The Closer: A Marriage of Convenience Romantic Comedy

by Kristy Marie

  Our arrangement is temporary, but the effect he’s continued to have on me—the proof that all men aren’t selfish assholes—will never leave me.

  Cooper doesn’t give me time to respond before his powerful hands, his tattoo, confirm just how much dominance he has in my weakness at the moment.

  As soon as his fingers apply pressure to the extremely sensitive bundle of nerves at my center, I melt, gasping as I tighten my grip on his hair.

  “Look at me, sweetheart.”

  With his free hand, he lifts my chin as my skin heats under his caress, tingling with each pass. The man’s hands definitely have more skills than just throwing strikes. “Oh shit.” I lean forward and clutch his shoulders. “These hormones are no joke. My entire body feels like a livewire.” I suck in a breath, my knees weakening. “I normally don’t—”

  His fingers stop. “Don’t finish that statement. I don’t want to hear how my wife normally responds to another man’s touch.”

  Huh?

  Leaning back, I meet his eyes, which are aflame with something primal, and drag my fingers down his cheek. “That’s not what I was going to say.” With my index finger, I apply pressure to his lips, but he doesn’t open his mouth.

  I can respect the gesture. Guarding your heart is no small matter. Just because he used that word again—wife—doesn’t mean he loves me. For all I know, Cooper is just honoring his promise in this deal and taking care of my needs—all of them.

  “As I was saying—before you so rudely interrupted—I normally don’t feel like I could orgasm just by being touched.”

  “Then no one has ever touched you properly.” His tone isn’t clipped like before, and I wonder what exactly I said to make a difference.

  “Does that please you?” I ask, and he surprises me by opening his mouth, allowing my finger to slip in easily. “Oh, wow.” My back arches and my head tips toward the ceiling. “You’re…”

  “Your husband?” He growls from around my finger, giving it one farewell lick before guiding it down his chest, over his sweats, before resting on the massive bulge between his legs.

  “I was going to go with incredible, but husband works too.” Especially the way he says it all raspy and revered. It clenches something deep inside my belly that I’m quite sure isn’t the baby.

  “I want to see what’s mine,” he tells me straight-faced with a lust-filled look in his eye. “I want to see what only belongs to me.”

  Before you think that dominant ownership is totally not sexy, I challenge you to say that after your husband demands to see your body with this look in his eye as if he would slaughter anyone that even blinks at you. Trust me, you’ll reconsider your views.

  “Don’t make me wait, Mrs. Lexington. I’ve been more than patient with you.”

  His fingers slip underneath my panties, fingering the wetness with leisurely strokes. “You’re distracting me,” I whine, gripping his hand just in case he decides to stop.

  “Then you better get that shirt off my body.” Two fingers slide into me, a delicious bite of pain making me gasp as he stretches me.

  Under his heated stare, I strip off his shirt and toss it to the floor in a matter of seconds. So fast, I forget how my naked four-months’ pregnant body might look to a man like Cooper. A man that could have any woman he wanted. I take a step back, ready to grab my shirt to cover myself.

  “Where are you going?” His powerful legs squeeze me, preventing me from backing up and retrieving my shirt.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m…” Instinctually, my fingers trail over my stomach, delicately tracing the swell at my hips.

  “You’re what?” His brows rise as his legs loosen from around me. “Sorry?”

  I don’t know if it’s his tone or the rejection that hurts worse. Either way, the pain from mine and Griffin’s fallout rears its ugly head. Isn’t that what he did to me when he said we weren’t family—reject me? I don’t know what I was thinking stripping off my shirt like I was still the McKinley from last year.

  “You should be sorry—” Cooper admonishes, guiding me backward so he can stand. “Seeing the swell of your tits as you laid against that exam table, your legs parted—” his eyes lock onto mine, “—has had me in a constant state of hardness ever since.”

  He yanks my hand from my stomach and uses it to palm his erection as his head lowers and his tongue takes a leisurely swipe against my nipple that has him and I both moaning.

  “You should be sorry that I daydream about using your mouth for other things than spatting out crazy ramblings.”

  I would comment that I don’t ramble, but his mouth captures my nipple between his teeth, nipping slightly before sucking gently.

  “I am—” My knees give out, and my hand loosens from around his solid cock.

  “Don’t you dare let go of me.” He pulls away and I reach for him, but he blocks me, claiming my hand as he kisses the top, paying extra attention to the zip-tie wedding band that I gave up trying to get off. Let’s be real, I kind of love it. And the fact that Cooper hasn’t taken his off… Yeah, I’m not removing mine.

  Those full pouty lips hover over my skin, his eyes laser-focused on the ring representing our union. “But what you should be sorry for the most, Mrs. Lexington, is that the thought of a child growing inside the swell of your abdomen—the evidence of such a miracle widening your hips—”

  “Oh gosh.”

  Cooper lowers to his knees, his hand dropping mine as it traces a line down to my belly button. “Oh, Mrs. Lexington…” His large hands that grip a baseball and throw it at a cool one hundred miles per hour span the swollen part of me before he leans down and places a kiss right in the center. “Nothing turns me on more than the sight of my pregnant wife carrying a child.”

  And why has he been single all these years?

  “Cooper,” I drawl, leaning over him, “you make me feel like someone else.”

  Not the girl that makes poor decisions and doesn’t have her shit together.

  “You are someone else now.” He tsks, his mouth trailing lower until he finds the centermost part of me and kisses there too. “You’re my wife.”

  Oh, that word. Wife. When he says it, it doesn’t feel like a deal we made in the heat of his panic. Oh no, when Cooper Lexington says wife, he says it like there is no end to our arrangement, like somehow, the rules have changed.

  “I—ah.”

  He slips a finger, then two, inside of me, pumping them in and out before he adds pressure with his tongue, circling my clit until my legs begin to shake.

  “Tell me,” he drawls, coming up for a breath. “Tell me that you’re my wife.”

  At that, his fingers curl and press the rippled flesh inside of me, my muscles clenching and bearing down as his tongue flicks against my swollen nub, tearing an orgasm from the deepest part of my soul.

  “Oh, shit.”

  My breath is ragged when he finally lets up, removing his fingers and dragging them up my body as he stands. “You deny me?”

  What? “I would never.” Okay, so I would, but right now, I’m not sure what he’s talking about.

  “Tell me that you’re my wife.”

  Oh, that. Yes, well, he distracted me. He can only blame himself for that.

  Standing straighter, my chin only reaching his collarbone, I look up at the man that just made my body sing like it had far too many vodka shots on karaoke night. “I am your wife, Mr. Lexington.”

  His gaze heats under the weight of my stare as he slips his two fingers, the ones he used to bring me to euphoric bliss, into my mouth and demands, “Push down my sweats.”

  Oh hell. Fun time is not over.

  Grasping his hips, I keep my eyes on him, still sucking his fingers, tasting myself as I lower, taking his pants down with me.

  “Good girl.” He walks us backward and pulls his fingers from my lips. “Now, ride your husband until I tell you to stop.”

  Did my vagina just fist bump me? Like is that what that
clenching was I felt deep in my belly?

  Cooper sits back on the couch, his knees widening as his dick pulses against his stomach.

  He offers me a hand, and I waste no time climbing onto his lap. “Guide me in,” is all he says as I settle myself over him, his eyes tracking my every movement as I take him in my hand and nudge him to my entrance.

  I have very little experience with men. Clearly, I’m not a virgin, but before this little one came along, I’d only been with one other man. But Cooper is not like the other guy in size. His cock is swollen at the tip, the girth significantly wider than the entrance he seems to think it’ll fit in.

  “Sit.”

  I’m thinking that asking him to say please would not be ideal since, more than likely, I wouldn’t be able to wait for him to answer. Whether this hurts or not, I want nothing more than this man and all of his bossy honor inside me. Right. Freaking. Now.

  Gripping his length, I ease down, marveling as Cooper’s head goes back, the muscles in his neck straining as he swallows a tortured-sounding moan.

  “I knew you would feel like this,” he says between breaths, clutching my hips and pushing me all the way down until he’s firmly seated inside me. “Look at me.” He grips my chin and gives me a long agonizing look before crashing his mouth to mine, exploring, tasting, and owning every piece of me.

  If my husband is setting out to destroy me, he’s doing a damn fine job of it, because when he knots his fingers in my hair, his other hand settling on my backside, lifting me up and down guiding me to his preferred pace, it doesn’t take long for both of us to shatter.

  Cooper

  “Hey, Lexington!” I toss my shades onto the passenger seat before shutting the car door and nod to my neighbor who’s wiping down his Hummer in his driveway. “Mike.”

  The pinched expression he’s wearing stops me. “Everything okay?”

  He glances to my front window. “You dating a stripper or something? She’s had the music turned up for the past two hours.”

  I’m not the most neighborly guy, so Mike not knowing I’m married isn’t surprising.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He tips his chin in the direction of my house. “Her music has been really… stank today.”

  “Stank?”

  One of the first things you learn when you play in a stadium packed with thousands of screaming fans is how to tune out everything. Honestly, I rarely pay attention to any chatter around me.

  “Yeah, stank,” he clarifies with a grunt and a face like he’s constipated. “Like it has this stank beat you can grind to.” He does this hip motion, which concerns me. What the fuck has Mac been doing today?

  “Ah,” I return. I still have no idea what he means, but now that he’s brought up the noise, I can make out the bass rattling my front windows. “My apologies for the noise,” I offer, ignoring the stripper comment. Aspen wouldn’t be thrilled if I got arrested for giving my neighbor a black eye.

  “No apologies needed,” he says all too happily. “I’ve enjoyed the show.”

  Maybe Aspen is the forgiving type?

  Whipping around, I note the open blinds and a set of hips popping to the same beat drumming against the windows.

  I’m gonna kill her.

  Then I see another set of hips, and I groan, not bothering to acknowledge Mike further before sprinting to the house.

  “Seriously,” I bark, coming through the front door and yanking the blinds closed. “You’re both dancing to hip-hop music.”

  McKinley stops, her chest glistening with perspiration in a sports bra. “The therapist says movement is good for Pops’s range of motion.”

  I look at Pops who just shrugs. “I told her I didn’t have any rhythm.” He takes a few steps away from me and what I’m sure is an enraged expression on my face. “I’ll just be in my room if you need anything. You two play nice now.”

  I look at McKinley in nothing but leggings and a sports bra. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

  Immediately, her fun-loving expression morphs into one that’s annoyed.

  Guess how much I give a shit if she’s mad?

  “Probably in the fucking laundry since I barely have any clothes that fit me anymore.” She holds up a finger. “Don’t even suggest me wearing maternity clothes. They are ugly and as long as I can squeeze into your shirts and my leggings, I’ll be fine.”

  With a long, lazy look, I don’t bother hiding, I step up to her rounded belly, pushing against the waist of her leggings. She’s radiant while pregnant. So much that as each week goes by, I find myself more and more attracted to her changing body. I can’t keep my hands off her, much less her growing belly and the baby inside it.

  She calls it obsessive. I call it mine.

  I step forward, eyeing the flush in my wife’s cheeks. “No one sees this but me,” I grind out, effectively acting like a straight caveman when I caress her belly.

  I’m addicted to this woman. So much so that I can’t pitch, concentrate, or even attend a post-game meeting like I’m obligated to do. All I can think about is how fast I can get home and corner my wife in the laundry room and make her moan so loud she has to bite my shoulder to keep Pops from hearing.

  You could say I’m royally screwed.

  McKinley grins, her earlier frustration subsiding easily as she fingers the light dusting of hair on my jaw. “Now look who’s acting crazy.”

  She’s hilarious.

  “You’re wearing off on me,” I admit, pulling her hand from my cheek and pressing my lips to the palm. “Please tell me the old man has an event he can go to.”

  She grins. “Poor baby,” she coos. “It’s been a long road trip.”

  It has, and when she palms my length in her hand, I’m all but reminded that I’ve been away from her for five excruciatingly long days.

  “I need you.” It comes out as a plea.

  “Later,” she promises, kissing me on the mouth. “Pops has a date in a couple hours with Ms. Grace.” Her eyebrows waggle. “Don’t act like you’re about to vomit, Coop. He’s excited. So go help him dress while I find something to squeeze into.”

  Now that I can get behind.

  “I could help you first,” I offer, pushing against her delightful hands.

  “As much as I’d like that, we’ll be late, and Pops is already nervous enough.”

  “Is that why you had him doing hip-hop? As a distraction?”

  A sneaky grin emerges. “Maybe. Maybe I was just in the mood to dance.”

  “Maybe you’re just in the mood to get fucked.”

  Her laugh is infectious. “Go help Pops before he leaves you out of the will for not helping him get his groove back.”

  It took about an hour for me to rid McKinley’s horrific words out of my head. Unlike her, I don’t have the sharing is caring type of relationship with Pops. I don’t care if he ever gets his groove back, and if that’s his goal, I’d hope he’d do it behind closed doors like me.

  “Cooper, your face is going to freeze like that. It’s not like we dropped him off at a brothel. It’s a picnic for goodness’ sake. It’s not like he and Ms. Grace are going to have a leisurely romp on her newly quilted blanket in front of the rest of the senior center.”

  “Gross, Mac. You keep making it worse.”

  “And you keep acting like a baby losing his papaw’s attention.”

  I pull into a parking space and turn in my seat. “What the hell is a papaw? And why are you sounding more and more like Pops?”

  “He’s been teaching me some southern slang for when we git to go to your brother’s for Thanksgiving in the fall.”

  I groan. “No one but Pops says git.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Why not? I kind of like it. I think when I have this baby, I’m gonna use git all the time.” Her nose scrunches as she points a finger at me, her eyes narrowing. “Git down from there, Billy! Git away from that hot stove. Git your ass home before dark!”

  Pops has created a monster.

&
nbsp; I sigh and open the car door, finding my wife far too fuckable for it only being mid-afternoon. “Come on, Ellie Mae, let’s git you a baby book.”

  Mac frowns. “You know I can just google anything I want to know about the baby, right? You don’t actually need to waste money buying me a book.”

  “So last night when we were on Zoom, and I asked you if you felt the baby kick yet…”

  “And I said no because the baby is only the size of a pear.” She puts her hands on her hips. “No one can feel a pear-sized baby kick yet, Cooper.”

  And this is why we are here. “Per Google, our baby is the size of an artichoke now, not a pear. At eighteen weeks, you should start feeling him or her kick anytime now.”

  She shoots me a glare. “My wrench is under the seat. Don’t make this date turn bloody. I sort of like you and would hate for you to serve me divorce papers in a jail cell.”

  There she goes again, reminding me of our expiration date.

  At least she didn’t catch my slip of calling her baby ours.

  I step forward, clasping her cheeks between my hands, and planting a kiss on those ridiculously pouty lips. “Hmm… I don’t know. Conjugal visits sound kinky.”

  Pulling us inside the bookstore, I bark at McKinley to pull every baby book off the shelf and stack them in my arms. She rolls her eyes the entire time until we leave and stop at the ice cream shop where she orders a dill-flavored cone with cotton candy ice cream (I know, I gagged too) and asked for a pen. She tried to hide writing another mystery phrase on the napkin, which I’m starting to think is like her own version of a bucket list.

  It wasn’t until after we picked up Pops, and his refusal to divulge any details of his date (thank goodness) with Ms. Grace, that McKinley’s frown returned.

  “Why are you holding your book so far away?”

  Turning my head, I look at my wife holding a baby book, dressed in another one of my t-shirts, since she refuses to wear maternity clothes. “I don’t need to hold it as close as you do.”

  She leans over. “Are you saying you have super vision?”