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“Coop.”
My breathless whisper is lost between us as his hands dig down the back of my shorts to massage my ass. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, holding him in place to torment the sensitive skin his tongue teases on my neck. A strangled cry catches in my throat as he uses his grip to lift me, grinding his erection into me when he uses his hard body to pin me to the door.
His lips find mine again in another friendship-obliterating kiss that has both of us groaning with desperate need. He peels us from the door, carting me to the desk. Setting me on it, he pops the button on my shorts and wrestles them off me in seconds, along with my panties. He shucks his tented shorts while he digs through a drawer for a condom. As he searches, my hands close around his dick. The hot, silky soft skin always fascinates me, and I love the sounds he makes when I stroke it.
He pauses, burying a groan in my neck. “Jesus, fuck, baby girl. You’re killing me.” Nipping my flushed skin in retaliation, he slams the drawer shut and delves his finger between my thighs, teasing my folds. “Always so wet for me.”
It’s true. My clit throbs and I suck in a breath as he brushes it with his thumb.
Friends don’t get this wet for people they’rejust friendswith.
The thought flies out of my head once Cooper rolls on a condom and squeezes the back of my neck, encouraging my attention to fall to his cock lining up.
“Watch,” he rasps.
I sink my teeth into my lip, lashes fluttering as he enters me in a smooth stroke. The sight of him fucking me is filthy, but I can’t take my eyes off it. Not until he guides my leg higher on his hip and finds an angle that makes me throw my head back. This time it feels different from our first time, the pleasure more intense.
The desk rattles the wall with our frenzied romp. He takes me as hard as I beg him to, my nails scraping his shoulders as I shatter over and over for him.
“T,” Cooper murmurs repeatedly while he takes me apart, branding me with his touch.
The way he says it is a hot, possessive claim. I want it. His claim over me. I don’t want to let go of this, even if it’s fake.
Closing my eyes, I tighten my arms, memorizing every place where our bodies touch to have this for a little longer before I need to walk away to protect my heart.
TWENTY-FOUR
COOPER
Hours after Tatum leaves, I’m still awake, staring at my ceiling. It’s been a while since insomnia kept my mind going, not since Tatum and I started messing around. Netflix has asked four times if I’m still watching the nature documentary we put on before she left. I kept it on once she was gone because it made it feel like she was still nestled against my side, tickling my stomach absently while she watched the restoration on the Barrier Reef.
I scrub my hands over my face and release a bone-deep sigh. “You fucked up.”
Tatum’s comment about what I could be doing instead of spending time with her has stayed with me. So does my reaction to the idea of her staging a breakup to fix things between me and Jackson.
When she turned her back on me to leave, something panicked rose up in me. I couldn’t let her go, not without branding myself on her first. I came up with the excuse to watch Netflix just to have more time.
Then she had to go and turn those beautiful blue eyes on me and drown me in their depths to ask me to be something I know we can never be.
Friends. That was my breaking point. I don’t want to be Tatum’s fucking friend.
It took her saying it was over—that I couldn’t touch her anymore—to realize I can’t let her go yet. The thought of letting her go, of not having this thing between us anymore by cutting things off early, hit me hard in the chest.
It might have been Tatum’s idea to start this deal, but I want to change it because I’m not ready for us to be over. I’m not about to lose her over this. Except she doesn’t even see herself as someone on my radar, believing I’ve spent all summer biding my time until I could have someone else.
I need to pitch this like a mutually beneficial project, the same way she approached this, offering me her tutoring strengths (academic) in exchange for my tutoring (spicy). That adorable Tatum Logic I love inspires my middle of the night thoughts, helping me form a plan that will help me work her up to the idea of us.
This is the perfect chance to clean up my image. Everyone sees me as this playboy thirst trap, and I’m not about it anymore. It’s kept me from having the kind of connection I really want in a relationship. Tatum believes it, just like everyone else.
I need to prove to her I’m not the guy she thinks. I’ll need time to pull it off. If we keep pretending to date, she’ll believe she’s helping me retire my playboy ways by learning how to have a real relationship, all while I’m making her fall for me.
The idea begins to form in my head. I stroke my chin, squinting at my ceiling. A hint of Tatum’s coconut lime shampoo hits my nose, her scent lingering on my sheets. I close my eyes as want spears through my chest.
When I think of someone to give my heart to, it’s been her in my head, hands down. Tonight she as good as told me she doesn’t see herself as mine the way I do.
What she said about wanting to experience college to the fullest runs through my head. If I ask her to be my girlfriend outright, maybe she’d say yes. It’s the worry that she might turn me down that’s got me solidifying this plan in my head.
Pretending to date gives us a better cover for the pull we both have trouble fighting. We won’t have to suffer and steal touches. No more hiding from our friends. No more girls hitting on me because I’ll be able to grab Tatum and kiss the shit out of her like I always want to. She’ll never worry about me wanting anyone but her.
