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Yep, you’re into her. Like I said. Fucking asshole in his head.
The words at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be said, were pretty much that: she’d said nobody would be into her, and he wanted to reassure her on that point. But he had no idea how she’d take it. Also, she’d just described a thwarted sexual attack, and he didn’t want to get too close to that with any notion that he might want her sexually. Also, and he needed to keep this in mind: BAD IDEA.
All he said was, “We can stop.”
“No,” she said, taking a couple steps toward him. “I don’t want to stop training. I want to stop being scared all the time. I want to feel like I can protect myself. There’s nobody but me to do it.”
Now the fucking knight was rattling his sword in Cooper’s chest. What was goingonwith him lately? When had he turned into a hero?
“Okay, then let’s try again,” he said, shoving the rest of his mental mess aside.
She came back to him, turning away when she was right in front of him, giving him her back.
This time, he warned her. “I’m going to get hold of you like I did before, and you try to break my hold again. Try not to panic, just put all your effort into it.”
When she nodded, he wrapped his arms around her. This time, yeah, he felt the difference of her chest, but it wasn’t unpleasant or disappointing, or any other dumb thing nobody but Siena had a right to feel about her body. It was just how she felt.
How she felt, in fact, was great. Her fair ponytail brushed his face and neck, and a faint, subtly floral waft of shampoo slipped into his nose. It took a conscious effort to resist dropping his head to hers and breathing deep. Her body was warm and sleek; it fit against his snuggly. She was tense in his arms, yes, but that was to be expected; she was about to try to rip his hold apart.
Her hands came up and hooked around his forearms, and he tensed up, ready to fight her pull. But she didn’t pull. They stood there, him holding her like a predator, her holding him like she was afraid he’d let go. Her body swelled in his arms and shrank again as she took in a deep breath and let it out. The air stuttered over his arms.
Not appealing to anyone, she’d said. He’d let that statement stand because he hadn’t known how to respond. It wasn’t true, though, and now he saw she needed to know that. But how would she take it? He couldn’t say.
He pressed his lips to her head.
A quick intake of breath, and then she went still again. Cooper indulged in the silky softness of that ponytail, the soft flowers of its scent.
“Cooper,” she whispered. It was all she said, but he heard the word ‘stop’ in her tone.
“You’re appealing to me,” he said, softly, before she could give that word the space between them. Her head shook, and he insisted, “Yeah, you are.”
She turned slightly; not enough to look him in the eye, but enough so he could see that her eyes were closed. “Please don’t say things you don’t mean. I don’t want pretty lies. I don’t need pity, or a rescue. I’m okay on my own.”
Pulling his arms free, he turned her and framed her face between his hands. In her lovely blue eyes, he saw fear and suspicion—and also need. And want.
“I mean it, Siena. Not a pretty lie, but a real truth. I don’t want to push you, or do anything you don’t want. But I want you.”
She stared up at him, her eyes slightly narrowed, like she was trying to see through his pupils and find the shape of truth in his head.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
Her search of his inner landscape ended with a blink. “You’re a man whoasks,” she whispered.
Cooper grinned. The temperature between them had heated up substantially as the tension calmed. “I only take what a woman wants to give me.” Bending to her, he went right to the brink of a kiss, close enough to feel her breath over his lips, to smell the faintest hint of mint wafting through her open mouth. “What do you want to give me, Siena?” he murmured.
“I don’t know how to protect myself from this.”
“You don’t have to.”
With a tiny whimper, she rose onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
There would never be a time when Cooper would take an accounting of the women he’d been with in his life. The number was sizeable, and he didn’t need to think of it beyond that. He remembered a few particular women in detail, and the sweetbutts in Tulsa he’d fucked often, of course, but most he wouldn’t be able to recall even their names, even under torture. If he thought about that too much, he’d feel like an asshole.
But from the instant Siena’s lips touched his, he knew he’d remember her, and this kiss in particular. It started slowly, her lips pressed to his, then him taking it over, covering her mouth with his as his arms circled her slim, firm body, drawing her tightly to him. He felt her trembles, heard her whimpers. When he sent his tongue into her mouth, she flinched subtly, but before he might have pulled back to check in with her, her arms flew around his neck and squeezed, and her tongue found his and began to dance.
Cooper wasn’t one to think much when he had a woman in his arms, but his mind wouldn’t shut up now. This kiss ... this kiss was more than their lips and tongues, their arms and hands, their bodies. This kissmeant something.
This kiss was an end to suspicion and conflict between them, and the beginning of something new. He felt it, in a way he never had before: this moment was more than itself. Right here, right now, standing on the mats in his home gym, he and Siena were starting something.
