by Liora Blake
Cooper pulls back and rights my body when he sees the way I’m wobbling. The universe is clearly imbalanced in his favor, because that is the only explanation for why a guy with a knee injury can stay upright, while his touch tests the bounds of my equilibrium.
His eyes light with wry amusement and he cocks one eyebrow. “Don’t fall down. One of us being busted up is enough.”
Inside, he helps put away the groceries he brought along and inspects the turkey I traded a box of apple butter for, from a heritage breed farmer down the road. I’m determined that if we’re going to play to Thanksgiving tradition, I’m still not going to Butterball my way through it. Cooper might inspire me to do a lot of things, but sitting down to a meal of tasteless, hormone-fed, saline solution–plumped meat isn’t one of them.
He leans heavily on the refrigerator door before letting it close softly. Turning away from the countertop where I set the two—two!—pies he brought with him, I catch the last moments of his face screwing up in discomfort. I rest against the counter with one hip and prop my hand on the other.
“Short of some miracle act of flexibility, which I know you don’t possess, I’m guessing you haven’t elevated your knee since you got in the truck. Go sit down and put your leg up. I’ll get you some ice.”
Cooper shakes his head and scowls at the opposite wall.
“I’m fine.”
I sigh and try to determine the best approach for this situation. I’m hoping he isn’t going to be an enormous lout the entire time he’s here. Maybe the team doctors sent some pain medication with him. I’d gladly poke him with a syringe full of good-night juice if he keeps it up.
“Cooper, I’m not trying to baby you. I’m not interested in mothering you. But if you think I’m going to watch you suffer for no good reason, when a damn ice pack might alleviate some discomfort, let me assure you, I won’t. So suck it up, go sit down, and elevate your leg.”
Grumble, grumble. He goes and sits down. Grumble, grumble some more.
I fill a plastic bag with ice, then whack it with a rolling pin to break down the cubes into smaller pieces, wrapping a clean dish towel around the bag. Cooper has landed on the couch, reclined in a pouty slump, with his bum leg up on the coffee table. He stretches forward to take the bag from me, but I send a glare in his direction until his hands retreat. His leg isn’t up high enough, so I prop two pillows under his foot before placing the bag of ice.
Cooper waves his hands toward the mess on my coffee table, where piles of paper litter the top, with my laptop in the center of the disarray and a pocket calculator resting to one side of the keyboard.
“Project?”
Three new letters arrived from the bank’s foreclosure attorneys in the last few weeks, all reiterations on a general theme of no joke, we’re coming to take your shit. As if I were unclear about the lovely state of my affairs. The letters are scattered on the keyboard, and I don’t much care for Cooper to see the details of my impending failures, so I slap the laptop shut.
No miracle phone calls from the folks at the Boulder slow money outfit, either, so I’ve been researching other community lending organizations, emailing a few more loan officers at big banks, and reading up on every last-resort alternative that exists.
“Still trying to get financing. The Boulder thing hasn’t panned out, so I’m investigating other options.”
I shimmy up next to Cooper, one arm propped on the back of the couch. He squints a little, purses his lips. Oh, boy. He’s trying not to say something. Failing to hide his frustration, as usual. I raise my brows.
“You’re clearly not investigating all your options.”
“Yes, I am. I’m looking into all the non-squicky options available to me.”
His head flops back to the couch. “You say I’m stubborn, but you’re worse. I mean, who else in your position would just tell me to go to hell, when they—”
I cut him off by raising my palm and closing my eyes. He pauses. I lower my hand and he starts in again. “Just tell me how much you need. It can’t be that much. You can’t possibly need millions—”
My hand is apparently quite powerful, because just my palm being thrust forward quiets him again. I keep my hand up until I’ve said what I need to say.
“I’m not sure why you don’t want to hear me when I say this. No. Not maybe, or convince me. No.”
“I don’t want to hear it because you’re being shortsighted. Let’s talk about this. I’m here for a few days; we’ll talk through what you need and come up with a game plan.”
“OK, sounds great. After we talk about my financial failures, do you want to talk about your knee? Or your contract? Because we can. I’m sure you’d love that.”
His face darkens. I lock my eyes on his and refuse to waver. Glare all you want, Lowry. We continue staring, giving each other hard looks until I find myself focusing too much on his mouth. Then he’s leaning toward me, placing a hand at the back of my neck, and groaning into an openmouthed kiss that effectively ends our scowling duel.
Cooper traces his lips down my jawline, then nuzzles his face deeply into my neck, so much that my hair covers his face. He inhales and then releases it slowly, defeated.
“I don’t want to fight about this. I want to help you, Hawaiian Tropic. You said you don’t want to baby or mother me. Good. I’m not trying to play Prince Charming to your Cinderella, either. But watching you struggle isn’t OK with me. If I told you to suck it up and let me help, would you?”
“Nope. There’s a huge difference between getting someone an ice pack and writing a check for a large sum of money. But more important, did you just call me Hawaiian Tropic?”
He grins, a sheepish little tilt of his mouth, before setting his gaze to mine.
“You smell coconutty all the time. That first night in the drugstore, I noticed it right away, even though my head hurt like hell. I’m guessing it’s some sort of fancy lotion or something, but it makes me think of suntan oil.”
I shake my head. “It’s not anything fancy. The opposite of fancy, actually. I buy coconut oil by the vat and use it everywhere.”
Cooper tips his head to one side and blinks. “Everywhere?”
That—the way Cooper manages to turn a simple word or phrase into the promise of more—will never get old. Two open hands to his chest and I push him back, righting him on the couch until I can carefully straddle him. Once I do, he grabs my hips and gives a push. I lock my quads and glance down at his legs.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”
Cooper growls and pushes down again, until I settle my weight watchfully. Even so, the ice pack falls off his leg and rattles to the floor. I cast a glance over my shoulder and make to retrieve it. Cooper stops me.
“Leave it.” I start to ask him again if he’s sure, but he cuts me off. “I’m fine. If I’m not fine, I’ll tell you, but until then I need you to stop asking.”
Without pause, he yanks my shirt up and off. A quick tug on my bra cup until his tongue finds my nipple, which pebbles to a peak almost instantly. His palm cups my flesh and every touch is as good as I remember. I can feel him, already hard under the thin fabric of his pants, and when I start to work my body over that spot, Cooper nudges his hips up to meet my movements.
“Fuck, this is what got me through the last few weeks being away from you. I came so hard every time I thought about you this way, rubbing your pussy against me. My fingers, my face, my cock. Couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
I grind down harder and Cooper encourages every roll of my hips, using his hands to guide my movements. I draw my core across the length of him, urgent and rough, seeking more pressure. Cooper lets out a sharp grunt and stills beneath me.
“Hold on. One second, I just need to …”
I realize he’s been holding his breath and that grunt was actually a harsh exhale. He tries to slouch down so my weight is farther from his knee brace. I lift my body and once he’s in position, he swats my hip to prompt me. I stay
put, rest my hands on his shoulders, and give a resigned sigh.
“This is a bad idea.”
Cooper smacks my thigh again. “No, it’s not a bad idea. This is a good idea.”
He tugs on my hips, but because I’m holding his shoulders and engaging every muscle in my body, I don’t move. I shake my head, eyes closed.
“Whitney, get down here. I already said, if I can’t do something, I’ll tell you. You’ve lost your mind if you think we’re going to be able to stay off each other while I’m here, just because of my knee.”
When his hands slip around to the front of my leggings, his fingers hooking the fabric at the waist and rolling it down enough to skim the skin just inches from where my body aches, I nearly crumple. The hinges of his knee brace creak quietly when he leans forward to kiss my belly. After that, all I can hear is the squeaky reminder of why I need to take care of him, if he can’t be trusted to do it on his own.
I pull his hands away, but his mouth remains pressed to the skin of my belly. His wary eyes flicker upward just as I move backward and slip off him, finding the floor between his legs.
“I have a better idea.”
He curses and grumbles under his breath. Looking up, I draw my hands across his thighs.
“Honestly, that isn’t the sound I wanted to hear you make when I landed here,” I say.
“Yeah, well, this isn’t how I wanted you to end up there.” His head tips back to face the ceiling.
“Why?”
My hands come to lie across his length, still over the fabric, but despite that barrier I’d swear he grows harder at the contact. Maybe it’s a leap to think that an orgasm can solve anything of significance, but I want to try. Fix his world for as long as it takes to forget the rest.
“The last thing I want is some pity blow job because you think I can’t take care of you properly. I can.”
I grasp the waist of his pants. He might be objecting with words, but he lifts his hips anyway, pressing up with his arms so I can tug down and set him free. He exhales sharply as I take him in hand and when I take a slow pull from base to tip, he actually shudders. Cooper Lowry—all that mass, all that power—just shuddered under my touch. Nothing could be better.
“There is no such thing as a pity blow job. Doesn’t exist. Women might do this for a million reasons, but pity isn’t one of them.”
Leaning closer, I rub my thumb over the tip. “Maybe while we were apart, I was thinking about how I hadn’t had you this way yet. How crazy it would feel to have a guy like you at my mercy.”
Cooper’s head jerks up off the back of the couch. He captures my face in his hands and stills my movements.
“I’ve been at your fucking mercy since we met.”
His expression is entirely serious. No joking around, no bullshit. I turn my face enough to kiss one of his palms.
“Does that bother you?”
His gaze roams my face, moving one thumb across my mouth, the tip just breaching my lips. I suck gently, giving him a preview of what my mouth can offer once he releases me, letting my tongue slip softly across the end of his thumb. He draws his hands up, threading his fingers through my hair.
“Not nearly as much as I would have thought. I think I like it.”
Good answer. I bend down and his hands drop from my hair. He’s tired and sad and feeling less than his usual demanding self, so I take him in without toying. All the way on the first stroke, and he groans loudly when my hand comes into play. Just as I find a steady rhythm we both seem to like, he gently pushes on my shoulders to shift his body away. I look up to find his eyes hooded and heavy, hands balled into tight fists set atop his thighs.
“Tell me how far you want this to go. I’m already hanging by a thread here, so you should tell me now if you expect a shoulder tap or something.”
I nearly laugh, letting him slip from my mouth while keeping my hand in position and roaming. Up and down, lingering over the head, circling.
“Such a gentleman all of a sudden.” Another pass with my hand, but with a firmer grip. His jaw clenches. “No need. You have one responsibility right now, and that’s to relax enough to let me do this. That, and maybe grab my hair a little.”
Cooper’s jaw slackens and his entire body seems to sag in relief.
“Fuck it. Pity me—I don’t care. I’ll do whatever you want. Relax, tug on your hair, anything. I’ve been away from you for weeks and nothing I did would take the edge off. Just don’t make me wait—I’m fucking dying for this.”
My mouth finds him again, no teasing, no delicate touches to see what he likes, because Cooper prefers his sex on the intense side; I already know that. He goes at it hard enough to rattle pictures off the wall and test the strength of the furniture, so I try to match up my style accordingly. His hips start to jerk, shoving deeper. He tangles his fingers into my hair, and when he latches on he forgets himself entirely, lost to the experience. When I suck harder in response, do what I can to let him know how much I love the feel of him this way, it takes only a few seconds for him to find the edge, coming hard enough to lose his voice for a second.
I give a few featherlight sweeps of my tongue, until he shudders again and shifts his body back, conveying that it’s too much now. Still, I just did some of my best work. Because Cooper is quite obviously sated and drained, and licked entirely clean. He swipes a hand over his face and exhales, but he doesn’t open his eyes.
“If we do the whole share what you’re grateful for thing at dinner tomorrow, you should know I’m planning to mention what just happened. I’m going to use the words blow job at our Thanksgiving dinner table. Just be prepared.”
18
(Whitney)
“Whit! I need your hands for a second.”
I dog-ear the page in my book and toss it on the coffee table with a heavy sigh. I’m happy to give Cooper my hands. Either to strangle him or to deter him away from the kitchen and steer him toward the bedroom.
I had no idea that making Thanksgiving dinner could be such a noisy affair. Especially with just two people present, secluded in a decrepit farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. But since the moment Cooper woke up this morning, it’s been nothing but an ongoing racket. Apparently I’ve lived alone for too long, because we’re closing in on four hours of this commotion and I’m nearing the limit on what I had always believed was my limitless patience.
It all started with the horrified groaning noise he made upon remembering that I don’t own a television. Thanksgiving is inherently tied to football in his world, so there was no scenario in which he might let me flip on a radio as low background noise and, God forbid, not watch the game.
After he set up his laptop on the kitchen table, he proceeded to stream football coverage at what must be the max volume setting available. Then he commandeered my laptop to access the internet for all the assorted cooking quandaries that have arisen over the last few hours, most of which inspired him to curse or hum or singsong his way through the solution. All of this was after he essentially reorganized my kitchen. He asked permission, but I knew it was mostly for show. If I had said no, he would have done it surreptitiously anyway. One colander, one mixing bowl, one soupspoon at a time.
Not to mention the incessant thwack of him rough-chopping vegetables with the largest knife I own and the way he’s incapable of letting a cupboard door or a kitchen drawer thud softly closed. No, he shows that cupboard door who’s boss. Every time. Dishware rattles, silverware clangs.
He’s cute, but barely cute enough for me to put up with much more of this. I’m comforted only by the fact that the turkey is currently roasting away in the oven alongside his spinach gratin, and the stuffing is nearly ready to go. Mashed potatoes are the last frontier. How loud can he possibly be while peeling and boiling potatoes?
When I stroll into the kitchen, Cooper has both hands deep in a large mixing bowl and is giving its contents a dirty look. I stride closer and peer in.
“Problem?”
Cooper
raises his hands from the bowl of stuffing he’s trying to put together, fingers covered in gloppy masses of the bread mixture. His fingers look a bit like corn dogs that have been battered in all the wrong ways. “This doesn’t look right.”
The streaming football coverage blares behind us and a color commentator starts to shout. Cooper immediately cranes his neck around to see what’s happening. One of his corn-dog fingers flops into the bowl.
He’s so cute, I chant silently. I have limitless patience.
Cooper speaks again but doesn’t shift his eyes from the laptop. “Brace yourself. We have to call my mom.”
“Why?”
“To see if this stuffing can be saved.” Still no eye contact, just a jut of his chin toward the kitchen table. “Grab my phone, will you? Put it on speaker for me.”
He rattles off his pass code; I find his mom’s number, press send, and hold it up for him. Two rings and—I had no idea this was possible—things get even louder.
“Pooper! Merry turkey day!”
Definitely not his mom. One of the brothers, I’d guess, because Cooper tries to look pissed off at what can only be a sibling-coined corruption of his name, but a grin takes over.
“Who the hell is this, Dumb or Dumber? Does Mom know you’re touching her phone?”
Must be one of the twins. Cooper’s family tree goes like this: Mom is Patty, Dad is Gene, oldest brother is Caleb, followed by the twins, Matthew and Michael. Then Cooper. Or, as any youngest brother with that name should be known, Pooper.
“Mom went to get Dad some more ’Stone’s before the depot closed—turkey frying makes him thirsty. But this is the handsome twin. Does that help?”
Cooper tilts his head my way and speaks in my direction.
“I can’t tell the difference between them on the phone. They sound exactly the same. It’s creepy.”
“Who’s that? Mom said you were going to Aaron’s. You’d better be there or she’ll flip her lid. You know how she gets about you. Constantly worrying about her precious little jujube.”