“I met her when I was here training. I wanted to get out of the States for a while, swim where no one knew my name, so I came here. I rented a one-bedroom apartment in a block and she was my neighbour.”
“Love at first sight?”
He shakes his head slowly, finally raising his eyes to look at me, although his head remains dipped. “Lust at first sight. The marriage just became something we did because she wanted my money and I wanted-”
“Love.”
“A cover,” he says, shaking his head with a cynical laugh. “Do I seem like the kind of man who needs love?”
I nod. I say nothing and keep nodding, keeping my eyes on his and projecting the sincerity in my belief before I voice it. I reach my hand out across the table, the cast landing with a heavy clunk that makes me wince. I want him to connect with me. I want him to open up and admit that, above everything, whatever his motivations may have been, he just wants to be loved. Cooper sits back in his chair, his dinner forgotten, and folds his arms across his chest.
“I think you are the kind of man who needs love, Coop. There isn’t a man on this planet who doesn’t.”
He contemplates for a second, but he’s smiling. He’s toying with me—humouring me.
“Firstly, don’t call me Coop. It makes my cock hard and I don’t think you could handle the thoughts that come with it. Secondly, I don’t need love. I don’t want it, I don’t care for it, and I don’t believe it exists. So you can get that out of your head because you’re not manipulating me with a fucking word that means nothing.”
I have no words. I’m stunned, and my jaw clicks when my mouth opens in shock. I wait for a second, wondering when I’ll feel the physical effects of his emotional whiplash.
“I…”
“Exactly why you’re a caterpillar. So prude, so curious about the things you just can’t handle…so intimidated by the truth because you think love conquers all.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I sent your parents an email,” he says. I gasp and sit back in my chair, dropping my spoon to the floor. “The night I took you, I sent an email to one Verity Thompson. You’ve never asked for your belongings, you know.”
“Because I know you won't return them. Why did you email my mother?”
He shrugs. “Because I needed them to not care.”
“Of course they’ll care!” I rub my hand over my face, wondering why he really has no idea how family works. “People just don’t send an email and disappear, Coop-er.”
“People run away, Erin.” His chair scuffs the floor when he stands and clicks his fingers at me. “Get up.”
I do. I need more answers. I get to my feet as quickly as I can, feeling the tremor of anxiety in my legs, the sudden panic making my lungs suck in more oxygen than necessary, my fingers tingling as they prepare to fight back. Cooper passes me, waiting for me to follow before he leaves the kitchen and heads up the stairs. How does he do it? Turn from asshole to horny asshole in seconds? We pass the bathroom, and my room, and enter his room.
“Stand in front of me and keep your eyes on mine.”
“Why?” I ask, complying already.
“Because when I’ve explained this to you, you’re going to ask me to fuck you, and I want you to come on my sheets tonight.”
“I’m not going to ask you to fuck me.”
“We’ll see.” He nods, his gaze fixing on my vest. “Take it off.”
“How will you punish me if I don’t?” I ask, wondering if I can just decide the lesser of two evils.
Cooper laughs, and I hate it. Shivers surge up my spine and my thumb slips between my lips so I can chew on the nail.
“That’s definitely not how it works, caterpillar. Do us both a favour and do as you’re told.”
I take a deep breath, then another, and then a third. When I’ve decided not to push and risk more pain, I grip the hem of the vest and pull it over my head, holding it out for him. When he takes it from me, he raises it to his face and inhales deeply, closing his eyes and humming in appreciation.
“When was the last time you saw your mom?”
I think for a second, a fresh wound of longing slashing through my heart.
“I took her to the supermarket last Thursday.”
“And before that?”
“Tuesday, when she wanted some new buds for the garden.”
“And before that?”
“Friday, when Griffin and I took her for dinner because Dad was away on a golf trip and she was alone.”
“When was the last time she asked how you are?” After a beat, I shrug. I can’t remember. “When was the last time she told you she loved you?” Another few seconds and I shrug again. I can’t remember that, either. “And when was the last time she did something for you without making sure you knew you owed her for it?”
“What’s your point?”
“Take your pants off.”
“No.”
“Take. Your. Pants. Off. I won't ask again.”
With my bottom lip trembling as thoughts of my mother become tarnished with indifference, I grip the waistband of my trousers, and push them to my feet. Cooper swoops in on one knee and places my hands on his shoulders for support. He picks them up off the floor and hooks them over his arm as he takes another step back.
“Now, when was the last time you saw your dad?”
“I gave him a lift to the country club on my way to work last week.”
“How did he get back home?”
I frowned. “I paid for his cab fare.”
“When did you see him before that?”
“I can’t remember.”
“When was the last time he asked if you’re happy?” I shrug. “When was the last time he looked into your eyes and searched for proof of his little girl’s happiness?” I shrug again. “When was the last time he told you he loved you?”
“Cooper…”
“I’m done,” he says. “For now. Take your bra off.”
I gasp and shake my head, but he just rolls his eyes and sighs. When he takes a step towards me, I flinch, but he doesn’t stop, grabbing my braid and using it to turn me around. In a quick flash, he snaps my bra open and I throw my arm over my chest to hold it in place. He turns me back around and resumes his position by the door.
“Drop it.”
“Why? Why do I need to be undressed for this?” I sniff back the urge to cry. “You’re killing me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m preparing you to fly, caterpillar. You’ll see. Take it off.”
With a glare at the man in front of me, my nostrils flaring in contempt, I drop my hands by my sides and allow the bra to fall to the floor. Cooper’s foot sneaks out and he kicks it away,
“Now, let’s talk about Griffin.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. He’s the most important, because the minute you let go of him, you’ll soar.”
“You won't break me, Cooper. I love him.”
“We’ll make that question number one, then. Why? Why do you love him? How does he give you the things you so gallantly told me I need?”
“Because…” I swallow hard and avert my gaze to the carpet. “I love him because…I love him because he loves me.”
“Seems like a good enough reason,” he snipes, mocking me. “So, tell me, Erin. Does Griffin make you come? Does he know about all your fantasies? How many has he made a reality?”
“I’m not discussing my sex life with you.”
“You don’t need to. I know all about it. Have you always had a strict bedtime of ten pm?”
“You’ve been stalking me.”
“Of course.” He smiles and leans against the door, inspecting his nails. “I’m paid to watch. I’ve watched you fuck him. No…I’ve watched you use him while you imagine someone else. I watched you fuck yourself to thoughts of me while he slept next to you.”
“No!”
“Tell me, caterpillar. Tell me he makes you come like I do and I’ll forget everything I saw.”
“How?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“Our relationship is based on more than sex,” I lie, knowing he’ll see straight through it.
A strike to my face sends me spinning around and falling onto the bed. My cheek burns and I raise my hand to cup it, but Cooper beats me to it, straddling me from behind and sliding me up the bed before stroking my cheek with gentle fingertips.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe as a single tear falls.
“Tell me. Tell me he satisfies you. In every aspect of your life. Tell me he makes you happy.”
“He makes me…comfortable,” I confess, grinding my teeth with hatred for myself for admit it.
“Do I make you comfortable?”
“No.”
“And yet I set you on fire. I give you all the things you’ve never been allowed to want.”
“Like what?”
“Like freedom. Despite being locked here, you have more freedom in my home than you ever had in yours.” I hate that he’s right. “Like desire. The lust raging through your veins is so powerful I can almost smell it.” I still hate that he’s right. “Like reality. All the things you know you want but have never been able to have…I can give those to you. Tell me you’d rather return to comfortable.”
“I’d rather feel like me.”
“And who are you, Erin?”
I freeze. Cooper stills above me, his body pressed flush to mine as he affords me time to think of my answer. I don’t have one. I cannot give him a list of the things that make me who I am, because I have no idea who Erin Thompson is.
“I’m the girl who quit her career.”
“Because you fell for the wrong man.”
“How do you know that?”
“Is that all you have?” he asks, leaning down to kiss my neck. I hate that I moan and tip my head back to offer him more. He rewards me with a gentle suck, and I shudder. “You’re nothing but a girl who quit because you realised you weren’t who your parents hoped you were?”
“I’m the girl who…who…” A sob escapes and I bury my face into the bed. “God, I don’t know who I am.”
“Then let me tell you.”
He slides off me, turning me round to lay on my back. He kicks my legs open and stands between them, toeing his shoes off and kicking them behind him. He takes his trousers off next, leaving the belt in the loops and ripping all the buttons of his jeans open at once. He has nothing on beneath, his hardening cock prominent between his legs as he reaches for his t-shirt and pulls it over his head. He tosses it across the bed to the other side of the room, and I breathe in his scent as it flutters past me.
“You’re the girl who lives to please others. The girl who squashes her own desires in order to help others fulfil theirs.”
He kneels between my legs and reaches into the drawer on the bedside cabinet. I lean up on my good elbow, but I can’t see what he takes out. When his large hand closes around my ankle and he presses a kiss to the inside of my knee as he parts my legs further, I sigh.
“You’re the girl who was made to feel bad, conditioned to feel guilty for wanting another human being. Humans are made to fuck, Erin, and wanting to fuck someone is not a sin.”
“I didn’t do it,” I say on a pant as his tongue travels up my inner-thigh. “I didn’t cheat.”
“I know. We’re getting to that, baby.”
His stubble grazes the top of my leg, his lips peppering kisses over one hip bone and over my stomach to the second. I squirm, my lips bucking on instinct.
“You’re the girl who fought for everything you have. You’re the girl who fought for everything everyone else has. Tell me, caterpillar. When do you get what you want? Who fights for you?”
“I do.”
“Not anymore.”
I jump when he grips my waist and his lips ghost up my stomach, his tongue dipping into my navel as his cock presses against the wet cotton between my legs.
“I fight for you now, baby. I know what you need, what you want, and I will be the one to give it to you.”
“Cooper.”
“Shh…”
He grips the sides of my knickers, pulling them down my legs and over one foot as he grips the back of my knee and eases it to the side. He’s exposed me to him, opened me up for him, and I have no idea what he’s going to do.
“Do you know why you sinned, Erin?” I shake my head. “You forgot to think about the most important person in your life. You.”
He sinks a finger inside me and I moan, throwing my head back and gasping for air.
Why is it okay to be selfish? Why is Cooper telling me it’s okay to forget others and think of myself? Why do I believe that he’s right, that I’ve been carrying everyone I love my entire life and I should take a little piece for me?
But what is that little piece?
Cooper.
“I shouldn’t have had to take you,” he says, slipping his finger out of me and moving lower.
“What does that mean?” I cry, tensing as his finger begins to massage my ass. “Cooper, I don’t understand.”
“I know, and you don’t need to. Trust me when I say this is where we should be. This is what we should be doing. You were always meant to end up in my arms.”
“Cooper.”
I arch my back when he pushes into me. My breath hitches and I bite my bottom lip when the twinge of discomfort seizes me, bringing a whisper of pleasure with it. Something warm and slick drips onto his finger, as he eases in and out.
“I’ve watched you for a long time, caterpillar. I’ve watched you learn…” He groans, the vein in his neck pumping with sheer lust. He wants more. I want more…but I need answers. “I was there. You saw me—locked eyes with me and smiled in acknowledgement of a stranger. A fucking stranger, Erin.” He pulls out, the tip of his finger against me, promising pleasure while hinting at the denial of it. “I watched you fall apart. I was there to pick up the pieces, tell you not to give up, to fight back. But…”
“Why were you there?” I ask, tilting my hips to force his finger to sink back into me. He shakes his head. “Why me, Cooper? Why not one of the other swimmers? Tell me why you’ve chosen me.”
“I feel it…in my bones and in the depths of who I am. This is…” He sinks deep into me, allowing me to feel the intensity of his emotions with a single digit, and penetrating, hungry glare. “Right.”
He twists his finger, using the lubricant he poured onto us to nudge deeper into me. I take a deep breath and clutch his shoulders.
“And you left.”
“I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“You gave up, and you found your fucking fiancé as compensation for a life you willingly threw away.” I bend my knees and press my feet to the edge of the bed, pushing against him as he pushes another finger in with the first. “Were you wrong, caterpillar? Did you deserve to have it all taken away?”
I shake my head, then I nod. Yes. Yes, I deserved to have to give it all up. Even now, four years later, I still believe I’m the guilty party. I knew what I was doing. I knew it was wrong. I was told it was the right thing to do, that it just felt right—like Cooper is telling me now. Should I disbelieve him, too? This time I am the victim, and yet I’m a willing accomplice…again.
“Even now?” he barks, forcing me to tense beneath him as his punishing fingers scratch and bruise with his reaction. “Even now, you don’t see the truth? You can’t see it for what it was?”
How does he know so much? How does he know all the details of my story—of my sins, and those committed against me? I throw my hands back, gripping the bed sheet beneath me as Cooper leans over me and angles his fingers to flood me with desire and desperation for more. How does he manage to make sex both a punishment and a reward?
“What would your mother say if she knew why? How disappointed would your father be? Would Griffin blame you, when the truth is that you don’t belong together?”
“P
lease…”
“You don’t have to worry anymore. I’ve got you and I’m never letting you go.”
His mouth crashes to mine and I grip him harder, forcing my tongue between his lips to kiss him like he’s kissing me—with desperation and dangerous obsession. He groans and I swallow it, tasting his desire for me and allowing myself to believe he’s not a monster. Not right now.
“I need you to ask me, caterpillar.” He pulls back, sincerity burning from his grey eyes to mine as he loosens my muscles for him.
Can I do it? This is still so wrong. It still makes him crazy. It still makes him a lunatic. But…I want him. And yet…I hate him for doing this to me, when all we might have had was a quick fuck in the shower and a goodbye before sunrise, if this happened before, like he was hoping. It feels like so much more than that. Can I choose to stay with the man who kidnapped me? Can I find a way to persuade him to let the girl go, leave her unharmed, and let her return to her parents? Can I do this? Do I want to? Cooper is offering to give me everything I want and yet, just like everyone else, he’s taking my power to choose away. I close my eyes and try to focus. All I can feel is his slow, sensual fucking, his lips on my neck, his hand squeezing my breast, and the heat radiating from him obliterating any and all rational thoughts. He’s wrong. I am a whore. But he’s right…I need to think of myself.
“I…” I open my eyes and look up at him as his thumb circles my clit and I shudder. “Cooper.”
“Yes, caterpillar?”
“Fuck me.”
“Finally,” he growls, slipping his fingers out of me to grip my waist and turn me around to lay on my stomach. “I need you so badly.”
“Take me,” I breathe, arching my back to offer myself to him. “Take me.”
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