On the Corner of Love and Hate

by Nina Bocci

  My mother had kept a secret from me? That she was teaching my friends to cook without my knowing about it? I was both proud and annoyed at the same time.

  “I had no idea,” I said, sipping my own glass of wine now. I enjoyed the warming of it versus the sheer fire from earlier. I would have to slow down, or I’d be in trouble.

  “If I say this is delicious and it gets back to my mother, I will kill you and no one will find your body.”

  “I believe you. It’s why you don’t have a knife.” He winked.

  He winked.

  He winked? Cooper winks at you only if he wants to get into your pants.

  EMMA REMINDER: Cooper winks at everyone. Probably even animals. It means nothing.

  In the back of my mind, I was minutely aware of a shift happening. I couldn’t tell what it was or why it was happening. I just knew that something was dancing around trying to make me acknowledge it.

  You’re supposed to be talking to him.

  Proving that this is all in your head.

  There isn’t any substance to Whitney’s assumption.

  There are no feelings here.

  The feelings I was experiencing now were more than just the wine talking. More than being lonely for male company and being in close proximity to a man who exuded unabashed sexuality. My skin felt hot, too tight, and it wasn’t dainty little butterflies fluttering around my stomach—these were more like dangerously horny, stripteasing dragonflies that were willing to throw caution to the wind.

  Instead of broaching the subject, I shoved a forkful of risotto into my mouth.

  I then proceeded to moan. It was loud and deep, and it didn’t sound like it involved food. “That’s so good.”

  Cooper’s fork clattered to the table, spraying rice across it. A shrimp plopped to the floor. I couldn’t look at him. Nothing good would happen if I looked up.

  “Emma,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Say something. What did you want to talk to me about the other night at Dr. Bishop’s?”

  I pursed my lips, pulling the bottom one in under my top teeth. “Whitney said some things that got me thinking.”

  He blew out a long breath. “She said the two of you talked, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was about. You’re upset. I can fix this. Tell me how to fix this.”

  If only it were that easy. “This is different from the campaign. I can’t tell you how to fix it because it’s not you who has to fix anything, Cooper. I have to—well, I have to think about how much truth there is to what she said.”

  Not looking at him was getting to me. I wanted to see his face. To confirm my suspicions that he would be looking at me like he always did when I made eye contact. That I wouldn’t see something that hadn’t been there before.

  When I looked up, he had his fingers on his temples, rubbing in circles.

  “If I can’t fix it, where does that leave us?” he asked, motioning between us. He was looking over at me with those big eyes, and the tidal wave of emotions escalated into a typhoon.

  Where does that leave us? There was another million-dollar question.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

  “Emma.” His voice broke just a bit at the end of my name.

  “She thinks that I have feelings for you,” I blurted out. Well, that dam was open. No point in stopping the flood now. “Unresolved ones. From, like, way back. Way, way back. Back in the day. Feelings that aren’t hateful, murderous, or violent. You know, those kind.”

  I grabbed for my wineglass at the same time Cooper reached for his. Simultaneously we raised them to our mouths.

  Over tipped-back glasses, our eyes met, held, and flickered down at each other’s mouths at the same time.

  It was a game of wills, neither of us breaking the staring contest. Or the chugging contest, as it were, because we each polished off the wine in a few pulls.

  “More wine?” he gasped, bolting up from his seat with our glasses in hand to fill them with the bottle on the island.

  The wine was working through me like liquid fire. I felt it everywhere from my lips to my swollen breasts to the tips of my toes. “I really shouldn’t,” I said, shoving another forkful of rice into my mouth.

  When I looked up, Cooper’s eyes were on my lips again. My tongue darted out to lick across them, and I watched as his eyes followed my tongue from one side of my bottom lip to the other before it disappeared back into my mouth.

  “On second thought, wine sounds good. Great, even. Let’s eat at the counter. Standing. Standing is good for digestion.” What the fuck is wrong with you?

  I stood and carried the bowls and flatware to the island. Once I joined him at the counter with our glasses, I felt thirstier than ever. I grabbed my glass and drained it. He did the same. I reached for the bottle to refill at the same time as Cooper did. His hand covered mine.

  It was hot and sweaty, and I wondered at that moment what his hand would feel like sliding against my skin. I swallowed, mindful of the fact that it wasn’t just an abstract thought now. There wasn’t a what if I in my mind. I had just had a full-blown sexual thought about Cooper, and I was 92 percent sure he was having the same idea.

  I glanced down at the marble top between us while he poured out the bottle into our glasses. Two plates, silverware, a bowl, and a nearly empty bottle of wine separated us.

  A hundred scenarios presented themselves to me, all clear as a bell.

  Swipe your arm across the dishes, send them clattering to the floor, and launch yourself at him.

  Lean over the table like in Sixteen Candles and give him a sweet kiss.

  This is Cooper. Be yourself.

  I drank what was left in my glass and set it aside. “Do you trust me?” I asked, looking up at him with what I hoped was a genuinely thoughtful expression.

  He answered without hesitation. “Of course.” Two simple words sent a different rush of emotion through me. One that I couldn’t focus on in that moment. Later.

  I walked around the island to his side, grateful that my legs didn’t wobble.

  Cooper, following my lead, moved to stand in front of me, mirroring my position.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds before I took a step forward. Then another. Cooper backed up with each step forward that I took. I kept going until his butt hit the edge of the island. He couldn’t back up any farther, and I wasn’t sure if I could back away now even if I wanted to.

  “Emma?” He gulped, and I watched his chest rise and fall beneath his thin shirt.

  “This is a test. A scientific experiment that will help me prove a point.”

  He let out a shuddery breath. “What point? The feelings point?”

  Was I even breathing? I felt light-headed and drunk, but I wasn’t drunk. It wasn’t the wine, it wasn’t the warmth of the kitchen, it was this moment. The test.

  “Is this okay?” I asked, closing what little distance there was between us. His hands came up on either side of my hips as I pinned him between me and the island.

  “What are you doing?” he breathed as I slid my hands around his waist to pull him imperceptibly closer.

  “Are you talking to me or yourself?” I whispered, running my nose along the column of his throat. I waited to feel uncomfortable. Awkward and strange.

  This was Cooper.

  I was willfully trying to seduce Cooper.

  And I didn’t hate it.

  Quite the opposite, in fact, my brain screamed. I was enjoying this. There was a wanton surge of power running across my skin like a current, and I wanted to chase it. Follow the electricity to see how much energy we could produce.

  My fingers curled the sides of his shirt up until I could feel his skin, warm beneath my touch. His body was on fire, and I wondered if it was even close to how hot I felt inside. My bones felt like cinder. Every part of me was burning up, and I loved and hated it equally.

  “Just once,” I begged, brushing my lips across his for a second. This time it was intentional. There were no
accidents to blame. I wanted to see if these feelings were real. The kiss was so light, so fast, and so unexpected, I wasn’t sure I’d even felt his lips. Until I did it again and his lips captured mine before they could skirt away.

  “Once more,” he murmured, and the blood was now rushing so loudly in my ears I wasn’t sure if I heard it.

  Nothing was right, yet everything was. It was all too much. Too loud was the sound of my thumping heart. Too tight were the clothes on my body, which were keeping me from feeling his skin on mine. Too slick were his hands when they reached up to wrap around my hair. His hands twisted the strands and tugged, stretching my neck back so his lips could dance from my mouth to my throat to the fabric over my breasts.

  “Emma,” he whispered against my chest before he gently pulled my shirt down and kissed just between my breasts. He scooped me up easily, spun us around, and set me down gently on the island.

  My hands were clutching his shirt, squeezing the fabric between my fingers. His lips were everywhere and somehow not in enough places. I wanted them on me and only on me. Who needed to breathe?

  This wasn’t just kissing. It was learning. We were well beyond the experiment—this was each of us figuring out what would drive the other one wild.

  EMMA THOUGHT: Well, it seems like everything does.

  My nails swiped down his back, earning a luscious groan from him. His fingers bit into my hips, and with each squeeze my chest swelled, begging for his lips to cover every square inch of me.

  Urging me to lie back, he splayed his large hand across my chest, sliding down until he reached the button of my pants. Flicking it open, he helped me unzip and shimmy out of them before tossing them somewhere behind him. My shirt followed, but this time when he sent it sailing across the room, it landed with a wet plop in the sink. “Sorry,” he mumbled before kissing across my rib cage.

  Cooper’s hands didn’t stop moving. It was like they were memorizing each curve, each dip and inch of me. I couldn’t seem to have mine land on any one part of him. He moved quickly, expertly, and like a man who wanted to do this as much as I did. That was a scary thought that I quickly banished into the box along with the other feelings that I was ignoring. There was enough to focus on right here.

  The clock in the hall chimed loudly, trying to break through the cloud that my head was in. I shook away the cobwebs, sliding away from where his mouth was just about to come down upon mine again. Where I would have let it ravish me as I knew it would.

  “What the fuck are we doing?” he panted, smoothing my hair back.

  Seeing myself in the window, I looked wild. My black hair was everywhere, knotted from his hands being in it. Sticky from sweat and stuck to the side of my face. My hands were clawing at his chest, pulling his shirt over his head. My bare legs were wrapped around his waist, and he was staring down at me like he was about to eat me alive.

  “Jesus Christ, Cooper,” I said, taking in his appearance. He, too, was twisted up. His jeans and boxers were down around his ankles—I guess my hands had found somewhere to land after all. My panties were pushed aside, and he was ready. So very ready.

  I pulled his mouth to mine again, sealing our lips together before I could mutter another word or question another thing except mumbling, Condom.

  This was not how this was supposed to go. But I wanted it more than the next breath.

  Cooper paused briefly to scavenge through his pocket for his wallet. Pulling out a condom, he searched my eyes once more.

  Not trusting my voice, I could only nod.

  With one slow shift of his hips, he was seated deep inside me. The sounds we made echoed through the kitchen.

  There were words, but they died in my throat. They were passionate and poignant, and there was no way I was coherent enough to deliver them. Cooper was less interested in conversation and more interested in how much of my skin his lips could kiss. I lost track of the course he was taking as he dragged his wet lips across my body.

  “Cooper,” I chanted, trying to remind myself who it was driving me to release, because in that moment, I could barely believe it was the man in front of me.

  A few times he tried whispering my name. It never came out fully. “Em, Ems, fuck, Ems,” he swore as he came, shuddering over me.

  He continued to rain kisses down my throat, across my chest, and then he pulled away briefly to stand to full height. His chest rose and fell as he tried to calm down. A shudder skipped through him every few seconds.

  As for me, I wasn’t sure I would be able to be calm again.

  The plan had backfired magnificently. The test was supposed to prove that there was nothing there. That there wasn’t a fire between us. That the hate was hate and nothing more.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  I had never admitted to myself that this was what I had always wanted, yet here we were, and I had no idea how to process this.

  What the hell were we going to do now?

  Cooper seemed totally oblivious to my distress. Taking my hands, he wrapped them around his body, holding me in a tight embrace. I stared out the window behind him, his reflection mirrored back at me. His naked back with my arms wrapped around him.

  I wanted to keep that image in my head forever.

  The realization that this meant something to me—that yes, try as I might to deny them, I did have feelings for Cooper—was starting to dawn on me, and my body froze.

  As if sensing it, Cooper pulled away and brought my hand up to his lips to kiss my knuckles.

  And I felt the rest of the shift. The new shift. The even more confusing shift.

  Sweet Cooper wasn’t what I’d expected from this, and it left me even more shaken than before the experiment. It seemed that he sensed the mood shift just as I did.

  I tensed, now fully aware of our precarious positions and lack of clothing. Brick by brick, my walls were going up.

  “No, no. You’re not—” he began, but I slid down from the island.

  My clothes were everywhere. My soaking wet shirt lay in a lump in the sink, my pants were behind him.

  “I have to go. I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would happen,” I lied, pulling back and looking for a way to escape.

  He looked hurt and confused, and I hated myself for being the cause of it. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Tell Whitney—” I paused, thinking of everything I had ever accused her of being. I was that and worse. “Tell her I’m sorry. I didn’t do this to get back at her.”

  “Stop fucking apologizing, Emma!” he shouted, spinning around and kicking over the stool. “Why are you apologizing? I wanted this just as much as you did.”

  “You’re right. I know. I just thought it would have been different. I didn’t think it would feel . . .”

  “What? Tell me.”

  I pulled on my pants, searching around for my purse. My keys. My dignity? My shirt was a lost cause, so I grabbed Cooper’s, slipping it over my head.

  “Emma, don’t go. We have to talk about this. This was— I have to talk to you about some things. Don’t leave us like this,” he started, but I held up my hand.

  “Cooper, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t think she was right. This is— I did this to prove a point, and it backfired. Whatever this was. I’m sorry I let it get this far.”

  “What do you mean, she was right? What are you playing at? This has nothing to do with Whitney!” he roared, stomping toward me, looking frenzied.

  I shook my head. “It has everything to do with her, Cooper. I— Holy Christ, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and ran outside.

  I didn’t even remember walking down the street. Or getting into my car. Or starting it. Or backing out of the driveway. Or driving away in a fog. All I knew was that I couldn’t look up at his house because I knew he was there. Standing in the doorway, his shadow beckoning me to come back.

  To finish what I’d started.

  But I couldn’t. The last thing Cooper and this campaign neede
d was another scandal.

  And certainly not one that was my fault.

  24

  * * *

  The following morning, my lips were still swollen. My heart was somewhere near my toes, and my eyes were glassy from being overtired. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to call Cooper to ask him what he was thinking. To text him and say again that I was sorry for acting on the feelings that I didn’t understand. And for running out on him.

  The other part of me wanted to tell him to come over for round two. I wanted more, and so did he.

  That would be dangerous.

  So instead I hid my phone in another room and tried to get some sleep.

  When I exited my building a few hours later, I pulled up to a quick stop.

  There were people shouting, a camera was in my face snapping away, a videographer was getting ready to roll, and right behind them all stood Kirby Rogers with a smug grin on his long, haggard face.

  “Emmanuelle, are you involved with Cooper Endicott? Is that how you are securing a victory for him?” one man shouted, shoving a mic in my face.

  “Emma, are you and Cooper involved? Is that why your father is rigging the election for him?”

  “What does Mayor Peroni have to say about this? Doesn’t this seem like a conflict of interest for him?”

  “Emma! Emma! Emma!”

  The shouts got louder, and no matter which way I turned, there was another person closing in. There was nowhere to run. I could see Cooper darting out of Borough Building and heading my way, my father hot on his heels.

  My brain was working overtime, trying desperately to make sense of it all, when a woman managed to knock the wind right out of me.

  She held up her phone and showed me a few time-stamped photos from the night before in front of Cooper’s house, followed by a video clip of me running toward my car looking very disheveled. I looked confused, shocked, and another emotion that I wasn’t willing to admit to myself. Not now, not ever. My shoes were in my hand, my pants were clearly unbuttoned at the top, and my hair—well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what we’d been doing.