At that, he broke into aYou’re adorablesmile that went all the way to his eyes.
Then he reached down, grabbed my hand, and started tugging me along behind him toward the rear of the ship.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“I’m taking you someplace private,” Cooper said, “so I can suck on your neck.”
BY THE TIMEwe reached the railing at the stern, we were both a little breathless.
I looked around. “I thought you said someplace private.”
Cooper gestured at the empty deck and the ocean beyond it. “Who’s going to see us? A whale?”
“Okay, then,” I said, covering my own sudden hitch of hesitation by pretending to study the churning wake trailing behind us. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Right,” Cooper said. Then he turned my shoulders to face him. Then he stepped closer, looked down, and frowned.
“You look worried,” I said.
“I’m just concentrating.”
I pressed two fingers to a spot near the jugular and said, “Somewhere around here. Nice and visible, you know? And don’t hold back. Really get in there. Go big!”
Cooper nodded, studying the area like a topographical map.
I dropped my hand, tilted my head back, and waited.
But Cooper just stood there.
“What?” I asked, likeHurry up.
“I’m just—formulating a plan.”
“Don’t overthink it,” I said.
“I’ve just… never done this before.”
“You’ve never—?”
“Given someone a hickey. That I know of.”
I let out a little laugh and said, “You haven’t?”
“Have you?” Cooper asked.
“I’m not the issue here.”
“You areone hundred percentthe issue here.”
“Fine,” I said. “I haven’t, either.”
Cooper was still hesitating. I watched his dark hair blow in the wind. At breakfast, it had been so neat—swooped forward and up. But now, after all this upper-deck drama, it was scattered all messy over his forehead.
He’d started out the day so coiffed. And this was what I’d done to him.
Though I couldn’t decide which way looked better.
“How hard can it be?” I finally said. “Just pretend I’m a water bottle and you’re really thirsty.”
