Let Me Love You (Love #4)(29)
Author: Megan Smith

The operator smiles and nods at us before pulling the bar over our laps.

Cooper puts his arm over my shoulders again and pulls me closer to him. I smile up at him and then turn to look out over the ocean. The waves crash onto the shore but just past the white caps everything is calm and peaceful.

“Hey,” Cooper whispers in my ear, drawing my attention to him.

Chills sweep over my body from the heat of his breath against my cool skin and it’s everything I can do not to give into that heat. I turn towards him and his eyes are fiery, a desire even I can see. An undeniable pull was building between us and the way he looks at me now, that pull was becoming magnetic, something neither of us wanted to turn away from. It would feel unnatural to turn away. Things over the last month or two have been getting intense. The exchanging of long looks are more often, the hand holding was something new, and the protectiveness over me when we were around his friends was at an all-time high. It wasn’t something I thought anymore, I felt it.

Cooper cups the side of my face with his strong hands and runs his thumb over my bottom lip. My heartbeat skyrockets, my breathing hitching at the sensation. It’s everything I can do not to sigh.

He looks down at my lips and then licks his. “I’m going to kiss you. If you don’t want me to you’ve got to stop me now.”

I want him to kiss me, God, do I want him to. I think he knows this. My cheeks color under the intense heat of his gaze, giving me away. I stick out my tongue and slowly wet my lips before Cooper groans and crashes his lips to mine. His kiss is urgent, controlled and demanding, nothing like the kisses that we shared in the past when playing games as kids. I can’t deny that the kiss sparked something in the both of us. It did. I can feel it and I’m sure he can too. This kiss has meaning and passion behind it. It has promises and magic. It’s as thrill seeking as the carnival and as calming as the ocean.

I rest a hand on Cooper’s thigh and one on his chest to angle myself more towards him. He slides the hand that’s cupping my face into my hair. With a sigh, his tongue traces the seam of my lips and I open, giving him the access that he wanted, begging him for it. The kiss starts to get frenzied but suddenly Cooper stops. He leans his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t because his words wouldn’t be heard anyway.

“Jesus,” I giggle, finding some words to put into perspective what that was for us, or at least for me.

Cooper chuckles and places another soft and gentler kiss on my lips this time.

Just before the ride comes to an end I reach into my purse and pull out my phone, wanting to capture the memory. Leaning my head against Cooper’s shoulder, he kisses the top of it just as I press the button.

A perfect picture.

I’m not sure what time it is when the smell of coffee drags me from my room later that morning. I couldn’t fall back asleep after my nightmare so I picked up my Kindle, needing to escape from the real world for a while. Soon enough I’m lost in something other than myself, which is nice these days.

Mom’s sitting at the kitchen table flipping through a magazine when I walk in.

“Morning.”

She looks up over her coffee mug, “Morning.”

I can’t stop thinking about the way she looked at me last night and the feeling she must have had, knowing she couldn’t do anything for me.

After I pour myself a cup of coffee, I find my way over to her and take a seat at the table. “Did you go back asleep?” It’s a silly question to ask because I know she didn’t, her eyes are still tired and they’re underlined with bags. It makes that feeling I have inside embed a little further, knowing she’s lost sleep over me.

I sigh, knowing I need to talk to my mom because there’s no way around it anymore. I’m dreading this talk but now that I don’t have Cooper, my rock, for support, I’m going to need someone else to keep me moving forward. MacKenzie is too wrapped up with Ryder and Olivia now. Hailey has enough on her plate and needs to keep her blood pressure down. Jackson and Chloe are trying for another baby so I don’t want to stress her out about this either. No way could I ever talk to Hunter, and Mason and Jackson are just out of the picture. I have a few friends from the soccer team but none that I would share this type of stuff with, so really the only other person is my mom.

I take a deep breath and say what I never expected I would this morning. “Let’s go out into the living room and talk, Mom.”

We both refill our cups of coffee and sit on the couch. My stomach is in knots from the fear and anxiety of having to relive that night again. Part of me hopes that I can get it out without a panic attack but there’s no saying that won’t happen.

I look over at my mom, take a deep breath and begin. My voice is steady in the beginning and holds a certain amount of regret for what I’m about to say. “I’m going to start from the beginning.” I let out deep breath. “This is hard for me mom, but just let me get through it, okay?”

“I don’t like the sound of this.” Mom looks concerned, her eyes searching mine for a clue as to what’s to come. I’m not sure what she sees when she looks at me but I wonder if it’s anything like I feel; cold and empty.

“And I don’t like that it happened.” I say, my voice flat.

So I start from the beginning of the night and as I speak I’m in that moment again, as if it’s replaying for me with every detail that I didn’t remember it being. It’s vivid, so real and frightening that I fear, when I’m done telling her, I won’t be able to come out of it.

Mason promised Hailey that he would stop going out so much because he didn’t need to worry about getting laid every day, so Cooper had been riding solo to the parties most days or he would go out with his friend Eli. On rare occasions, the boys actually got a Saturday night free, but most of the time they were away at games.

With a free night, Mason, Eli, Cooper and I all went out for pizza. Cooper and Eli were talking about a party at one of the frat houses that they wanted to go to. Eli looked over to me and asked if I was going. It seemed like it was going to be a good time by the way they were talking, so of course I wanted to go. I didn’t feel like going back to my dorm and doing homework. Cooper and Mason both shot that idea right down. No way could I go; girls like me didn’t belong at parties like that. I was a little hurt but damn it I wanted to go and see what all the hype was about. Girls from my soccer team were always talking about them and I wanted to check it out for myself. The thought of showing up with Cooper and Eli was a little exciting and powerful since they were pretty popular around campus. Plus I wanted a little of Cooper’s attention. So that night I wasn’t taking no for an answer, I was going to that party no matter what. After a few bats of my eyelashes, Cooper agreed. He wasn’t happy about it and bitched and complained the whole time. We dropped Mason off back at the house they were renting then the three of us headed off to the party. Eli was in the back texting away on his phone while I sat up front with Cooper.