The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk)

by Samantha Young

  A piece of paper on the carpet by the door caught my attention.

  It was a note from Bailey.

  Left some food in the fridge for you in the kitchen, Sleeping Beauty. See you in the morning. B. xoxo.

  God, I loved her.

  I thought about going downstairs and getting the food, but I wasn’t really that hungry. Looking back at the clock, I considered my options. If I was quick, I could probably catch Cooper as he was closing up. We didn’t need to do another all-nighter, but maybe we could talk a little until I felt better.

  I considered my wardrobe. The dress I’d been wearing was wrinkled badly from sleep.

  “Screw it.” I didn’t have time to change.

  Instead I threw on some flats and a sweater, grabbed my keys, and dashed quietly out of the silent inn. I hurried along the boardwalk, loving the soothing breeze that moved through my hair and caressed my flushed skin. The waves lapped gently to shore, and with them a sense of calm whispered up toward me.

  I already felt better about my decision.

  Seriously, the boardwalk was like some kind of seductive sentient being.

  I laughed softly at the thought and tried to ignore the couple who looked at me like I was crazy as they strolled by.

  There weren’t many people about at this time and it was more than kind of nice. The past few days, the boardwalk had been packed with people as the high season kicked in and, as cool as it was to see it so alive, I’d also missed the quiet.

  My heart sank as I approached Cooper’s. The lights on his signage were switched off and the blinds were down on the windows and door.

  Had I missed him?

  I picked up my pace, hurrying to the front entrance.

  I knocked hard. “Cooper, it’s me!” I called.

  At the sound of heavy footsteps beyond the door, I relaxed. When he unlocked the door and opened it for me I relaxed even more.

  I remembered back to when we first met and how I hadn’t seen him as the kind of guy I’d be attracted to. Sure, I’d thought, Wow, amazing blue eyes, but I hadn’t thought, Wow, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.

  Now I was thinking, Wow, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met ever.

  Cooper gave me a bemused look but stepped aside to let me in. “You okay?” he said as he locked up behind me.

  Most of the lights in the bar had been turned off.

  I suddenly felt bad for imposing on him. “You were heading home. I should let you head home. You’ll be tired.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Are you?”

  “I just woke up.”

  “You want a drink?”

  “Water, please.”

  All the chairs had been placed on the tabletops. I pulled one down and sat up on the table with my feet on the chair. Less than a minute later I had a glass of water in my hand and Cooper was leaning against the bar, watching me.

  “It’s been some day for you, Doc.”

  I gave a little laugh. “I’ll say.”

  “You still freaking out?”

  Staring at him, just being with him, I had the overwhelming realization that I wasn’t freaking out and all evidence was suggesting his presence was the reason. “I was. Until I got here.”

  Cooper’s eyes warmed.

  I smiled before taking a sip of my water, studying him as he studied me. Those blue eyes of his traveled over me, lingering on my legs awhile, before slowly making their way back up to my face.

  My breasts suddenly felt too tight against the fabric of my dress.

  I finished the water and moved to get up.

  “Don’t move.” The way his voice had turned suddenly deep held me captive.

  He approached me slowly, carefully, and I felt my heart rate start to speed up as I waited for his next move.

  I knew what move I wanted him to make and also suddenly realized that I’d come here for more than reassurance. I’d come here because I’d woken up turned on after a sexy dream about him.

  Cooper gently took the water glass from me. “Stay right where you are,” he demanded.

  His tone brooked no argument and the heat in his eyes and his serious expression were an incredibly hot combination.

  My breathing grew shallow as he strolled casually back to the bar to deposit the glass and then he turned back, his gaze burning through me.

  “Cooper?” I whispered, somehow unable to raise my voice, fearing if I did I’d put a stop to whatever was about to happen.

  He prowled toward me, his eyes never leaving my face. He stopped, his body pressed against the back of the chair my feet were on. “I had a dream about you a few nights ago.”

  There was a flip deep and low in my belly and an answering tingle between my thighs . . . because there was no mistaking what kind of dream he’d had. The sexual hunger in his expression told me everything.

  My God.

  I’d never had a man look at me like that before.

  He made me want to strip off my dress then and there and let him feast on me.

  “We were alone. In my bar,” he continued, carefully moving the chair out from between us so that I had no choice but to scoot forward and plant my feet on the ground. “And you were on a table just like this.” He moved closer and goose bumps rose up all over my arms as his fingertips trailed across the bare skin of my thigh. Cooper gently pressed against the inside of my legs there and moved into the space he’d created.

  “Cooper,” I murmured, my chest rising and falling quickly. I stared up at him, completely open to whatever he wanted to have happen next because at that moment my body was on fire for him. I wanted him to help me escape all the seriousness of the decisions I’d made that day.

  His eyes dropped to my breasts, where he could plainly see how much his proximity was affecting me—my stiff nipples peaked against the fabric of my dress, begging for his touch.

  Cooper’s lips parted on an exhalation at the sight and he suddenly gripped the backs of my thighs, tugging me with a hard jerk against his straining erection. I grabbed on to his arms to steady myself and our eyes locked.

  Mine told him how much I wanted this.

  His were fierce with how much he wanted to give it to me.

  I felt the bite of his fingers on my bare skin as he rocked me against him, the denim of his jeans catching on my thin, now damp, panties. I whimpered, pushing against him for more.

  “Doc, in my dream,” he said, his voice guttural, “I fucked you on the table. Hard. Fast.”

  The flip in my lower belly this time was bigger and as he moved me against him again I felt the slick wetness of my reaction to his words. I’d never liked Andrew talking to me during sex. It distracted me. But Cooper’s blunt hot words were like foreplay.

  Cooper bent his head to brush his lips gently against mine, and in the process he pressed his cock harder against me. “You up for making a man’s dream come true?” he murmured against my mouth.

  Fuck, but he was good with words!

  My answer was to kiss him, my tongue flicking against his in a wet, erotic kiss that mimicked everything I wanted our bodies to do. I pulled back, breathless and excited and more alive than I could ever remember feeling.

  “Thank God,” Cooper muttered, nipping at my lips as I helped him remove my sweater. Once it was gone he slipped two fingers under each thin strap of my dress and smirked at me. “How come this is the first time I’m seeing you in a dress, Doc?”

  “Today was too hot for pants.” I was surprised I managed a coherent sentence while I was so freaking dazed by the lust roaring through my veins.

  “Well, now it’s too hot for clothes, period.” He grinned at me, pulling the straps down my arms until my breasts were bared. His smile disappeared and I felt his cock grow impossibly hard between my legs. “Fuck me,” he breathed, cupping my breasts in hi
s big, warm, callused hands.

  I whimpered, arching into his touch as he gently squeezed them and then brushed his thumbs over my nipples.

  “You’re beautiful, Jessica,” he said gruffly, and something about him using my name instead of the nickname he’d given me made my sex throb even harder.

  My fingers curled tighter around his biceps. “Cooper, please . . .”

  At the hot, wet sensation of his mouth closing around my right nipple, my thighs automatically clamped against his hips. He sucked hard and lightning streaks of delicious heat seemed to score down my body to where his cock was currently rubbing against me.

  Usually I loved the foreplay. I needed the foreplay.

  I was never in an impatient rush to get to the main event.

  But I was so unbelievably turned on that all I could think about was getting him inside of me.

  “Fuck me, Cooper,” I whispered, straining against him.

  He lifted his head to stare at me, breathing fast. “Say it again,” he demanded.

  I slid my hands up his arms and behind his neck, my fingers curling in his soft, dark hair. I tugged him close to kiss him again because he was freaking fantastic at it. “Fuck me, Cooper,” I repeated against his lips.

  His hands were on my ribs and his grip tightened there. “You have no idea what it does to me when you say those words.”

  I smirked, hitching my legs higher against his hips and, in doing so, creating more friction between us. He was going to burst the zipper on his jeans if we didn’t do something about it right then. “I think I do.”

  He kissed me again, this time sweet, slow, and languid, and it only fired my impatience.

  Cooper abruptly stepped back from my body and I watched in wonder as he pulled his T-shirt over his head, throwing it at a nearby table.

  “Holy . . .” I murmured, that impatience I’d been feeling quadrupled at the sight of his taut abs and big, strong shoulders. His tanned skin emphasized his muscled physique.

  I’d wanted to explore every inch of him with my mouth and fingers since I’d seen him shirtless at the bandstand.

  He really was the most ruggedly beautiful man I’d ever known.

  A prick of emotion clogged in my throat as I drank in the sight of him.

  He didn’t take time to notice that my drooling over him was mixed with mooning over the fact that we’d found each other just when I most needed it—he was too busy staring at my body. That was okay. If he stared at me like a starving man for the rest of his life I’d be happy.

  When he stepped back into my space I reached for him, caressing his stomach, and my fingertips followed his happy trail to the top button on his jeans.

  I slipped the button out, but Cooper stilled my hand.

  “Me first,” he said.

  I got what he meant when he grabbed hold of my ass and lifted me as if I weighed nothing until I was balanced precariously on the edge of the table. Eyes holding mine he hooked his fingers under my panties and began to draw them down my legs.

  Cool air caressed me along my naked skin and I felt my core pulse.

  My legs automatically opened for Cooper as he stepped between them to slip his fingers into me. “Oh, God,” I groaned.

  “Fuck, Jessica, I can’t wait,” he growled as soon as he felt how wet I was.

  When his fingers slipped out of me my eyes popped open and I watched impatiently as he pulled a condom out of his wallet, threw the wallet aside, and then unzipped his jeans.

  My gaze zeroed in on his thick, long dick, which stood at throbbing attention for me.

  Yes, please!

  It was like I was a teenager again. Or what I thought I would have felt as a teenager if I’d ever found a boy to love—impatient with emotion and, more urgently, hormones.

  “Cooper,” I said, and he heard the urgency in my tone because he was rolling the condom down his cock in seconds. He took hold of my thighs, parted them, and thrust inside of me. “Oh, God—” My breath caught at the sensation of him filling me.

  All I could feel was him pulsing inside of me, and his heated skin under my fingertips. All I could smell was him—the woodsy cologne with a hint of spice he wore, and now the added base note of sex.

  He was everywhere and everything.

  His mouth came down on mine as he started to move in fast, hard thrusts. It was sensational. The desperateness to his kisses; the hurried, frantic rush for ecstasy.

  “Jessica,” he groaned, breaking our kiss to press his face against my neck, “Fuck, Jessica, yes, Jess, Jess . . .” He said my name every time he pounded into me.

  I could only hold on for the ride, pleasure sparking me ever closer to igniting every time my inner muscles squeezed his cock.

  I slid my hands down inside his jeans to grip his firm, muscled buttocks, urging him against me. I wanted it even harder, faster.

  Cooper pulled back, his expression fierce as he got the message, and he tilted my lower body so he could slide into me at a different angle.

  Lights exploded behind my eyes.

  No joke.

  I think I might have screamed.

  “Oh, God!”

  And suddenly everything was harder, faster, deeper, dirtier.

  It was rough, unadulterated, fierce, raw sex.

  I came hard, and the pulsing waves of my orgasm tugged Cooper’s cock so intensely I took him over the edge with me.

  “Fuck!” he growled, his hips jerking against mine as my body demanded his climax from him.

  I rested my forehead on his strong shoulder and tried to catch my breath. If it wasn’t for Cooper still holding me against him I think I might have melted right off the table onto the bar floor. My muscles were languid, like I’d just had a deep-tissue massage. Except sex with Cooper was better than any massage I’d ever had.

  By a mile. By a thousand. Okay, a million.

  My cheeks turned hotter than they already were because I suddenly wasn’t sure if I should be embarrassed that it had taken me until I was thirty-three years old to have the best sex of my life.

  As a doctor I knew that that was entirely normal. There were some women who couldn’t orgasm from penetration alone and I was one of the lucky ones who could. There were some women who would go their whole lives having mediocre sex.

  I should feel lucky.

  But I was embarrassed to have climaxed so fast.

  I was willing to bet Cooper had never been with a woman who had lit up and exploded that quickly. Usually, I made Andrew work for it and that got him all worked up and he loved that.

  Likely Cooper’s “outrageously gorgeous” ex-wife had made him work for it.

  What if I seemed gauche and inexperienced in comparison?

  “Doc,” he murmured against my cheek, “I can practically feel you overthinking this.”

  I slowly pulled my head from his shoulder and looked into his face.

  The low-lidded relaxed expression of satisfaction he wore eased my concerns a little. Cooper caught my lower lip with his thumb, his eyes steady as he said softly, “You’ve got the prettiest mouth I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  God! He was so charming. He’d literally charmed the panties right off me.

  I suddenly remembered the woman on the beach and Bailey telling me he’d dated a lot of women before me. Practice made perfect after all, huh.

  I froze.

  How many women had he screwed in his pub?

  He sighed and squeezed my waist as he slowly pulled out of me. “Wait right there.”

  He turned and walked toward the staff room, pulling up his jeans to cover my delectable view of the top of his muscular ass. Denied said view, I looked elsewhere and found myself mesmerized by the delicious V of his torso. I remembered what it felt like to cling to his big, broad shoulders as he moved in me.

  Needing
to occupy myself in some way, I hopped off the table, pulled the straps of my dress back up, grabbed my sweater, and searched for my panties. I couldn’t find them.

  “I thought I told you not to move.” Cooper reappeared, his jeans refastened.

  “No, you just said ‘wait right there.’”

  “On the table.” He smirked at me as he reached for his T-shirt.

  I wanted to pout when he put it back on.

  But I didn’t have any time because Cooper wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me up against him. With his other hand he cupped my nape and drew me to him for a long, sweet, deep, intimate kiss that had me clinging to his strong shoulders again.

  When he eventually broke our embrace he stared into my eyes as if he were searching for something. “You’re not regretting this, are you, Doc?”

  Why did it feel like having sex had complicated things so much? Usually sex was complication-free for me.

  But before that night I’d been completely sure that Cooper was interested in exploring something more with me, and now I was freaking out that his interest would wane now that he’d had me.

  I shook my head slowly. “No. It was good.”

  He scowled, his arms tightening around me so much there wasn’t an inch of space between us. “It was better than fucking good, Jessica.”

  I scowled back and pushed at his chest for some breathing space. “Well, I’m sure you’d know all about that.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You use the word ‘fuck’ a lot.”

  “It’s a good fucking word.”

  I was tempted to laugh at how disgruntled he sounded and he seemed to catch my amusement because his hold on me eased.

  “What’s going on in your head, Jess?”

  I thought about evading this conversation. I’d never had to have an adult, open conversation with a man about sex. However, I realized, somewhat reluctantly, if I wanted something more with Cooper Lawson I was going to have to give him more than I was used to giving.

  I couldn’t change his past, but I could figure out what it was he wanted in the future by just being honest and asking the question.