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“No!” She rushed to assure him. “No, it’s not that at all.” Then she shrugged, though she knew exactly why he unsettled her. “Just the opposite actually. You’ve been too nice, and I don’t deserve it. I…there’s just so much uncomfortable history between us, so many unresolved loose ends. You know things about me only my closest family knows. And you’ve kept my…my teenage issues private for me all these years.”
“Jo Ellen.” He blew out a long breath, sounding exasperated if not a trifle insulted. “If you’re afraid I’ll blab—”
“No!” Yet again, she was quick to calm him. “No, I know you’re reliable. I just…I mean, you…God, you must think I’m a total slut.”
His eyes actually widened as he sputtered. “Not at all.”
She narrowed her gaze unable to believe him. “Not even after that night?” she insisted. “I know I came onto you. And I was probably already pregnant. I remember reaching for your…your…and you pulled my hand away, stopping me.”
As he flushed and coughed into his fist, she felt her own face grew hot. Ducking his head, he mumbled, “I didn’t stop everything you tried.”
The heat that had just filled her cheeks drained out immediately. “Oh my God. I gave you a hand job, didn’t I?”
Instead of sending her a guilty nod, he burst out laughing. She caught her breath, drawn by the honest, open sound. Everything about this huge, beautiful man was so honest and open; polite and courteous. He was simply too good to be true.
“No,” he managed to say through his chuckles. “You didn’t do that.”
Her shoulders slumped, a little bit with relief and strangely enough, a little bit with disappointment. She felt like an oven top, the burner constantly changing from bright orange to no color while her body only grew hotter, because her face which had been chilly a second before, and hot a second before that, returned to scalding.
Curious, she had to ask, “So…um, what exactly didn’t you stop me from doing?”
“A kiss,” he admitted nearly on a whisper. His pale brown, whiskey eyes lifted. “Then another kiss.”
She cleared her throat, trying to remain professional, unaffected. With a nod, she hoarsely admitted, “I remember some kissing.”
“Do you remember when I braced your back against the wall of your house right by the back door?” he asked. He seemed closer all of a sudden. She would’ve sworn he hadn’t moved, and she knew she hadn’t moved, but the space between them looked entirely nonexistent, when there’d been plenty of room a second ago. “And how I kissed you some more, our bodies pressed tight, our hands all over each other, our mouths open and seeking?”
“No,” she croaked, gulping as her throat contracted, unable to help but envision the scene he drew as if she could almost recall it exactly as he described. “I don’t remember that.”
He confirmed it with a bob of his head. “Then I, uh, I lifted my knee…up between your legs.”
Heat suffused her…between her legs. She could dang near feel him there now, his warm, thick leg wedged tight against her as she—
“You rode my thigh until…”
When his words drifted off, her eyes
grew large. “Until?”
His eyes dilated as he stared at her, his pupils so large they nearly swallowed the whiskey color whole as he confessed, “Until you came.”
His quiet simple words made her body spark, a phantom bolt of pleasure igniting inside her.
Her lips parted. “I…I…?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Oh,” she barely breathed out the word.
“So you see.” He paused to clear his throat and glance out the front windshield at her parked car. “I’m the one who owes you the apology. I took advantage of you in the most intimate way possible. Then I went and upset you when you were pregnant, caused you to have a miscarriage, and—”
She didn’t know how else to hush him, so she lifted her hand and set it over his mouth.
Instantly, he stopped talking. Warm, moist breath rushed across the tips of her fingers.
“Is that what you think?” she asked, incredulous. “That you caused my miscarriage? Cooper, you were the only person trying to help me. You didn’t leave me stranded when you found out I was pregnant. You didn’t threaten to put my baby up for adoption.” He opened his mouth under her hand so she swiftly inserted, “You did not cause my miscarriage. And you certainly didn’t take advantage of me. No other boy in your boots would’ve stopped when you did.”
“I nearly didn’t stop.” He closed his eyes, his face ravaged by obvious guilt.
