Hometown Virgin, page 12
I shot him a look. He was a canny bastard, I’d give him that.
When it boiled down to it, I guess I had to ask myself what was more important. Once upon a time, I had chosen my job over Lauren. Whatever happened, I would not be making that same decision again.
I’d learned my lesson, and knew how lucky I was that Lauren was even speaking to me, never mind viewing me romantically.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I murmured, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chapter 18
LAUREN
“I can’t believe you have to leave.”
Cooper reached for me, his fingers coming up to cup my chin. “I can’t believe it either,” he admitted. “Two weeks goes very fast.”
I blinked at him, feeling tears burn my eyes.
How had my hatred and hurt disappeared in the last fortnight?
How had I gone from ruing the day I’d met him and hating the way I pined for him, comparing every other guy I met to him, to this.
We were in his rental. I’d been here more than at my own place these past few days. When he’d been checked out of the hospital, he’d needed someone to keep an eye on him, and there had been no doubt in either of our minds that that would be me.
I stayed in one of the spare rooms, he slept in the master suite. But ever since he’d had the all clear, we’d been pretty much been glued to one another.
Driving to Justin’s on a morning and returning here on an evening. Spending time catching up, eating together, cooking meals. It was like being a couple again except we hadn’t kissed in all that time, and the truth was, I missed that but was grateful for the space.
One thing Cooper had always been good at was giving me time and space to breathe.
It was a sneaky move, even if it was generous too.
Sneaky because the lack of pressure was pressure in itself.
I knew he wanted me. It was in every look, every gentle touch. Every time he handed me a plate of food he’d cooked for me, or given me a gentle kiss on the cheek before bed… His want was a living, breathing entity.
Just as mine was for him.
There was no hiding the fact that I wanted him too, but his lack of pressure meant that there was no lying about my feelings.
I was very aware of my desire, and of his, and that we weren’t acting on it, meant I had no choice but to embrace what he did to me even as I rued his cunning.
Not that I thought his patience came from a negative place. Not at all. It was just a bitch when my own desire was being used against me.
“Hey, it won’t be for long,” he assured me.
I nodded, my eyes seeking and finding his, needing the reassurance I’d find in there.
Justin had been so impressed with Cooper these past weeks that he’d actually opened up about a few of his inventions and had asked Cooper if he would handle the publicity on them all.
Justin was rich by inheritance. There was no avoiding that. But as an inventor? He was also a millionaire by that measure too.
There was an irony to the fact that the guy who had everything could invent shit for the humble, everyday man.
His inventions were never grandiose, technological revelations. They were usually small and involved making everyday chores easier.
For a man who paid people to do his everyday chores, he was surprisingly canny at figuring out which gadgets they’d need to simplify them.
Or, maybe that came from a lifetime of watching other people do shit for him… whichever way, if Cooper grabbed this account, it would definitely be good for his resume.
“Do you think Leviathan and Dronig will bite?”
He snorted. “Do bears shit in the woods? I didn’t realize Gandy was the man behind DaILay.”
She bit her lip. “Well, he is. But his cousins deal with the corporate side of things.”
“Yeah. I know. But he’s the Managing Director, Lauren. Having this account will really change the way my bosses view me.” He smiled, but there was something to the smile that told me he wasn’t telling me everything. Not that I felt he was keeping secrets from me, but he and Justin… Saying that it seemed like they’d been in cahoots these past couple of days probably made me sound paranoid. “Plus, it will mean my staying here for chunks of time,” he was saying. “The personal touch is pretty much the only way I get anything done with Justin.”
I nodded. “Justin has the mental capacity of Stephen Hawking but the attention span of a toddler.”
He laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell my VP that.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Do whatever if it means to have you coming back here.”
I didn’t tack on the words ‘to me’, but I knew he heard them. His gaze softened, and he let out a sigh as he pressed our foreheads together.
“I’m in the ad industry, sweetheart. If anyone knows how to make a pitch, it’s me.”
I slid my hands around his waist. “You really do want to be here, don’t you, Coop?”
He sighed. “How can you even doubt that?”
I bit my lip. “You never wanted to be here before. I know you always hated Maine.”
“Only because I knew success was in New York.” He shrugged. “I have that in spades. Now, I want more.”
He reached down and pressed his hands to the bottom of my spine. He pushed gently, bringing our torsos together. I felt his erection against my belly, and felt the answering wave of heat unfurl throughout me.
Releasing a shaky breath, I whispered, “I need you to come back to me, Coop.”
“And I need you, period,” he said, his tone just as heartfelt. Gravelly with his emotion.
We weren’t highly strung, emotive people. But together, we kind of were.
It was like years of being separated, years of denying our feelings for one another and being made to live apart, had changed us. Made us needy in certain ways.
I knew I couldn’t let him leave without showing him how much I needed him. Even though fear still filled me; what if he left and didn’t come back?
What if his company refused to let him stay on here to manage Justin’s account?
What if? What if? What if?
None of that mattered though. Not when the only certainty was that I couldn’t let this man leave my life again without knowing him fully.
My one regret had always been that we’d never connected in the one way that mattered.
I couldn’t go another seven minutes without knowing all of him. Never mind seven days or seven months.
Shuddering, I reached up and pressed my mouth to his. My lips trembled, and nerves flooded me. But it was a good feeling.
It was like taking the step off a cliff, knowing gravity was going to do its thing, but also knowing there was a huge trampoline at the damn bottom, ready and waiting to catch me.
Cooper would always catch me.
That I knew.
He pulled back when I reached up to touch my lips to his, and I saw the question in his gaze, knew that he understood the significance of my reaching for his mouth.
We’d avoided the more intimate touches, so I knew he got the message.
I nodded slightly and reared up on tiptoe once more to reach for him.
The minute I sank into his kiss, it was like no time had passed at all. The years blurred, taking me back to those hot and sweaty moments in my apartment in college. I remembered the feel of him under my hands, the taste of him on my tongue.
I shuddered with the power of those memories, and let him sweep me away in the passion that we created together.
He was gentle, but there was a strength about him that was new. I knew that came from experience, and though a part of me was jealous of the women from whom that experience had been taught, but he swept me away again before I could get caught up in envy.
Instead, he pressed me to the back wall of the bedroom where we’d been sitting. He’d been packing his stuff up, and I’d been helping by bringing things from the closet.
He pushed me against the closet door, and I felt the solid length of him pressing into me.
It was like being handed heaven, I realized.
God, how I’d missed this.
My hands scrabbled with the back of his shirt as I pulled the hem up so I could touch him. My fingers dug into the thick pads of muscle surrounding his spine, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to touch him more. Needed all of him on top of me.
With a moan, I pushed our hands between us and pressed until there was space where there hadn’t even been a sliver of air parting us.
He was breathing heavily, and I could see in his eyes how his control was in shreds.
I loved seeing him like that. Loved seeing the confusion and the need swirling in there too. The question.
Before he could form it on his lips, I pulled my shirt over my head, unfastened my bra. Within seconds, he realized I wasn’t pulling away, if anything, I was diving deeper into the fray.
As he watched me, he began to unbutton his shirt too, dragging it over head the minute the top buttons were unfastened. Next came his belt, then his fly was unzipped.
I wriggled out of my skirt, taking my panties with it.
Within seconds, we both stood in front of each other naked.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him like this or vice versa. I was a virgin, not a saint. I’d touched him, tasted all he had to give. I’d just never taken that final step.
Now, however, that was all going to change.
Our breathing grew heavy as we absorbed all the changes in one another.
He was stronger, bulkier. His muscles somehow sleeker yet compact, telling me he worked out a lot. His cock was thick and red, as long as I remembered it, and my pussy clenched at the prospect of finally taking him inside.
I could see the years hadn’t affected the attraction he felt for me. My body hadn’t changed all that much, but my curves were more pronounced. I wasn’t hard like him, but soft.
My breasts weren’t as perky as they’d once been, but that didn’t stop one of his fingers coming up to trace a ring around my nipple. Of gently teasing the pouting bud, until the small hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention with a solid salute.
He’d always owned my body. Had always possessed every single response I was capable of gifting him. It was why I had never been able to replace him. Why he’d been irreplaceable.
Though I’d been cautious to gift him with my virginity, that hadn’t been because of Cooper. But because of me. Because of my insecurities, and my past experiences.
He had had a long time to learn me, and had the time to learn what I was capable of experiencing when he was in control of my body. I knew he hadn’t forgotten what I’d freely given him all those years ago even though my virginity had been on the table, and that knowledge enabled me to relax right into his tender seduction.
My hands clutched at his lower back, the fingers digging deep into the muscle there when he pressed close to me, wrapping me up in the best naked hug imaginable. He groaned at my touch, and I loved the gentle vibration against my lips when he brought our mouths together, and I caught the tail end of his response to my barely there massage.
As he thrust his tongue into my mouth, I tasted all of him, and loved how his touch, as he shaped my waist and hips, was so sure and confident. He was the same boy I’d loved, but there was experience now behind his caresses. The idea could have irritated me, but it didn’t. I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Cooper, inexperienced, had had the ability to rock my world.
With experience? I didn’t expect to survive.
As he parried his tongue, rubbing his against mine, stealing my breath from my very lips, his hand curved around the peachy globe of my ass. His fingers slid between the cheeks, and I felt him there.
For the first time in so long, someone was touching me intimately, and my body wept as a result. Of course, it was more than just someone. It was Cooper, the keeper of my heart. Something that just strengthened my responses to him thousandfold.
Shuddering, I felt my breath stutter in my chest as he circled the entrance to my body. I suppose I should have been embarrassed by how wet I was, but that thought had long since disappeared. Not since the early days of our fooling around had I felt embarrassment at my responses to his touch, and my inhibitions were as low around him as they’d always been.
My mouth was working on autopilot, almost like it knew the motions, leaving my brain to focus on what he was doing to me elsewhere. And I was grateful for the respite, because I was so aware of what he was doing, it shot every minute touch into the stratosphere.
He almost tickled me there. That was how gentle the caress was. Yet no matter how gentle it was, it had me shooting up onto tiptoe. The move inadvertently gave him more access, and with his other hand, he slid that between my legs too. This time, his access was frontal. And the minute he touched my clit, fireworks set off behind my eyelids.
The explosion was miniature, I knew that. It was a small orgasm, and it spoke of my desperate need at that moment in time. I didn’t have it in me to be embarrassed. Not with Cooper. Never with him. It wasn’t the first time he’d made me experience such pleasure, and it wouldn’t be the last.
That I came so quickly, and from barely any foreplay, pleased him. I could tell. Maybe it was stupid of me to think it, but I felt sure his muscles bulged up in response, like the most masculine parts of him were flexing with pride at what he’d made me feel so quickly.
The crazy thing was, I couldn’t exactly chide him for that. He’d managed what no other man had after hours of being fondled and caressed by them. The truth was, I’d never experienced an orgasm without him. The power that gave him pissed me off. Or, that was to say, it had pissed me off. Now he was here, I could rejoice in the freedom my body gave him where my pleasure was concerned. After years of drought, finally the rain was flowing.
Literally.
He nipped my bottom lip, and speared my mouth with his tongue again as he caught the bud of my clit between the joints of his pointer and middle finger. I squealed into his mouth, and the tender throbbing that appeared at his pinching had my eyes popping open in response. Surprise stole my breath as a few realizations came to me. I was so sensitive, that it belied the small orgasm I’d just had. Making me realize how unaccustomed my sex was to pleasure. While also making me aware of how ready it was for this moment. Because though I was sensitive, more than anything, I felt an impatience. The riding, driving urge for more. A desperate need for him.
Though he carried on kissing me, I pressed my forehead to his, needing the grounding touch to help get me through these frightening moments as the immaturity of my responses leaped forth. He ignored my squeal, ignored my reaction, carried on with what he was doing—gently circling my opening with one hand, and with the other, taunting my clit.
I could feel myself trembling, almost like it was happening to somebody else. My nervous system was in shock, and that came as no surprise considering he possessed this part of me. Owned it, had branded it with his name a long time ago.
I tightened my thighs about his hands, reducing the freedom of access he had to my most sensitive parts, but that didn’t seem to slow him down. If anything, it encouraged him when I hadn’t meant to at all.
Suddenly, the gentle pinching of his knuckles turned into something else. And I knew he was responding to the tightening of my muscles, that he was punishing me for not laying myself bare to his every whim. And that punishment manifested in a demand for my release: he began to rub my clit in earnest, and my eyes flashed open once again in response. I then moaned into his lips as he frigged my clit hard and fast.
I didn’t have the breath to complain, didn’t even have the words. Could do nothing more than simply take what he wanted me to experience. And then, he thrust his finger inside me, making me feel the thickness of his digit deep inside tissues that had only ever been touched by him.
That gentle pain was more than I could stand, and it ripped past any of my remaining inhibitions, few though they might have been, and let me experience what Cooper had only ever dragged out of my body. This orgasm was night to the earlier one’s day. It shot through me like an earthquake, making me question everything I thought I’d known about myself. Reminding me, once more, and as though I’d forgotten, that I was his. Intrinsically. Instinctively.
I wept against him, shuddering and shivering like a wreck. At that moment, he was so solid, so stable and secure in comparison to my quivering self, that I felt utterly taken care of, sheltered and cosseted by his stronger form.
He brought my body down from the highs he’d forced it to experience. Having taken me past several plateaus, having made me soar high into the sky as my sex experienced, for the first time in too long, the joys of climax. I wanted to weep, I wanted to laugh. The contradictory emotions were ones I’d grown accustomed to long ago when he’d made me experience such pleasure at his hands, so the discordant emotions didn’t frighten me, if anything I embraced the contrast. Loving how he made me feel. Like a woman. A real woman.
If I flew too close to the sun, I knew he’d be there to catch me, to keep me safe as I rode out the welter of joyous sensation he continued to ply from my sensitive self. And it was then, that I realized I trusted him. I’d made the decision for him to take me tonight, to finally rid me of my virginity without having realized the major step I taken. But it was now, as he tended to me, as he made me the center of our pleasure, that I came to see how the trust between us was back.
That thought alone had me shuddering again as relief this time filled me. But he mistook the gesture, instead hummed something soothing under his breath as he petted me, because there was no other way to describe it. I shuddered again at the gentle touch, then realizing he wasn’t going to make the first move, I pounced. Though my bones were like jelly, I had no choice. This couldn’t end here. There was no way the night was ending in any other way than his claiming me.
Leaping against him, I loved that he knew what I was about. His arms came up to grab me, to help me cling to him, my knees to his hips. The minute I was aloft, he pushed me against the wall once more and used the position to press his shaft into my wetness.
