by Layne, Ivy
“Lasagna with garlic knots it is. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Try to stay out of trouble until then.”
The lock turned on the door and I thought, I can’t help staying out of trouble when you keep locking me in.
I was stir crazy by the time Cooper came back, his hands laden with bags of takeout fragrant with tomatoes and garlic. My mouth watered and I realized I was starving.
He came around to the couch where I’d been stretched out flipping through channels on the TV. Placing the takeout bags on the coffee table, he dropped a kiss on the top of my head and disappeared saying, “Can you unpack those? I’ll be right back.”
Had Cooper just kissed me on the top of the head? I was the one who’d been knocked out, but Cooper was acting like he’d had a personality transplant.
Maybe none of this was happening. Maybe I was unconscious in the hospital and this whole thing was just a coma delusion.
I unpacked the take-out containers, lining them up on the coffee table. Two orders of lasagna, garlic knots, and tiramisu. I grabbed a garlic knot and sank my teeth in the yeasty, buttery bread.
It had to be a coma delusion. That was the only thing that made sense. Otherwise, I couldn’t think of any reason I’d be sitting in Cooper’s apartment about to eat takeout with him. Nine years we’d worked together and I’d never been in his apartment, much less eaten dinner here. And Cooper had kissed me on the top of the head.
Coma delusion. Definitely.
He came back dressed in a T-shirt and cut-off sweats, dropping onto the couch beside me. Grabbing the remote and flicking on the TV, he asked, “This okay?”
I looked up to see a movie for rent, one we’d both talked about catching in the theaters and had missed.
“Sure.” I dug into my dinner. The pain pills had completely worn off and my appetite had come roaring back. Normally, a serving of lasagna from this place would hold me for two meals, but I tore through every bite and my share of the garlic knots, fighting Cooper for forkfuls of the tiramisu.
When I stabbed his hand with the tines of my fork, he gave me an accusing look.
I shrugged. “You should have ordered two. You know I love tiramisu.”
Stomach full, I leaned back into the couch to find Cooper’s arm behind me. It closed around me, tugging me into his side. My appetite appeased, headache down to a dull roar, my eyelids drooped. Before I knew it, I was tucked into Cooper, my head resting on his chest. Cooper smelled of the ocean, of clean air and salt, and I breathed him in, the thump of his heart strong under my ear.
A flash of prickling panic shot through me, my heart kicking into a rapid beat as I realized where I was falling asleep. Laying against Cooper, his arm around me, my head on his chest.
What the hell? How did I end up here?
Coma delusion, I reminded myself. None of this is real. I’m going to wake up in the hospital with a killer headache and Cooper will be his normal self. All business. Bossy and annoying. No kisses on the head. No bringing me dinner. Just Cooper.
That thought should have been comforting. It would have been, but I liked my coma delusion. I liked the strength of his arm around me, his ocean scent in my lungs. If I’d been at home alone, I wouldn’t be at peace, full and sleepy and safe. I would have been restless, remembering what had happened in Knox’s basement, the feel of pulling the trigger, the roar of the blast, and everything going dark.
Not here. Not curled into Cooper, his heart beating under my ear, his arm holding me close. Cooper wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Ever. On that thought, I fell asleep.
I woke to the flicker of the TV screen and the weightless sensation of swinging through the air. Cooper standing, lifting me in his arms, holding me close against his chest. Carrying me.
Carrying me?
My brain tangled in sleep, it fell back in time to the mad flight from Knox’s house as I’d flickered in and out of consciousness aware only of Cooper’s strong arms holding me close.
Reality slowly settled around me. There was no smoke here. Cooper wasn’t running, just crossing the apartment in his normal stride. My eyes flicked open. I was in Cooper’s apartment. I shouldn’t be here. Coma delusion or not, it was time to go home.
I squirmed in his arms. “Cooper, put me down. Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you to bed.”
No reason those words should send heat spiraling through my body. Cooper didn’t mean it like that. Of course, he didn’t. I pushed at his arm. “Cooper, put me down. I need to go home. I’m fine. I appreciate you taking care of me, bringing me dinner and everything, but my head is better. I’m not taking any pain pills. I need to go home.”
“Why?”
Dumbfounded, I lost my train of thought.
Why? What did he mean, why?
Slowly, I said, “Because I live there.”
Cooper ignored me and continued his path across the room.
“Cooper, seriously, put me down.”
I’d never really thought before about the difference in our sizes other than to note that Cooper was tall, really tall, and he wore it well. Now, I was acutely aware that my small, slight frame had no chance against Cooper. He held me immobile with barely any effort. I would have liked it if it hadn’t been so annoying.
Ignoring my insistence that I needed to go home, he said, “Your head doesn’t hurt?”
Seizing on that excuse, I insisted, “No, I swear. It’s much better. Barely hurts at all. I’m totally fine. Just let me down and I’ll go home. If I need anything, I’ll call. Promise.”
Cooper stood in the shadowy darkness of the kitchen, eyes locked on my face. Again, he said, “Your head doesn’t hurt? You feel okay?”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, uneasy at his odd behavior. He should be ready to be rid of me by now. Shouldn’t he?
Cooper turned, and instead of putting me down, he set me on the island, his arms still around me, my knees on either side of his hips. I looked up, confused. What was going through his head? I couldn’t keep up.
Cooper cupped my chin in his fingers, tilting my head up. An odd, intent light in his pale eyes, he said, “I’ve been waiting for so long. Too long. I almost missed my chance. I won’t make that mistake again.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to stop being weird. For just a second, looking up at him in the near dark, I didn’t recognize the man holding my face in his hands.
This was not the Cooper I knew.
This man wasn’t all business, cool and driven. This man had molten blue fire in his eyes, his hands strong and gentle, his focus entirely on me. This man woke my body, left me needing something. Needing him.
“Cooper,” I whispered, not sure what I planned to say next. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t have gotten the words out anyway.
His name on my lips, his eyes liquid flame, Cooper dropped his head and kissed me.
Yep. Definitely a coma delusion.
Chapter Four
Alice
I’d been kissed before. I’m thirty-three years old. I’d been married. Of course, I’d been kissed. A lot, if not in a while.
I’d never, ever been kissed like Cooper kissed me.
I handle Human Resources at Sinclair Security. I don’t hire and fire, but if you want to know about health benefits or how to handle harassment, I’m your girl. If an employee came to me and said her boss kissed her I would have told her to remove herself from the situation, to tell him firmly that such behavior is inappropriate and immediately submit a written report.
That’s what I would have said.
That was not what I did. Not at all.
At the touch of Cooper’s mouth to mine, any thought that this was a coma delusion evaporated. No delusion felt this real, this warm and alive. This hungry. This needy. This passionate.
His breath hitched at the touch of our
lips, igniting something in me that had smoldered for years. So many years.
Everything inside me ground to a halt at that touch, my very heart ceasing to beat for the longest moment—for an eternity—as the universe shifted on its axis.
I drew in a breath, and the world slammed back into place, shifting from a dead stop to high-speed in one lurching heartbeat.
I reached for Cooper, my fingers sinking into his hair, pulling his face to mine, kissing him, tasting him, driving my tongue into his mouth to stroke his.
Cooper.
Fucking hell, Cooper.
Who knew Cooper would taste so good? Would feel so right? He was too big, too distant, too much my boss. None of that mattered. He was right.
He pulled me against him, my breasts pressing to his chest, my throat vibrating with groans. His mouth fastened to mine, demanding and possessive.
I gave as good as I got, my hands wandering to yank at his T-shirt. I wanted his skin, the heat and strength of him. I wanted to touch, to taste.
I was barely aware of my arms flying over my head, cool air brushing my heated skin, the whisper of my camisole and hoodie hitting the kitchen island. Cooper’s T-shirt followed, every rasp of his chest hair against my nipples sparking tiny explosions of bliss.
There was so much of him. I pressed myself against his chest until I thought our skin would meld together, wanting to suffuse myself with him. His taste. The ocean scent of him.
His arm going tight around my back, Cooper lowered me to the cool granite counter, settling my head on a makeshift pillow of our discarded clothes.
He protected my still-tender head from the unforgiving granite countertop even in his haze of desperate lust.
Cooper.
I was aware of it only in the most distant of ways, most of my attention on his hands, tugging at the fabric at my hips, stripping me, leaving me naked and spread out before him like a pagan offering.
His eyes locked on my body splayed before him, he groaned my name. “Alice. Fuck, Alice. So fucking beautiful.”
I couldn’t make words form in my head, much less come out of my mouth. Cooper stood naked between my legs, all muscle and smooth, tanned skin. Cooper, his ice-blue eyes molten hot and fixed on me. Cooper.
Then he was on me, his mouth on my breast, drawing on my nipple, kneading and molding my other breast with his long fingers.
I wrapped my legs around him, drawing him closer, the length of his erection pressed against my core, already slick with desire. Desperate. So fucking desperate, I rolled my hips into him, and he shuddered in my arms.
Lifting his head from my breast, his words were barely more than a rumble in his chest. “Alice. I need you to say it. Do you want this? Do you want me?”
“Cooper.” That was all I could force out, his name a plea. He had to ask? He had to know how much I wanted him, had to feel my slick heat soaking his cock as it rubbed against me. I loved that he asked anyway. He rocked his hips into me before he spoke.
“Alice. I want to fuck you. To fill you with me. To mark you as mine. I need you to know that. I need you to tell me you want it too.”
I spoke the truth of my body, though my brain was speechless. “Yes. Yes, Cooper. Please.”
That was all he needed. His mouth took mine in a kiss of possession. Of triumph, of heat and need. His knuckles brushed the inside of my thigh as he moved his cock into position and thrust his hips forward.
At the stretch of his cock pushing inside me, I wrenched my lips from his, arching my back with a long deep moan. “Oh, God. Cooper. Cooper.”
He froze, his lips a whisper against my neck. “Too much?”
“So good. So good, Cooper. Please. Please, Cooper. More. Oh, God, Cooper.”
I couldn’t seem to shut my mouth, couldn’t stop babbling, everything in my brain and my body short-circuiting from the sheer bliss of his cock filling me up.
I’d been empty for so long. My whole life I’d been empty, and Cooper—his arms around me, his cock inside me—Cooper filled me up. Filled me to overflowing.
When I’d taken every inch of him, he circled his hips, grinding into my clit, splinters of pleasure slicing through my body, drawing another long, low groan from my lips.
His mouth at my ear, he rocked into me, murmuring nothing and everything. “Fuck, Alice, Alice, Alice. So good, Alice. I can’t— I need you to come for me.”
His mouth on mine, his hand slipped beneath me, tilting my hips, grinding into me as his tongue danced with mine. It was too much. It was everything.
I exploded, screaming into his kiss, my brain whiting out as his hips jerked against mine and he joined me in a release we’d been waiting for forever.
I came back to myself at that now-familiar sensation of floating, of swinging through the air. Cooper carrying me. Again. And this time, different.
This time, instead of cradling me against him, my legs were wrapped around his waist. This time I had no thought of protest, no desire to walk by myself. I draped myself over him, my arms loose around his neck, my sweaty cheek glued to his shoulder. His cock was still half-hard inside of me, each step sending bolts of pleasure through my body.
Cooper carried me straight into his oversized, glassed-in shower, turning on the water, letting it wash away the sweat and the aftermath of sex. I tried to think, to say something. Anything.
No condom. That thought managed to slice through the cloud of lust and satisfaction in my brain. I had an IUD, got tested for everything after I’d left my husband, and hadn’t slept with anyone since then.
I knew the guys all got regular physicals. I was the one who scheduled them and paid the bills. And I knew Cooper. He’d remembered to protect my head from the hard counter even as he’d been tearing off my clothes. He never would have skipped a condom if it would put me at risk.
Hell, he probably had my medical records, the sneaky bastard. Probably knew I was protected from pregnancy and safe to fuck bare. I didn’t care except to be glad we didn’t need to worry about condoms. Now that I’d felt him skin to skin, nothing else would do.
A small part of me tried to speak up. But what about—?
What about nothing.
Sensible Alice could shut the hell up.
This felt too good for sensible Alice to get in the way.
Cooper’s hands moved over me, his mouth at my neck, warm water raining over us. He still hadn’t put me down. He lifted me off his cock, his hand moving between my legs, letting the water wash us clean, before he sat on the deep bench in the corner, still holding me in his arms.
Water streaming over us, he kissed me in endless, drugging kisses, his strong hands moving over my body until he lifted me, bringing me down onto his hard cock. My head spun as he dipped me back over his arm and feasted on my breasts, my hips rocking, orgasm washing through my body once, then again.
I was barely aware of him setting me on my feet, cleaning me, and turning off the water. We slid beneath the sheets of his bed and I passed out, my still-damp body draped over Cooper’s, my mouth pressed to the pulse in his throat, his heartbeat lulling me to sleep.
Sometime later, my eyes opened in the dark, the glow of the moon barely penetrating the curtains.
Reality slammed into me like a freight train.
This was no coma delusion.
The soreness between my legs, the dull throb in my head, and Cooper’s long body splayed beside mine were all too real.
What was I supposed to do now?
Did I stay?
Was this a thing now? Was I having sex with Cooper?
My body gave an involuntary shudder as those words formed in my head.
Sex with Cooper.
It sounded so dry and clinical. The act itself had been anything but. It had been hot and messy. Overwhelming and so fucking good.
In my most heated imaginings,
I’d never dreamed of sex like that. But what was I supposed to do now? Roll over and go back to sleep? Sneak out and pretend nothing happened?
Lying there staring at the ceiling, option two seemed like the most sensible choice.
Okay, then. Sneak out and pretend nothing happened.
I rolled to my side, inching toward the edge of the bed, when a hard arm came down, dragging me back. Back to Cooper. He rolled me, coming down on top of me, lacing his fingers with mine and holding them over my head, pinning me in place.
“Going somewhere?” he asked easily, a hot spark in his icy blue eyes.
Having no reasonable answer to that question, I wisely kept my mouth shut. Dropping his lips to graze my chin, he said, “I didn’t think so.”
Positioning my upturned palms carefully beneath my head, raising it so I wouldn’t press the still tender lump into the pillows, he growled, “Don’t move your hands.”
Breathless, all I could manage was a whispered, “K.”
He moved down my body, his mouth wet and hot against my fevered skin, nipping my breast, licking the line of my ribs, dipping into my belly button before planting a palm on each thigh and pushing my legs apart, baring me to his mouth.
I sucked in a gasp. Cooper worked his mouth over me, tasting every inch of my pussy, diving his tongue inside and filling me with his fingers while he sucked on my clit. My hips bucking beneath him, my mouth moved, babbling an endless refrain of lust-inspired nonsense that consisted mostly of please, God, Cooper, and formless, desperate groans.
I came twice before he rose over me, my knees automatically clamping to his sides, lifting for him as he filled me with that glorious cock, fucking into my oversensitive pussy until I screamed his name.
After, my legs no better than jelly, I passed out on top of him, our bodies sticky with sweat and sex. Neither of us cared. I’d think tomorrow. Tonight I wasn’t going anywhere.
My eyes opened to sunshine and the tempting scent of bacon and fresh-squeezed orange juice. I rolled over, letting out a startled squeak at the sight of Cooper standing beside the bed wearing nothing but his cut-off sweatpants, that gorgeous body in full view.
