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Cooper presses his lips to the top of my head before answering, and I inhale his clean scent, memorizing it, so I can still smell it once he’s gone. “Do you really think I only just saw you, Carys?”
I tilt my head back and run my hand up his neck to the back of his head. If I ever want this to be more, I have to be honest. “I guess I do. This last week has been different. You’ve been different.”
With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he agrees with me. “I guess I have, but so have you. When I met you, you were a freshman in high school. Your brother was my best friend, and I was about to turn eighteen. There was no way anything could have happened then, but I promise you, I saw you. I always saw you.” Coop crosses his legs at his ankles and gets comfortable.
“I saw how you would beam up at Murphy any time you two were in the same room. I paid attention to the way you’d talk about being a Broadway star one day and saw every single show you performed on Kroydon Prep’s stage once I moved to town. My favorite wasRent. You killed it, but I didn’t like when you had to die for a minute at the end.”
A cool breeze blows in through the doors, and goosebumps scatter over my bare skin.
Not as much a reaction to the cold as the realization that this man has always seen me.
“I watched you get quiet when there were too many people around. The way you prefer to be surrounded by people you know, people you feel safe with. I know the freckles across your nose and cheeks get darker in the summer and you hate the ocean at night. I’ve been watching you for a long time, baby. But our family situation is complicated. I haven’t figured out how we’re going to deal with all that yet. But seeing you last week... away from everyone else.” He trails the tips of his fingers along my throat, and I shiver as the heat building between us comes close to incinerating us both.
“You’re not that kid anymore, Carys. Neither of us is.”
I lay my face against his shoulder and hide my eyes. “I saw you too, you know?”
Laughter rumbles up his exquisite chest. “Yeah. You weren’t as good at hiding it as I was.”
“You asshole,” I laugh and try to yank away from him, but he tugs me back.
“Hey, now. Don’t be like that. I liked the way you looked at me.”
We lie in the quiet of the room, listening to the storm outside play its own tune as sleep slowly tugs at the two of us.
“Sing me something, Carys,” he whispers as the weather rages on.
Without overthinking it, I sing the old Lifehouse song we danced to years ago while I run my fingers over his chest. And by the time I sing the last words of the song, his breathing has evened out, and his strong, hard body has relaxed around me.
Everything but the grip he has on me.
That’s tighter now than it’s ever been.
On my body and on my heart.
* * *
When an alarm rings softly from Cooper’s phone hours later, I brace myself. He’s leaving, and I don’t know where he’s going or when he’s coming back. I don’t know how to do this, but I’m about to learn.
Baptism by fire and all that good stuff.
His blue eyes crack open and meet mine. “I’m sorry.” His voice is rough with sleep, and I want nothing more than for the two of us to lie back down and block out the rest of the world while we hide under the covers. But that can’t happen. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He sinks back down into the mattress as if reading my mind, then pulls me closer.
I burrow deeper, needing to be as close to him as possible. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been awake.”
Cooper’s hand slips under my nightshirt, skims over my lacy cheeky panties, and stops on my rib cage. He doesn’t move it any higher. Doesn’t so much as hint that he wants what I’m dying for. “Were you watching me sleep, beautiful? Sounds kinda creepy.”
“We’ve already established that we both like watching, Cooper Sinclair. Don’t tell me the big bad SEAL gets creeped out by little old me.”
“There are so many things I want to watch you do, baby.” He has a devious glint in his eyes as he lowers his mouth down to mine and slides his tongue along the seam of my lips, silently begging for entrance that I’d never refuse. Then he rolls me under him.
Nothing has ever felt as good as Cooper’s weight on my body.
His chest against mine.
The strength of his arms wrapped around me.
And when the sleep timer on his phone chimes again, reminding him it’s time to go, I want to cry that this moment is over too soon. Cooper rolls over and silences the alarm on the nightstand. “I’m sorry, Carys. As much as I wish I didn’t have to leave, the Navy doesn’t accept excuses.”
