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“That’s good,” I scrape out. “That’s good news, sweetheart.”
Her eyes are damp in the moonlight.
“Yeah,” Cocoa whispers. “So can I stay with you tonight?”
In here, she means. In this bed. By my side. I lurch back to make room so fast, my back twinges.
“Thought it was the kiss,” I hear myself tell her as she stretches out beside me, so soft and sweet. Those goddamn bare thighs will haunt me to my grave, golden in the light from my lamp. “Thought you hated it so much you threw up.”
Her laugh is brokenhearted. “Oh, Mac.” A small hand smooths over my chest, and her nails scratch at my chest hairs, petting me like an over-sized cat. “Of course not. Can I prove you wrong? I’ve brushed my teeth like a million times, I swear.”
My pulse buzzes in my jaw bone. She really wants to? She wasn’t repulsed before?
“I would never expect anything…”
“Mac.” She flicks my nipple. “I know.”
“I should give you more time.” Even if our weeks together have already driven me half out of my mind. “A gentleman would.”
Cocoa’s smile trembles. “But how much time do we really have?” The words are a kick to my chest. “Besides, a gentleman would listen to what I’m saying. And I want you, Mac. I’ve wanted you this whole time.”
It’s too much, too bittersweet. The exact words I’ve been longing for, coming the night before I lose her forever. I’ll be a shell of a man once she’s gone.
“You need better taste. I’m too old for you, Cocoa.” Despite my words, I roll on top of her, bracing my arms either side of her head. She stares up at me, lips parted and pink. “You should be with someone younger. Like that rock star in town.”
Her mouth quirks up. “You hate that guy.”
So I do. “Well yeah, but I’d hate any guy you were with. Every time you so much as smile at another man, I want to toss him in the ocean and carry you off over my shoulder.”
It’s rough, for the record. Cocoa smiles ateveryone.Not to flirt, but because she’s a walking, talking ray of sunshine.
She laughs, the throaty sound sending tingles down my spine. And I’m confessing my sins, telling her how twisted I’ve become, but lying beneath me, my girl looks thrilled. She loops her arms around my neck, and her knees slide up to bracket my waist.
Fuck,she’s warm down there. The heat seeps from between her legs, scorching me through my sleep pants, and I don’t dare to flip the hem of her t-shirt up and check whether she’s wearing underwear. Not yet. I’m already hanging by a thread.
“I get jealous too,” Cocoa says.
I stare down at her, nonplussed. “I don’t talk to people. How’d you get jealous over me?”
She shrugs, smiling wider. “I find a way. Like remember last week when we got those ice creams? That woman kept licking hers, staring you dead in the eye the whole time.”
Huh. Yeah. Thought I’d dropped raspberry swirl down my shirt or something. I made Cocoa check me over three times.
Thick thighs squeeze my hips. Christ, these thighs. If I were a poet, I’d write them a sonnet.Twosonnets—one each.
“Remember what happened next?” she says.
Frowning, I wrack my brain, because it’s hard to think of anything while Cocoa’s body is stretched under mine. Especially with her fingers scratching my scalp.
She’s so warm. So alive. Peering up at me with so much trust it seizes my breath, and though I desperately want to keep up with this conversation, my instincts are screaming for me to shove my hips down andrut.
I swallow hard.
“You sat in my lap,” I say slowly, replaying the grainy footage in my head. At the time, I’d thought it a little weird—there were plenty of seats at the cafe—but I wasn’t about to question it. Because what if Cocoa agreed and moved? “And you were messing with me. You nibbled my earlobe, trying to wind me up.”
Cocoa shakes her head. “Trying to stake a claim.”
That’swhat that was? My heart gives an unsteady lurch.
