That night, Cooper held me and listened while I told him everything about Joseph, the problems we’d been having and that night. Once the sky when pitch black, clouds obscuring our ability to see the stars, he ushered me inside and sent me to bed. I figured something would happen. After all, there was a large box of condoms he’d added to the mix already covering my bed. Nerves raked my spine while I brushed my teeth, scrubbed my face, and slid into a satin nightgown I rarely wore. When I left the bathroom, he was standing next to the bed, dressed in only a pair of jeans, and every single square scrap of foil had disappeared.

He walked by me, pressed his lips to the top of my head without saying a word and helped himself to the bathroom. When he returned, he slid into the bed next to me, correctly assuming I wanted him there.

Then he held me close until I fell asleep.

That was three nights ago. Three days of working side by side with Cooper again, laughing and talking and cooking and kissing and touching and every night we went to bed, he pulled me to his side, pressed his lips to the top of my head, breathed deep, and...we slept.

I was tired of only sleeping next to him.

I was awake, sunlight barely beginning to rise in the morning, and I was still settled up next to Cooper. His arm was draped over my back and his hand rested on my ass.

My hand on his chest drifted across his thick, coarse hair. It tickled my palm and sent sparks of excitement through my arm and to better places. I pressed my lips to his chest, right over his heart, and unable to help myself, I slid it across his nipple. The tiny bud hardened beneath me and even though he was sleeping, I needed more.

I wanted him. I wanted to feel him move inside of me, lose all the control he always seemed to have when it came to me. He treasured me and treated me like porcelain and while I liked being taken care of, I wanted him to lose his damn mind when it came to me.

My hand on his chest drifted lower, down the thick ridge between his sculpted abs, to where his hair created a path to my destination. I ran my fingertip along that line and tilted my chin.

His eyes were slits, opened and facing my direction.

“Good morning.”

His lips curled at the ends. “You seem to have some wandering hands.”

I slid my hand beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs. Black or white. Always skin tight. It was all he wore to bed and he looked damn sexy wearing them, too.

I still imagined burning every pair he owned.

“I had hands on a mission,” I said and brushed over a patch of shaved hair right before I reached his base.

“Shit.” His hips arched and his eyes closed. I curled my hand around his thick length. He was beautiful. Handsome and strong and confident and patient and sometimes he seemed too damn good to be true, but I still hoped it was all real.

My knight in shining armor. My protector. My caretaker.

I desperately needed him to become my lover.

My hips rolled into him, needing friction. Touching him turned me on and my breath quickened. He shifted, his hands moving to shove down his underwear. He kicked off the covers and I never lost hold of him, but then he was there, completely exposed, making himself available.

Yes.

His hips lifted and he lunged for me. I squealed, losing purchase of him, but he was on top of me, pinning my hands next to my head on the bed, and his smirk was infectious. “Perhaps I have a mission of my own to complete first.”

I lost sight of his grin because his head dipped, and then his lips were on mine. There wasn’t time to think about anything besides the weight of his body pressed against mine, the grip of his hands on mine, the taste of him, the feel of his excitement rubbing against perfect spots of me.

He lit me up like a firework, and it only took moments until I was writhing beneath him, so ready, so hot, throbbing for him I was about ready to lose my mind.

“Let my hands go,” I gasped, pulling them fruitlessly from his grip. “I need my clothes off.”

His mouth was at my neck, lower, he pressed his lips to my breasts, sucked my nipple and bit it through the thin satin. Beautiful, delicious zings of pain shot straight to my sex and I rubbed myself against him.

“Please,” I begged, gasping for breath.

“Patience. I’ll get you there when I’m good and ready.” He sucked on my nipple again. And, oh heavens. That friction between his mouth, the scrape of my satin nightgown. Bright flashes of light blinded me while I tried to focus on him and his ministrations driving me mindless.

He pulled off and glared at me. Muscles popped on his shoulders and throat, that beautiful, corded throat called to me, to mark him and bite with some animalistic need to have him.

“I’m letting you go, but you need to keep your hands where they are.”

“No way. I want to feel you.”

“You’ll get to.” He pressed my hands into the bed. “Deal?”

His self-control knew no bounds. If I didn’t agree, I risked the very real possibility he’d call this off. He had the control to do it. I, on the other hand, had lost all of mine.

“Yes.” I nodded frantically. “Deal. Please just touch me.”

I arched into him, ground my center against his thick length, silently pleading with him to take care of me. He gave me a chaste kiss on my lips.

“I’ll touch you.” His hands went to the hem of my nightie, slowly, torturing me as he pressed it up the length of my body, over my stomach, pausing to brush his thumbs over my nipples where he swirled his tongue around the one he’d neglected earlier. “You’re so damn beautiful,” he murmured against my skin.

His voice was thick.

Mine had disappeared for anything more sensical than pants and pleas to hurry.

I arched my shoulders and lifted my hands when he moved farther up, sliding my nightgown off me and flung it off to the side.

His eyes went wide, soft and admiring as his hand drifted between my breasts, down my stomach, and settled lower, cupping my sex. I throbbed against his hot hand and rolled my hips.

His gaze never left mine. “You’re so damn beautiful. Sexy and alluring.”

My abs tightened with a quiet laugh. “Stop teasing me.” A finger pressed against my clit and then slid inside. “Oh shit.”

“You want me to stop?” His lips were curled up. I wanted to kiss them and slap away his smile. He pressed and pushed that finger inside of me, and added another. “I can stop.”

“No.” I shook my head, arching into him. I contracted muscles and pulled his fingers deeper. “Don’t stop.”

“Jesus, you’re so damn tight.”

He worked me slowly, one hand on the bed at my shoulders, but like we were tied together, needing that connection or unable to stop whatever started between us, our gazes held. I gaped at him, panting and moaning for more, while he brought me to the edge, teased me with a release. He watched every expression on my face until liquid fire spread from my thighs inward, to my center and ignited.

I pressed my hands to the bed coverings at my sides, clung to the sheets while he increased his speed, added a thumb to my clit, and I shattered into a thousand beautiful, jagged pieces beneath him. He leaned over me and swallowed the rest of my ecstatic cries with his mouth and his tongue all while his fingers worked me through the peak and beyond until my body shuddered and shivered beneath him.

Slowly, he removed his fingers and I gripped his biceps. “More,” I gasped. “I want you.”

He quirked an amused grin. “I was just getting a condom.”

“Right. Good idea.”

Was it okay to laugh during some of the best pre-sex you could remember? I didn’t know. I still couldn’t stop it. He pulled more than an orgasm from me when he touched me. He yanked away all my insecurities and uncertainties. In the days since Cooper had returned, and I’d told him everything, there was nothing between us except whatever we created.

I was honest with my fears and my guilt and my regrets. He was waiting for his finalized divorce papers to be delivered.

I planned on enjoying every moment I had with him until he left me, and even knowing it was coming, I couldn’t stop myself from falling.

This man in front of me, reaching for a condom, ripping open a packet and shaking his head at the messy pile of condoms in my nightstand drawer where he’d shoved them all the other night, was a man who entered my life when I didn’t want anyone around and he kicked down my walls and shattered my windows.

He was an unstoppable force.

And he was mine, for as long as I could possibly have him.

He came back to me, and my eyes fell to his hand wrapped around his length as he slid on the condom. I covered my hand with his because I couldn’t not touch him, he was so beautiful. A sigh fell from my lips and he pushed my hand away, bent over me and kissed me and then he was there.

At my center.

Sliding against me.

Sliding inside of me.

Filling me, and it was all so damn beautiful, my eyes fluttered closed and my lips parted.

“Yes,” I whispered, as he planted himself to the root and stilled. My hands went to his hips and held him in place. “Stay here. You feel so good.”

“If I moved now, it’d be over before it began.”

I wouldn’t even be disappointed if that happened. He’d given me enough and just this hint of how good he felt inside of me, the way all of my body responded to him on a cellular level, he could come right now and it’d still drive me crazing knowing it was me driving him crazy.

He rolled his hips. Shoved deeper. I groaned through a laugh. “Brooke brought some stamina enhancing ones if you need it,” I teased.

He nipped at my lips. “I’ll show you stamina, woman.”

And God, this was playful and fun and so sexy and beautiful. We connected like we’d been doing this for years, like our bodies were puzzles and had finally found their missing piece.

He moved, pulled back, and slid inside again, lifting my leg to the side to go deeper.

He set out proving to me exactly what he said he did. The man had some serious stamina, and all of it, every single moment connected to him was pure bliss.

He brought me to another climax, drawing it out and taking his time, words of praise and encouragement on his lips. His grunts filled the room, his eyes locked on mine. It was beautiful and passionate and when I came again, reaching that peak, my fingers dug into his lower back. His speed increased as he thrust into me, quick, hard movements that sent the aftershocks of my orgasm racing through me. And when he came, he called out my name, a string of curses, and settled his mouth on mine, before he gave me all his weight.