Bed. Yes. Please. Pleasure invaded my body as Cooper carried me, making quick work of haphazardly drying off our bodies. Difficult to do when he kept me plastered to him.

He turned me on in ways I couldn’t remember, touched me and teased with his voice and his body. I kissed his shoulder, his collarbone, his neck. Everywhere I could reach, my mouth greedily found.

The reaction I had to him was insane. We barely knew each other. It was temporary. I didn’t care. Not then.

I wanted him. His body on top of mine. His mouth all over me. He laid me down on my bed, the covers scratching my back, and his body covered mine. His still wet boxer briefs clung to him, dripped water at my stomach, down my thighs as he pushed my arms to the mattress.

“I want to taste you,” he whispered, his mouth at my chest, his tongue sliding around my nipple.

Every time he touched me felt like the first time I’d been touched. Sensations rippled and stormed through my body like the most horrific thunderstorm. Exciting in its vivid splashes of light and ear-piercing booms. Beautiful in its danger.

I didn’t know how it happened. I didn’t understand when I allowed it to happen, but somehow, Cooper was digging his place into my heart so slowly, so determinedly, I doubted I could kick him out if I wanted to.

God.

His lips pressed against my stomach. Hips arched into his. I needed him to touch me, take me, treasure me.

“Please. Taste me.” I gasped as his hands followed, running along my breasts, torturing my nipples with delightful zips of pain to my sex. My hands flew to his waist, pressed against his briefs.

He’d kept them on for me. I didn’t need him to. Hadn’t wanted him to, yet the thought of watching him disrobe had shot embarrassment to my cheeks. He mistook it as fear.

Crazy man. I feared nothing from him except heartache which had to be coming. And even that wasn’t on my mind as I pushed down his briefs. He stopped his movements, head raising and peered at me.

The question was on his tongue. I sensed it before he spoke it.

“I’m okay,” I assured him. He asked me too often, gave me too many choices. Hadn’t he realized yet that sometimes I wanted the choice removed from me? I made so damn many.

Going with the flow, surrendering to the passion constantly zapping between us was all I thought of. And how in the hell did this happen?

“Sure?” he still asked. And God, he was a good man. One of the better ones. A keeper—

I shoved that thought out of my head and nodded. Too many questions. Not enough movement.

“Please.” My hips ached, my stomach clenched. Every nerve tensed in anticipation of that delicious swipe of his tongue. “Oh God,” I moaned as it happened.

That first feel of him. Glorious. Rockets could blare. Fireworks could ignite. My house could catch fire. Nothing would distract me from this. This moment where I realized I was completely, so damn completely wrong.

He could never be used for sex. Not Cooper. Everything he did with me had become so personal it was freaking terrifying.

He tasted me, mouth on my most intimate parts, and my body responded, against my will, or in line with my will, I couldn’t tell you. He dipped me to the edge of insanity and brought me back, balanced me on that ledge of a cliff dive, no safety net, all terror and adrenaline and... “Yes, please. There.”

My hand flew to his head, his shoulder. Fingers dug into hot, burning, muscled flesh. He groaned against me, the vibrations wicked and beautiful. I ignited without warning. Cooper drove me to my peak and shoved me off the cliff before I’d realized I was in danger of flying. Crashing. Soaring.

He brought it all out of me while I writhed beneath him, clinging to him as if our very lives depended on my grip.

“Oh crap,” I gasped, as the tremors faded. “You’re really good at that.”

He slid up my body, lips everywhere, tasting me, memorizing me. His eyes seared into my body with determination. I was a present, a gift he wouldn’t forget. I prayed with all my strength I was reading him correctly.

My hand rested on his ribs, his hips as he moved forward. He brushed against me. Tiny aftershocks lit up at the feel of his hard length against me. An area I’d thought closed for good, forever, until this city boy pulled his luggage down a rocky path.

Someday I’d watch him take it all away.

But that thought was for another day. I arched my back, tilted my chin and his mouth met mine. My hand slid to his front, to him, his beautiful, hard and thick length rubbing against me.

I squeezed, familiarized myself with the feel of him. Heated silk over steel. My fingers and thumb barely brushed around his girth.

Glorious, he was glorious everywhere.

“Becca,” he groaned. That same word, that same whisper in my ear. It didn’t hurt. There wasn’t pain. Just the question in my name, the reassuring, the double-checking.

He didn’t relax.

“I want to,” I said. “Let me.”

I pressed my hips against him and arched my back. I took him by surprise because he rolled easily and I was on him, my hair brushing against his chest. His hand pushed it out of the way, wrapped it in his fist. I kept my gaze focused on his body. The curve of his chest, the dips of his abs. Those precious muscles inside his hips, the trail of black hair that started at his belly button and led me down further to the weight of him in my hand.

To what I desired with the haste of a woman who craved ice cream and wine after a bad break-up.

I kissed his abs, that delicious V. His groans were my reward and I ate them up, let them spur me on.

This wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t a chore. But I always preferred a man inside of me, taking charge to me having the power. I was smart enough to know that wouldn’t happen tonight. Cooper was too cautious.

Also, I didn’t have condoms and I wasn’t on the pill. That had lapsed and there was no need to refill.

I slid my tongue over his tip, my hand gripped his base and worked in tandem with my mouth. He arched up, demanding more, and I took as much as I could. I worked as slowly as I could, reveling in the feel of this man, this crazy nutty man who made me laugh and made me relax and with him. I smiled again and some days I wasn’t drowning as long as Cooper was nearby.

This was my thank you, for bringing me back, for helping me find my way again when no one else stood a chance at being able to. He was new, lacked the vivid reminders of my life, and took me as I came, as dented and scarred as that might be.

He was delicious, hot, clean.

“Fuck. Becca.” His release tightened his voice. He swelled in my mouth. I hummed around him and took him deeper, to the back of my throat and swallowed. One of his hands slapped the bed. The other pressed against my head.

He held me as he shot his release deep into my throat.

I took everything—willingly and happily and willfully. But he’d question it.

He was good at it. So I stayed close to him, released him from my mouth, pressed kisses to his thigh and his hip. He jumped as I kissed that sensitive area around his beautiful V-shaped muscle.

“That tickles.” I’d discover all his ticklish places by the time I was done.

I wasn’t given the chance. His hands went to my sides and I was no match for his strength.

He pulled me up against him and I smiled. It hurt my cheeks. “Okay?” I asked, although based on the way he gripped my hair, confirmation wasn’t necessary.

I wanted to beat him to the question in his eyes.

“Better than.” I’d said that in the kitchen weeks ago.

I grinned at the memory, wiggling my brows. He was beautiful. Tanned skin and strong jaw, piercing green eyes and a knitted brow. “Good.”

His hands settled on my lower back and I fell to his shoulder. A yawn escaped me and I draped my arm over my stomach. “Today was a good day,” I said through it.

I used to count them. I’d get to the nightfall and cry, and I’d make a list of everything I had to be thankful for. It was the only way to keep from surrendering to the heavy weight of all my grief. Count your blessings, my mom used to say, things could always be worse.

I was certain she’d been wrong because some days the only things on my list were: I’m alive. Animals are fed.

I didn’t even realize I’d stopped writing those lists months ago, before Cooper even arrived, until that moment.

I had been healing, in slow, unmeasured steps and moments where the pain hadn’t been completely unbearable, just painful.

Perhaps everyone was right. It was time to move on. To live and not simply survive. Maybe it was time to find my way on a weeded path I never would have taken on my own.

Sometimes those journeys could be the best.

Cooper’s heart raced at my ear, mine matched his inside my chest. He was silent, his fingers running through my hair.

My lids closed. The day…the night…exhaustion whispered at the edges of my mind and my body.

“Stay here? With me.”

“You—”

I groaned and pushed off his chest, lifting until I could kiss him. No more questions. No more checking. I was where I was okay with being. It was enough.

“Stop asking me if I’m sure, Cooper. If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t ask or agree. You’re giving me a complex.”

“I want to make sure we don’t move faster than you’re ready. I don’t want you to have regrets.”

We’d almost had sex. Guilt wasn’t nipping at my heels. Not yet. I understood his concern, but I was also really tired of everyone being worried about me.

“I can’t guarantee I won’t.” I refused to lie. Not after what we shared in my bed. “I can promise you I don’t know what I’m doing right now, how to do this.” I waved my hand in between us. “I don’t want to sleep alone, and I like you here. I like you. That’s all I’m certain of.”

“I like you too.” He grinned against my mouth and kissed me.

Then he rolled me to my back, settled his weight on me and kissed me some more.

Eventually, the kisses slowed and we fell asleep, his body wrapped around mine.