“That’s so not sanitary,” I whispered.
Coop chuckled against my fingers. Then freed them before plundering my mouth with a kiss. I could taste his potato salad, but he went after me like he wanted to lap up any trace of the sauce lingering. When he let me up for air, I almost whimpered.
“Now it’s totally sanitary,” he teased, and I grinned. From scorching heat to delighted amusement, it was a delicate seesaw of feeling, and Coop’s easy grin and playful manner gave me something to latch onto. When he offered me a bite of chicken, I sucked his fingers into my mouth too and returned the favor.
His answering groan and twinkling eyes were worth it. All those kisses had been leading up to today, of that I had no doubt. But I wasn’t going to push. I was having way too much fun just playing with him.
“Do you remember Tommy Monaghan?” I asked after we’d cleaned up the remains. So much for the chicken lasting the rest of the week, we’d eaten it down to the bones and killed most of the potato salad. There were still a couple of rolls, but I doubted they’d last much longer.
“Dark haired kid…second grade?”
“First.”
“Yeah. Sorta.” Then he made a face. “Why?”
“Just… I remember he asked me to marry him in kindergarten, and you punched him in the nose.”
“No, I didn’t,” Coop said, swinging around to eye me. “You did.”
“Oh.” Huh. “Then why did I hit him in first grade?”
“Cause he told you that he was marrying you anyway.”
I rolled my eyes, and Coop wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me to him. “Why are we worried about people you beat up in kindergarten and first grade?”
“I beat up exactly two people.”
“It was more like five.”
“Two.”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Two or five, my question is the same.”
“I dunno, I was thinking about your birthdays and how we’ve spent some of them. For some reason, I keep thinking about when I punched him.”
“Oh. Fifth grade.”
Good grief, how many times had I punched this guy? “I don’t remember that…”
“’Cause Jake beat him up right after you hit him.”
Oh.
Shit.
“When he stole the cupcakes I snuck to school to give you on your birthday. He got them out of my locker.”
That punk. I’d never been so furious. I’d worked hard to get those to school without Coop seeing them. I’d brought three. One for me, one for Coop, and one for Jake.
Coop grinned, then nuzzled the corner of my mouth. “I remember,” he soothed. “Then you used your lunch money and got me an ice cream sandwich rather than food.”
“And you and Jake split your food with me so I’d eat, and then you broke up the ice cream sandwich into three pieces.”
“Hey, what’s a birthday if I can’t share?” He didn’t wait for me to answer before he kissed me again. Every kiss with Coop started at a simmer and ramped up to four-alarm blaze. Every. Single. One.
We were both panting when he lifted his head. “I’m not asking to spend the night,” he said quietly. “No pr—”
I touched his lips with my finger. “You don’t pressure me, Coop. You drive me crazy. You wind me up. You turn me inside out sometimes. But you don’t pressure me. Even when you corner me in the laundry room so I’ll talk to you because you’re worried about me.”
His eyes gentled, and he kissed my finger. “I do worry about you. You’ve been my best friend forever, Frankie.”
“Ditto.” That was why all of this scared me. “Ian couldn’t…”
“I’m not Bubba,” he told me before I could form the whole thought. “I’m me. I know you’re with Archie and with Jake. If you couldn’t tell today, it didn’t bother me at all…maybe a little envy that I didn’t get to slide into that bed with you all naked and warm and wet…”
My stomach went taut at the description.
“But I fucking love how hot it is when you kiss them.” Heat swarmed my face at his description. “Even hotter when I think about getting you all revved up for them.”
Oh my god.
I tilted my head back, and he nipped kisses along my throat. “You totally did that…that Friday before I went out with Archie, when you kissed me.”
The soft huffs of his breath as he laughed against my skin sent tingles radiating everywhere. “Then my evil plan worked.”
I giggled. “You are so not an evil genius.”
Head up, he waggled his eyebrows. “But would an evil genius really look like an evil genius?”
“I didn’t say you didn’t look like one,” I retorted, then pinched him, and he gave a little jump before lifting me up with his arms around my waist. My feet dangled as he walked, but kept my arms around him.
“Then what did you mean?”
“I said you’re not one. You’re too nice.”
“Ha,” he snorted the sound and kept walking right through the living room. The cats were darting out of the way. “Too nice. I get you all hot and bothered thinking about me before you make out with them, and I’m too nice?” The dare in his eyes made me grin.
“Well…” I tipped my head to the side. “You have a point.”
“Thank you. Evil genius should be rewarded,” he murmured before he closed his mouth on mine. In my room, he twisted and fell back on the bed. We were so lucky we didn’t knock our heads together, but it still managed to set me off giggling. His answering laughter made it hard to keep kissing, but when he didn’t abandon the attempt, neither did I.
Sitting up, I straddled him, and he slid his hands under my shirt, just resting his palms against my skin.
“Nothing has to happen tonight,” he told me. The fact that he had a very thick erection and I was sitting right on it kind of suggested his interest was otherwise. “I just wanted to spend my birthday with you. This isn’t a ploy to get you into bed.”
“What if I want something to happen?”
His eyes softened as did his smile, and he began to trace his thumbs in little circles against my skin. “Depends on what it is you want to happen.” The glint in his eyes was an invitation to play.
“Truth or dare?”
Surprise followed by glee danced across his shifting expression. A chance to make me answer questions? Coop loved to pry things out of me. He was a bigger gossip in some ways than the girls at school. Only Coop didn’t pass on what he learned, he just collected it. We all talked to him because he was just that good at listening.
“Or we could pull out that old dart board, and the first to a hundred gets to give the other a blowjob.”
His pupils swelled at the offer, and so did his cock. “Okay, dirty talking Frankie is something I never thought I’d get to hear. And I’m in no way taking your insult to my ability to hit a dartboard into consideration. You’ll win, no problem, and then I do.”
I laughed, and he slid his hands higher, and when they brushed my bra, I reached behind me and unsnapped it. Coop didn’t move as I worked one strap out from under the shirt and off my arm, then the other, and pulled the whole thing free and tossed it across the room.
“Well then,” he exhaled. “Truth or Dare?”
Coop either wanted me to take a dare so he could tease me some more or truth so he could get more dirty talk. Still…either way, it was like he said, a win for us. Running my tongue over my lower lip, I pretended to debate it for a moment.
“Dare.”
Chuckling, he slid his fingers down to my shorts and flicked the button free. “I dare you to take off your shorts…”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Like that’s hard.” But before I could move, he clasped my hips.
“Without getting off me,” he continued. “You didn’t let me finish.”
Huh. I glanced down at him, then my shorts. “All right.” This would take a lot of squirming, but from the way he was grinning, he seemed to be looking forward to it.
/>
After unzipping my shorts, I leaned forward so I could rest my chest against his. He helped balance me as I began to roll my hips from side to side, tugging my shorts down and then working down my legs. Every slow grinding pressed me tighter against his groin and teased my breasts against his chest at the same time.
The friction from his shirt and mine teased my skin. By the time I finally kicked the shorts off and sat up to straddle him again, Coop’s face was flushed and his breathing much shallower.
“Fuck. Me.”
I couldn’t help it. I pressed one hand over his hammering heart. “It’s my turn.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Okay…I’m ready.”
“Truth or dare,” I whispered, and I had to be honest, I didn’t know which one I wanted him to pick either.
Chapter Seventeen
Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started
“Truth,” he said after a significant pause. I must have looked disappointed because he added, “I’ll take dare next time, I promise.”
Chuckling, I rested my hands on his thighs as I leaned back. The motion stretched me out, but with my knees on either side of him and the stiffness of his cock pressing upward, I didn’t want to hurt him either by putting too much pressure on him.
He followed my every movement with a half-sleepy look, but he wasn’t tired. No, not even a little bit. The way he’d track his gaze from my lips to my chest then back up to my eyes again was doing all sorts of happy things to my system. Coop liked looking at me, and right now, I was definitely enjoying him doing it, too.
What did I want to know…oh. Focusing on him, I squinted a little to study his expressions. I was pretty sure I’d know if it was the truth or not. “Did you or did you not lop off the heads of my Barbies in second grade so you could do a brain transplant with one of your action figures?”
His eyes widened. “Seriously?” The last syllable of that question came out on half-broken note. “You’re bringing that up? Now?”
Oh, he didn’t want to answer. Folding my arms, I nodded once. “You said truth. I want the truth.” Because he’d always squirmed out of it and said I must have misplaced them.
But I’d found their severed heads near the dumpster.
I didn’t misplace their heads.
He groaned. “Frankie…”
“Ah-ah. Truth!”
“Fine,” he said, spreading his palms and raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I did borrow them. I thought I could switch the heads out and put them back, and then you would have much cooler Barbies.”
I snorted.
“Unfortunately, the heads of my figures wouldn’t work, so I tried to put the doll heads back on and…” He grimaced. “You remember Ginger?”
The yappy poodle he’d had for years before she passed away right before high school? Of course, I remembered Ginger. She was cute. “Are you trying to tell me your dog ate my dolls?”
“Well…yeah.” He gave me a hopeful look. “She was fast, and she stole them when I went to get gummy worms.”
“You doll slayer.”
He grinned. “Technically, I’m a doll decapitator. Ginger took the bodies.”
“No body, no crime?” I asked, and he grinned.
“Something like that. But I’ll get you two new Barbies. I promise.” He slid his hands back against my hips. “Just don’t throw me over for second grade me’s vain attempt to do something cool for you.”
Snickering, I touched a finger to his nose. “If I can get over you stealing my ice cream, I think we can survive the doll-pocalypse.”
“I didn’t steal your ice cream.” He danced his fingers along my sides, tickling as he rolled me over onto my back, and I squirmed to get away even as I laughed.
He let up when I swatted him. “You know…that’s what got us into all of this.”
“The doll-pocalypse?” He blinked at me, and some of the hair fell down over his eyes. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while, and the sandy-blond cut comically down to give the illusion that he only had one eyebrow lifted.
“No, dork. You tickling me.” My breath still came in little wheezing puffs, and he frowned for a beat and then began to grin.
“Hey, you’re right. Then I messed up your shirt.” He hung his head a little and rained little kisses all over my face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Hovering over me, he tilted his head. “No?”
“Nope. Because if you hadn’t made me mad, and we hadn’t had that fight. Then the guys being here…I might have never unloaded why I was upset.” That would have sucked.
Granted, the last few weeks hadn’t been easy. Not even by any vivid stretch of the imagination. As bad as they’d been in places, I didn’t regret them. They’d have been so much worse without the guys.
So. Much. Worse.
“You know,” Coop said slowly. “I’m not going to disagree with that.” Then he rubbed his nose to mine gently. “I’m not sorry anymore.”
I grinned and combed my fingers through his hair. “It’s your turn,” I reminded him.
“Truth or dare?” he whispered.
Running my tongue along my lower lip, I had to know. “You really want me to say dare, don’t you?”
He chuckled. “I’m good with either, Frankie. Both are fun—even if someone asks questions about elementary school.”
I laughed. “Well, I did one dare, so I’m going with truth this time.” There.
“Ah, revenge for my avoiding a dare, I see how you are.” He nipped a kiss to my chin, then another along my jaw, before he reached my ear. The soft tug of his lips and the gentle scrape of his teeth sent need sizzling through my system all over again. I wiggled a little to get my legs apart so he was more cradled between them.
He stilled until I stopped moving, and then he whispered, “Is there any part of your body that’s off-limits?”
Surprise flickered through me. That was kind of a weird question.
“Um…” I shook my head. “Nope. I don’t think so.”
“Really?” His smile grew more delighted, and I raised my brows.
“Why?”
“Just curious.” But he looked enormously pleased. Another kiss. “Your turn.”
Running my hands down his back, I mirrored his earlier move and eased them under his t-shirt. The first brush of my fingers against the sinewy layer of muscle there had him giving me a lazier smile.
“Let me save you a dare,” he said, pushing up with his arms, then holding himself up with one before he tugged his shirt up, and over. When he descended again, it was all hot, bare skin, and I clenched my thighs to his hips. “Before you ask,” he stared at me steadily, his gaze fixed to mine. “Dare.”
A thrill skated through me, even as he settled his chest to mine. What did I want?
Everything.
I pretty much wanted everything. Maybe I was being greedy. Really, no maybe about it. Still…
“Cat got your tongue?” Coop asked, but kissed me as soon as I opened my mouth to reply. He chased my tongue lightly with his, and then when I dared follow it back to his mouth, he sucked against it again, and the hard pull sent liquid heat unfurling everywhere. “No,” he murmured, letting up for a split-second. “I have your tongue.”
Another kiss, and he had his hand in my hair, tilting my head so our mouths were slanted. The slow grind of his hips pushed the heavy weight of his erection right against my panties. Digging my fingers into his back, I slid them down to his shorts. Why did he have so many clothes on?
“Uh-uh,” he whispered, catching one of my hands and pulling it away. “You still haven’t given me my dare.”
Then the ass locked his lips around one of my nipples, right through the tank top. The liquid heat ignited, and I dug my fingers into his hair as my back arched. Pinned to the bed, I couldn’t move him, but I really didn’t want to.
“What?” he asked, a sly grin on his face as he glanced up. Then he locked that hot
mouth on my neglected nipple, and the only sound I let out was a moan.
A dare.
I needed to give him a dare. When I pressed up with my hips, he gripped one and eased me back down. The last time we’d done this, he’d gotten off in his pants.
That would not do…
The hard suction kept scrambling my brains, and I shuddered when he slid his free hand under my shirt to toy with the other nipple, massaging my breast and then giving it a little twist and pull that was just at the edge of painful.
“Did you say something?” The shit-eating grin he wore now made me laugh, even as heat swept through me.
“I dare you to keep it up,” I said, fighting for every breath to get the words out.
“Which it?” The gleam in his eyes said he knew damn well what I was daring him to do, but he asked anyway. “This?” He bit the nipple through the shirt, just sharp enough for me to feel his teeth, then sucked on it until I was writhing. “Or this?” The tug of his fingers on my other nipple teased right at the edge of pain again.
My little moan became a longer one, and I didn’t care if I was noisy. I had a hand in his hand and another on his back. And I stroked everywhere I could reach.
“Or maybe this?” He did that roll with his hips that ground him against my pussy, and I wanted to cry.
“Yes,” I told him.
He grinned, laughter eddying under his words. “Which one, beautiful?”
Somehow, I got an arm between us, and I had his shorts open and slid my hand right around his cock. The hot, silken shaft almost pulsed under the contact.
“Fuck,” Coop exhaled, and his taunting of my body slowed as he locked his gaze on mine. “That it?”
The corner of my mouth ticked upward. “Only if you want to.” My voice came out a lot rougher than I expected, but Coop’s whole demeanor shifted, and then he was kissing me, and I didn’t need a verbal response. His whole body shuddered from my stroke. Each time I slid my hand up to the crown, he thrust his hips.
Dampness leaked from the tip, and it eased the passage. He thrust his tongue against mine in time to the glide of his hips, and then he planted his hands on either side of me and arched until he could pull away fully.
Keys and Kisses: Untouchable Book Three Page 23