The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk)

by Samantha Young

  And my whole world shattered.

  The creak came from the rope tied to a pipe that ran along the ceiling of the basement. My sister’s body swung from it, making it creak with movement.

  I stared at the rope around her neck, at the blue around her lips.

  And I screamed.

  I screamed and screamed until my voice couldn’t scream anymore and all I heard was the screaming in my head.

  “Jessica.”

  I flinched at the voice.

  No.

  NO.

  NO, NO, NO!

  I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling his breath on my ear.

  “Now she’s mine for good,” he whispered.

  My eyes flew open.

  I stared up at the ceiling of the room I was in, the distant sound of the surf aiding me in remembering where I was, that I was safe.

  That years had passed.

  Tears stung my eyes as I sat up. I was covered in sweat, shaking with adrenaline from the part memory, part nightmare.

  Part memory, part nightmare. “It was all a nightmare,” I whispered.

  Picking up my phone on the bedside table, I lit it up: 4:44 a.m. And the date . . . the anniversary of Julia’s death.

  Like clockwork. My nightmares were like clockwork.

  My sister committed suicide a number of weeks after the performance that ruined her chances of getting into the School of American Ballet.

  I was home from college and I found her in my parents’ basement.

  Every year since, on the anniversary of her death, I had the same nightmare.

  And usually for a week or so after, I’d have that nightmare every night.

  I thought of Cooper.

  If I spent the day ahead with him, he’d know something was wrong. Thankfully, I was working all day. I could convince him I was tired and that we could see each other the next day.

  Having never slept in the same bed as anyone before Cooper, I didn’t know if I made noises during the bad dreams. I should avoid Cooper completely until it passed.

  Yet, to my surprise, I didn’t want to.

  I wanted to go to bed with him beside me, feeling safe.

  Maybe with him beside me the nightmares would disappear.

  I was willing to chance it, hoping that his presence would chase away my sister’s ghost.

  “You know I love you the best, right?” I heard her say. I heard her say it all the time.

  “I love you the best, too,” I whispered into the dark of my room.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Cooper

  Her whimpers seeped into his subconscious first, slowly waking him like they had for the past four nights she’d spent in his bed.

  Just as Cooper was opening his eyes he felt the bed shake with her legs thrashing.

  “No,” she moaned, the pain in that one word piercing his chest.

  He sat up and quickly turned on the lamp on his bedside table. The room was illuminated and so was Jess. Her body was covered in a light sheen of sweat and her face was contorted in agony as she whimpered and moaned her anguished noes.

  “Jess.” He curled over her, his hands tight on her biceps as he spoke into her ear. “Jess, wake up.”

  When she didn’t immediately, Cooper shook her a little, and her eyes suddenly popped open. They were rimmed with red, like she hadn’t slept at all.

  This was getting out of hand.

  “Coop,” she murmured, her chest rising and falling fast like she’d been running.

  He pushed her sweat-soaked hair off her face. “Another one.”

  Jess didn’t spend every night in his bed. The times she worked the evening shift at the inn she usually spent the night there. Sometimes he’d go to her; sometimes he didn’t. Most times she came to him, though. And for the past four times that she’d spent the night with him in the last week she’d had nightmares.

  Nightmares she wouldn’t talk about.

  Well, Cooper was done not talking about it. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  To his disappointment and frustration Jess pulled away and sat up, running shaking hands through her hair. “Nothing is going on.”

  He tried not to let that burn.

  But fuck, it burned.

  The only spare time he hadn’t spent with Jess since she’d moved to Hartwell permanently was when she insisted on him having his alone time with his nephew. The kid had been despondent since his audition for the fancy tutor in Dover hadn’t gone so well. To all their surprise Joey had gotten a severe case of stage fright and mucked up his piece. The tutor had been kind, told Cat that he saw great potential, but said that Joey needed to be exposed to more public performances to build his confidence. They were to bring him back to the guy in a year.

  But kids were kids and they were impatient. Joey was crushed.

  Joey needed him—Jess saw that and was happy to step aside even though things between them were intense and it was hard not to want to spend every moment with each other.

  It just reinforced everything Cooper already knew: Jessica Huntington was the opposite of his selfish ex-wife in every way. She was kind, considerate, and generous.

  And he’d never felt this way about anyone before.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her, he wanted to touch her all the time, and he just felt . . . full of her.

  The problem was that the independence and self-reliance that he’d so admired in her was now the thing that was keeping her from him. He’d thought when they first started seeing each other that not having to be responsible for her would be refreshing. Now Cooper realized he was just that guy. Caretaker guy. He didn’t want her to give up who she was, but he wanted her to let him at least look after her a little. To let him in so he could help with whatever the fuck it was that was bothering her.

  But she wouldn’t let him.

  And that shit stung.

  He tried to rein in his annoyance. “It’s not nothing, Jessica. I make that the fourth nightmare in a week. And that’s only when you’re with me.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, her expression completely closed off. Her voice was flat when she said, “I told you I’d stay at the inn tonight, that I didn’t want to bother you.”

  His annoyance hit full-on anger. “It isn’t about fucking bothering me. It’s about what’s bothering you.” People didn’t have these kinds of continued nightmares over nothing. He already knew there was something in Jess’s past that she was hiding, but now he was really starting to worry about it. She’d refused to be emotionally involved with a guy before him; she’d had nothing to hold on to back in Wilmington; her empty life . . . her secret past . . . that was starting to bother him. He feared there was something big she wasn’t telling him.

  “Nothing is bothering me,” she said in that same flat tone.

  “You’re lying.”

  She sighed and looked away. He saw the muscle in her jaw flex. “Fine. It’s something.” She stared back at him, her eyes hard. Anytime he probed about her past she got cold and hard and he didn’t like it, not one bit. “Not something I want to share with anyone.”

  “Fuck’s sake, Jess.” He threw off the covers and got out of bed. “I’m not just anyone.” He reached for his underwear and sweats. He needed space. He needed to run.

  “Coop.” He heard the desperation in her voice, felt her hand curl around his wrist to stop him. She looked up at him then with big, sad, tired eyes. “I . . . It’s just about my sister, okay?”

  At the confession, relief began to move through him. “What about your sister?”

  She tugged on his wrist and he lowered down onto the bed beside her. Jess immediately melted against him, pressing her cheek to his bare chest.

  Just like that, all his anger drained from him when he felt how badly she was trembling. Cooper held her close, b
rushing a thumb over the silky skin of her upper arm. “What about your sister?” he repeated.

  “I . . . I get these bad dreams around the anniversary of her death. But I don’t want to talk about them.”

  “Come on, Jess, you’re a doctor. Surely you know talking about it might help with the nightmares.”

  She shook her head against him, her hair tickling his chest. “I don’t want you to think I’m shutting you out. I don’t talk about this with anyone.” She pulled back to look at his face, her expression pleading. “Please . . . the nightmares will go away. Trust me.”

  Disappointment flooded him. And he couldn’t hide it. The problem wasn’t him trusting her. If she couldn’t trust him, they had big problems. He let her go, brushing off her touch as she tried to pull him back. “I’m going for a run.”

  “Cooper,” she pleaded.

  It took everything within him not to look back at her.

  Jessica

  Overwhelming panic.

  That was what I felt as I watched Cooper walk out of his bedroom.

  I didn’t want to lose him over this, over my secrets, but I felt him slipping away every day I held things back from him.

  If he knew the truth . . . I could lose him anyway.

  The past seven weeks I’d spent getting to know this man had been the best of my life. And the last month of getting to be the woman who curled up in his arms at night had been absolute heaven.

  I was way past falling.

  I’d fallen.

  Hard.

  The idea of losing him was crippling.

  “No.” I threw back the covers and snagged one of his T-shirts off his bedroom chair. Hurriedly pulling it on over my head, I dashed out of the room.

  “Cooper!” I stormed down the stairs, catching him as he was halfway out the door.

  He looked back at me, his expression cold. “Go back to bed.”

  “No.” As soon as I reached him I took hold of his arm and pulled him inside with one hand as I tried to shut the door with the other. “Please.”

  To my relief he came back inside and closed the door, but he was rigid under my touch.

  Desperate to soothe him, to melt his resistance to my affections, I slid my arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his mouth. He stayed rock solid, unyielding, no matter how many kisses I laced along his jaw, or how my fingers tightened in his hair the way I knew he liked.

  “Cooper,” I murmured against his mouth. I felt an ugly knot in my stomach at his cold distance. “Don’t.”

  “Why not?” he said, his voice gruff. “This is what you do to me.”

  Pain shot across my chest. I pulled away, horrified. “No.” I shook my head.

  “Yeah.” He nodded, his expression like granite. “Anytime I try to even mention your family or your past you lock up and lock me out. You think telling me that you don’t talk to anyone about this is supposed to make me feel better? I’m not supposed to be just anyone to you. Not when you are what you are to me.”

  I felt the panic tighten my chest. “Why?” I said, my breathing coming fast and shallow. “Why do you need to know about that stuff? Why can’t you just have this?” I gestured to myself. “This. Right now. You . . .” I pressed his hand to my chest, over my heart. “You have more of me than any man has ever had. Please just want me. Just me. The me you have right now.”

  Cooper didn’t move, but I saw the spark of heat in his eyes.

  That was enough.

  It could be enough.

  I took advantage of that heat and stepped back into him, pressing my body flush against his. I brushed a kiss against his throat, inhaling the musky, earthy scent of him. “Cooper,” I whispered.

  He cupped my breast, his thumb dragging over my nipple.

  “Yes.” I kissed his throat again as I trailed my fingertips up his arms. “Coop—”

  He crushed his mouth over mine, swallowing my moan of relieved need. I could taste and feel the anger and lust in him as he gripped the back of my neck with one hand and turned and pushed me against the door with the other.

  Despite the volatility I felt in him, I held on for more, because it was emotion and I needed him to feel for me. I didn’t ever want him to look at me the way he looked at his ex—like I was nothing to him after once being so much. My fingers dug into his back, as he tugged my thigh up so he could press deeper between my legs. My lips parted on a whimper of lust and desperation. Cooper growled. The sound caused a ripple of arousal in my lower belly and I rubbed against him for more.

  His kisses grew more demanding, turning into desperate, hungry kisses that were almost punishing. “What you do . . .” he said against my mouth, his fingers biting into my waist.

  When I whispered his name again, something dark and fierce flickered in his gaze. A mere second later he’d pulled his T-shirt off of me, his hands running all over my body. “Is this enough?” he said, his voice thick as he began maneuvering me from the bottom of the staircase into the dining room. “If this is to be it, I want it all.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant until I found myself bent over the dining table, my breasts crushed to the cool wood. I gasped at the suddenness of it, and then at my vulnerability when he spread my legs apart by pushing his feet against mine.

  He bent over me, his chest to my back, and his fingers caressed my inner thigh on a path toward my sex.

  I elicited another strangled gasp when he pushed two thick fingers inside of me.

  “Soaked,” he grunted in my ear, satisfied. “At least I have that from you.”

  He pulled up off of me, his fingers sliding out of me. His cock was suddenly hot and throbbing against my core, and his hands were gripping my hips.

  He slammed into me.

  The impact stunned me for a second, only to be replaced with the rush of pleasure as he dragged his cock out of me and then thrust back into me.

  My upper body slid back and forth on the table, my nipples catching against the lacquered wood as Cooper slid in and out in fast, deep drives. The sensations mingled together until I was immersed in lust, immersed in one thing—him fucking me.

  There was no other word for it.

  It was rough and hard.

  Not like our first time together.

  That had been an explosion from pent-up sexual frustration.

  This was frustration.

  This was Cooper’s frustration.

  His disappointment.

  His hurt.

  His need to have at least something no one else had from me.

  I felt claimed.

  I felt needed.

  And it exhilarated me.

  I cried out his name, begging for more, and his grip on my hips turned bruising.

  The delicious pressure built and built inside of me until with one more deep thrust it could no longer be contained. My orgasm exploded through my whole body in floods of hot light, and my inner muscles squeezed around Cooper’s dick.

  “Jessica,” he gasped, his hips stilling for a second before I felt his release as he came inside me, his hips jerking against my ass in tight shudders.

  My brain was still playing catch-up with what had happened and as the desire faded out enough for reality to seep in, despite my languid muscles, I shivered against the table.

  Cooper covered my back, his hands moving up my hips to my waist in soothing caresses. “Jess,” he said softly against my ear. “Fuck, Jess.”

  I pushed up against him and he pulled back and out of me. With what little energy I had left I pushed up off the table and turned to him. Cooper immediately settled between my legs, his hands squeezing my ass as he lifted me up so I could wrap my legs around him. I circled his shoulders with my arms and held on as we stared at one another.

  Cooper looked as shell-shocked as I felt.

  “Don’t leave
me,” I said, my words barely above a whisper. “I just found you.”

  He closed his eyes, like my words hurt him, and then he buried his face in my neck and held on tight.

  We stayed like that for what seemed like forever before finally he kissed me softly, sweetly . . . reassuringly.

  And then he carried me back to bed.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jessica

  “So I suggested he move into Ocean View, the room I had while I was on vacation, and he had the audacity to complain about that room, too,” I huffed, still not over meeting the most particular son of a bitch I had ever had the misfortune of meeting. “I’m telling you, I don’t know how Bailey does it. She was so cool and calm, and actually friendly to him.”

  Cooper squeezed my hand as we strolled down Dover Street together. This meant he was listening to me ramble on about the latest annoying guest at the inn.

  “And then, then he said—right to Bailey’s face—‘The whole décor is far more schmaltzy than it appeared online.’ I mean, what the hell does ‘schmaltzy’ mean? I mean, I know what it means, but how in the hell can décor be sentimental? And what exactly is wrong with sentimental décor? But the final straw was when he called Bailey ‘grating’ and said that he should have booked at Paradise Sands—‘but this place was cheaper and what a hell of a mistake that was.’ I could tell she was going to be all diplomatic about it, but I’d had enough because if he didn’t get out of the inn I was going to strangle him.”

  Cooper chuckled, shooting me this look I didn’t quite understand out of the corner of his eyes.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been hanging out with Cat too much.”

  I grinned. “She has a feistiness that this situation called for. I just channeled her.”

  “Now I’m worried. What did you do?”

  “I kicked him out,” I said, trying not to feel bad as I remembered the look on Bailey’s face. “I told him if he was going to be insulting to the owner he could pick up his bags and get his pompous ass off the property and check into Paradise Sands after all. He said he would. Now Bailey is mad at me.”