his lip for a second before letting a full smile take over. Jesus. That smile, the one that’s sometimes so hard to drag out of him, it could be the end of me someday.
“That helps. Knowing you saw me kick some tail before this happened.” His eyes track downward. Just a quick glance at his knee, then his eyes are back on mine. “After the game, I would have taken you out to dinner, somewhere nice. I wanted to show you off a little bit. You would have worn a dress, but something different from what you usually wear.”
“You don’t like how I dress?”
My eyes drift closed, waiting for his answer, knowing full well that I’m not exactly a walking advertisement for female fashion, while also hoping this isn’t the moment he chooses to reveal how much he wishes I would wear ensembles with more sequins and rhinestones. Or shoes that don’t require such sturdy laces. Like, I don’t know, stilettos. Maybe he prefers his women to sport crop tops on the regular, the kind with animal patterns or fringe. If so, we’re doomed.
“I didn’t say that. I think you look great in everything.” Cooper unbuttons my pj top, pushes the fabric aside, and gives each of my nipples a flick with the tip of his tongue. “Or nothing. But as this was my plan, it involved you wearing a hot dress that shows off your body. Especially these.”
He takes a breast in each hand and presses them together so he can suckle the flesh of both in equal measure without leaving one unattended for too long. When he releases his hold, I realize I’ve been arching my back again—trying to get closer, the way it seems my body always does, consciously or not. I understand then how hard it will be to go home this time. What started out a few months ago as a pleasant distraction from my real life has become something more. A life that, while being just weeks out from losing my orchard, is somehow also richer than any version I’ve tried to create before. Because it includes Cooper. The wildly driven, passionate, intense man who is currently kissing his way down my body.
“I’d bring you home and that dress would mean we’d barely make it through the door before I had it shoved up around your waist. A few glasses of wine at dinner would have you climbing me like a tree, going at it like we’d never get to again. I’d give you all of that, and more, right back. Whatever you wanted, however you needed it.”
My panties have disappeared, along with his boxers. No clue when that happened. Perhaps I actually tapped out for a moment, due to some sort of lusty fainting spell. Regardless, I’m bare and Cooper’s rigid length is nestled against my leg, the smooth head rubbing along my outer thigh. I snake a hand between my legs, knowing what I’ll find, just to see. The space there is slick, even more so than I expected. Cooper latches his hand on to mine, splaying his larger grip over my fingers to guide my movements.
“Feel good, babe?” I murmur enough of a sound to tell him it does. “Yeah? Prove it.”
It’s a challenge and a directive, so entirely heated that my body only turns even more eager. I draw my hand away and use those same slippery fingers to grasp Cooper’s cock, circling the head, slowly. Every slip of my hand mingles my arousal with his, that bead of wetness leaking from the tip. He grunts, low and long, pumping his shaft through my grip. Once, twice, three times. Then he rolls away, coming to rest on his back.
“The only not-shitty thing about my knee being screwed up is that I love having you on top. Crawl on up here.”
I scramble to my knees and throw one leg over him. Despite his ACL tear being the ever-present elephant in the room, the swelling has gone down considerably. Still, I force myself to pause, ensuring his knee is in as safe a position as possible, because I’m not feeling particularly prone to restraint at the moment. Instead, it feels like I’m a few filthy words and firm strokes away from coming unchained, and this position means Cooper will end up taking the brunt of that release.
Grasping his length again, I rub my core across the underside and lower my body until he’s pressed to his abs, with me working over his length like we’re a pair of teenagers who’ve decided to do everything but. Watching my hips move over him, the slick trail I leave behind, combined with the pressure in every spot I want it, is nearly enough. Every hitch of his breath, each groan and curse Cooper gives up, only drives the edge closer.
I slow my pace, one pass to tease us both. Cooper’s eyes fix on the space where our bodies meet. He croaks out an encouragement, a validation, quiet enough to be nothing but a manly whisper.
“Keep doing that, Whit. So fucking hot.”
I lean forward and kiss him. “Any more of these boyfriend-girlfriend plans you wanted to share with me? Was there a hot air balloon involved? A carriage ride?”
Cooper juts his hips up, one sharp push of his body to mine, a reminder that I may have him groaning and nearly panting underneath me, but he remains just as powerful as ever.
“Nothing that cheesy. I did want to take you to the Botanic Gardens, because it’s supposed to be romantic. But mostly my plan was pretty much what we’re doing right now. Waking up next to you, loving up on you, just like we did this morning.”
I pause my movements and focus on his face, remembering exactly how it was when we woke up.
“Would you have your leg and arm draped over me? The way you sometimes do?”
He tilts his head. “Do you like that?”
I nod, and it becomes my turn to croak out a whispered response. “It’s my favorite way to wake up.”
Cooper’s hands draw down my back. Fingertips tracing either side of my spine, affection embedded in every inch that he covers. A sweet, sexy, entirely contented half-grin plays across his mouth.
“If it’s your favorite, then that’s how it would be. We’d wake up, my body covering yours, keeping you tucked in and safe, right next to me. We’d both know how right this is. How good we are together.”
My eyes track over his expression, looking for anything that might convey he’s reading from an invisible script of things he thinks he should say, giving me words that are less about his real feelings and more about reassuring mine.
He slips one hand up into my hair, then draws it down to rest at my neck, giving a little tug there just as he presses his hips up to meet my core. The pointed contact, flush and firm and spot-on perfect, drives a moan from my throat.
“So good together,” Cooper whispers, “that you’d let me inside you without anything between us. We’d both know that no matter what happens, it’s safe. That this is real.”
Our eyes meet and in his gaze there’s nothing but unguarded honesty. And because he’s just painted the picture of a future between us I can imagine so readily it’s disarming, I kiss him.
The kiss turns fevered with one nip of my teeth to his bottom lip, his hands gripping my hips so hard I can feel the dig of his nails into my skin. We keep going, until my body is grinding atop his, and we’re both so ready it’s painful. A grunt from him combines with his hands forcing my hips to stay put. His right arm extends toward the nightstand.
I know what would come next. And whether it’s because I’m feeling too wild to think rationally or because I’m too caught up in imagining the future, either way, I drop my hand over his forearm to stop him.
“What you just said . . . about this being real? Was that true?”
Cooper moves so he can clasp his hand in mine, threading our fingers together, then does the same with our other hands. He takes a labored swallow.
“Absolutely.” He releases our intertwined fingers and brings his hands to either side of my neck, pausing briefly before sliding them down the front of my body, engrossed by the path his hands take, wetting his lips as he does. His hands come to rest atop my belly. “Are you on the pill?”
“No.”
The word emerges so softly, it’s almost inaudible. Maybe I don’t want him to hear. Maybe I hate the possibility that one of us will actually regain some sense here.
“You still want to do this? Because I do. But I don’t want to pull out, either.”
No hesitation, not even a slight falter in his voice. Cooper shifts my body back, leaving enough room to take himself in hand while I consider his question, weigh the risks, and do my best to think reasonably. He works the head for a bit, his big hand slipping over the crown in a steady rhythm, and somehow, he’s an unexpected picture of patience. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
“If you aren’t sure, Whit, that’s OK. Grab a condom and I’ll slide it on.”
Then Cooper squeezes the head of his cock, and suddenly I want him so much it hurts. He releases that death grip and exhales, replaces it with a lazier stroke. When he uses his other hand to move between my legs, we both give up tortured groans and I’m over him a split second later. The head slips in so easily that I pause, fighting the urge to ride him hard and fierce, simply because there won’t be another moment like this. Even if we last a lifetime together, this happens only once.
His previous demonstration of patience has evidently combusted, because he yanks down on my hips.
“Come on, don’t fuck around. Take all of it.”
Another tug and I yield, taking all of him. We’re both breathing heavily, but I keep my hips still. He jerks my hips forward. I growl.
A low, amused chuckle from him. “That’s my sound. If you’re frustrated, there’s an easy fix for that. Just use my cock the way you want to. You fucking own it anyway.”
Powerful heat swims through me. How I got here, with this man beneath me, proclaiming that I own parts of his beautiful body, I could never explain. Had I never been in the position to lose my orchard, I wouldn’t have met him. Had he not needed a place to escape his own drama, he wouldn’t have made it to my doorstep. And yet, here we are. Fate and fear brought us together, but what we built atop those things is more.
I give in then. Cooper pulls me closer, doesn’t let my body stray from his, our chests sliding over each other and our mouths doing the same. Too much foreplay turned us to tinder, so every graze of our skin is like a flint steel. Even when I try to temper the pace, Cooper won’t allow it, tugging on my hair each time I try to slow and wrapping it tightly in his fist.
“Don’t. Ride me hard. Do not stop.”
Another sharp tug becomes all I need. I’ve never come so hard in my life, deep and intense, singing through to places I can’t even name. Cooper curses, tightening his hand in my hair. Only when he comes does he finally release my hair, and his arm drops to the bed. My body hurts, oddly but deliciously, under the release of all that tension, the swell that comes with allowing yourself to give up the armor and make room for your every vulnerability.
Cooper remains still for a long while, eyes closed and breathing unsteadily. When he finally opens his eyes, I’m there.
Waiting and watching.
He’s perfection in that moment. The rock-solid reality of a truly good man—with a very dirty mouth. I couldn’t ask for more.
Life-changingly great sex is hell on a gal’s motivation. I intended to leave Cooper’s place by mid-morning, but all the postcoital snuggling derailed those plans. For hours. Then Cooper offered to make pancakes.
It would take a much stronger woman than I to turn down that offer.
Which is why a plateful of multigrain pancakes, nutty and hearty, cooked in copious amounts of butter, currently appears before me at the breakfast bar where I’ve been perched while Cooper does his thing. The fact that he’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of low-slung pajama bottoms, only adds to the scene. He slides more butter and a small bottle of maple syrup my way, giving me a chin nudge before turning away to dish up his own plate.
“Go on, eat up.”
I unscrew the cap off the maple syrup. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Cooper sets his plate next to mine but doesn’t sit down. Instead, he strides toward the bedroom. “Be right back.”
Around a mouthful of pancakes, I holler in his retreating direction.
“You’d better not be going to get a shirt! I was hoping you might accidentally drip syrup on your chest while you eat!”
He reappears a short minute later with his knee brace on. And wearing a shirt. Which both I and my filthy sensibilities find utterly offensive.
He places a large silver gift bag on the countertop. I pause mid-chew and give the fancy-looking bag a side-glance. Cooper takes his seat and proceeds to douse his pancakes in far more syrup than I expected he would allow himself. He gestures toward the bag with the syrup bottle, before setting it aside.
“Merry Christmas.”
“What? What is this?” I use my fork to tap the bag.
He shrugs. “I won’t see you at Christmas. That’s for you.”
Later this week, Cooper will take a hurried two-day trip home to Texas over Christmas. He extended an invitation for me to come with him, but I declined, claiming there were some orchard-oriented tasks that needed my immediate attention.
There were, I suppose. I’d heard about a community bank in Rifle that was actively investing in ag-oriented start-ups and I submitted a loan application online last week. I was holding on to whatever hope I could, willing this to be my last-ditch way out and crossing my fingers for a phone call from their office. I also wanted to call the Boulder slow money venture at least, oh, fifty-seven more times between Christmas and New Year’s, to be sure they hadn’t approved my application and sent the approval via the similarly slow postal service.
In truth, I was also petrified about meeting Cooper’s family, of trying to fit in, and the possibility of losing my hearing if I was subjected to their bellowing without the cushion of a few states between us. But knowing I currently have a huge problem boiling away makes it easier to prioritize all the things that scare me to death.
I place my fork on the edge of my plate and give the bag a curious peek.
“Don’t you want to open it?”
I’m not sure. The scales seem utterly imbalanced at the moment, with me staring down this innocuous bag and wondering why it didn’t occur to me to bring him a thoughtful gift of some sort. Even if I didn’t have the cash to buy anything, I could have made something. A macaroni necklace or a finger painting. Maybe one of those “gift certificates,” the kind that entitles the recipient to a service only the gift provider can offer. Good for one free hand wash on your beast of a truck. Good for one free hand massage. Good for one free session of me using my hands in a way of your choosing.
I tug the bag a little closer. “I just didn’t know we were exchanging gifts. I didn’t bring anything for you.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“But it feels a little weird. You got me this and I haven’t given you anything. Makes me feel—”
Cooper sets his fork down and raises his hand lazily.
“Whitney, what’s in that bag doesn’t begin to compare with what you’ve given me. You, just being here, helping me work through all this shit with my knee, that’s huge. Can’t put that in a bag, babe. It’s so much bigger than that.”
He takes up his fork. “So, do me a favor and open your fucking present.”
A snorting laugh escapes me, followed by a sigh, as I pull the bag into my lap and yank away the tissue paper obscuring the contents. Underneath the paper, I find clothing, in a gray fabric emblazoned with . . . squirrels.
Squirrels.
I pull them out and determine they’re pajamas, a thermal-style top with bottoms to match. Once I have them in my hand, the fabric grazes my fingertips and a sudden urge to rub my face against the impossibly soft, supple material comes over me. So, I do what any classy woman would. I bury my potentially maple syrup–sticky face deeply into the softness and squirrels.
“Oh my God,” I mumble through the press of the cloth.
Cooper laughs. “They’re made of a cashmere blend. I thought they might keep you warmer at night than your old-man pj’s. If I’m not there in bed with you, I don’t want you getting cold.”
I manage to extract my face from the pillowy softness and widen my eyes in his direction.
“Thank you. I’m sure I don’t want to know what these cost or how many sweatshop workers were involved in their production, but I love them. And they have squirrels on them.”
“I figured you would appreciate the squirrels. I’m glad you like them.” Before I can kiss him as a thank-you, he dips his head and focuses on his plate. “Speaking of being in bed with you, I wanted to talk about my off-season.”
“Talk away. I’ll just continue to fondle this unicorn-tear-and-leprechaun-giggle anointed fabric while you talk.” I give him a grin when he turns in my direction. He visibly relaxes, shoulders loosening as he sits up straighter.
“We only have one more game, no hope for a postseason at this point. After that I’ve got a few things to deal with, but then I’ll be officially off duty.” His fork scrapes across the plate as he takes a deep breath. “I’d like to come down after that and spend the winter with you. In Hotchkiss.”
My body reacts as soon as I process what he’s saying, turning tense under a rush of anxiety. Cooper notes the change in my posture and turns his entire body so he’s facing me, head-on.
“I’m not trying to hijack your life or anything, and I can help you while I’m there. I want to be productive. I need to have something to focus on, otherwise I’ll lose my mind dwelling on the decision about retirement. I’m a quick study, Whit. Teach me all about your orchard and, I swear, I’ll make myself useful.”
Oh, my sweet, impossible, currently ignorant Cooper.
This is his freaking elevator pitch. Crafted to convince me how helpful he could be. Now would be the time to come clean. My jaw drops open, preparing to relay my sad story, but before I can get one word out, Cooper looks away. He’s embarrassed and uncomfortable, seemingly convinced that I don’t see his value.
But the truth is just the opposite. When I confess to the exact state of my affairs, I’ll be the one who’s embarrassed and uncomfortable. Because it would hurt too much to see one tiny flicker of recognition in Cooper’s expression that says he sees me as a failure. I would lose the backstop for my heart, the one he’d now become.
I can’t risk it. I want to see him look at me as he did this morning, always—or, for at least as long as I can. The exact way he did when he said what we had was real.
I do the only thing I can. Sweep reality under the rug, just for now, until I have no other choice but to own up.
“Better bring your work gloves. Wouldn’t want to damage those sixty-million-dollar hands of yours.”