As soon as that girl in class stated we were given time to study, I struggled not to cry tears of relief. I rarely had a chance to hide in the library and complete my homework in silence. I usually worked on my assignments in a bathroom; sitting on a toilet by myself, with someone shouting for me to do, fix, or flirt in the distance, was the only study time in my life. I was very ready to embrace the smell of moth-covered books and the glare of cheap orange lights, so I kept walking. I passed the section with all the science and mathematics textbooks—the subjects the school had deemed important enough for the front aisles. When I reached the dark area designated to art history, I knew he’d continued to follow me. The heat radiating off Simon Says’s body seemed to press against my back the farther I walked down the aisles. I wondered what it was he was thinking. Was he looking at the books or at me? Checking out my ass or the stacks? Planning on begging for me to do the entire assignment myself?
As I stopped in front of the rows that held the books of all important art movements, I just stared aimlessly. I had no idea where to start. All we had to do for our assignment was research any movement, present a small talk to the class on the artists involved, and discuss their impact on art today. I just had to pick a book—any book. If only I was a tad bit better at making small choices. Big life-altering decisions came easy to me—I always went with my gut feeling—but I had no gut feeling when it came to choosing between painters who liked squares and painters who liked circles.
I heard a deep chuckle behind me and I couldn’t help it. I gave in. I turned around and looked at the fallen angel. Sweet baby Jesus, he has dimples.
Stay. Strong.
“Something funny?”
“This is going to take as long as the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms decision, isn’t it?” he mocked as he leaned against the shelves. It was like he had studied every bad boy in every teen movie. His lean was equal parts relaxed, cocky, and sexy as fuck.
I had no response. Mostly because the answer was yes, it most likely will.
Defensively, I rambled. “I’ll have you know I’m smart. I’d wager that I’m smarter than you. Not that you’ll ever find out because I’m not working with you. If you think following me will convince me otherwise, you’ve got the wrong girl. How about you try and grab one of those friendly girls you walked into class with and go annoy them. I’m sure one of them will eagerly help you.”
“Flash, I wouldn’t expect you to do all the work. And I’m a Harley Quinn sort of guy, not Poison Ivy. Those girls are welcome to some other hopeless fool who can’t see past their tits,” he said, smirking.
“You do realize I have red hair, yes? I’ve been confused with Poison Ivy many times.”
“Ah, but Flash, those people aren’t looking at you as closely as I am. I’ve seen your temper. You’re more likely to set people on fire than ever toss around a love potion,” he chuckled. “You’re red, but you’ve definitely got a dark side.”
I couldn’t deny that. There had been more than one occasion when that was the only side I wanted to embrace.
“And if you let me work with you, I’ll make the choice of what we’ll discuss,” he continued, gesturing toward the stacks, clearly amused at my indecisiveness.
He didn’t realize that he’d just hit my Achilles’ heel—avoiding small choices.
“And if I say no, you’re just going to keep standing there watching me, aren’t you?”
He flashed me that smirk once again.
I sighed, contemplated the benefit of not wasting the next fifteen minutes staring at the books and how thoroughly I was probably going to screw myself over in the next five minutes. I’m a fool. A total idiot. “Fine, stay. We’ll work together, and then you can go off to save other damsels in distress. I just have one condition: no more calling me Flash. I don’t want any cutesy nicknames. I’ve had enough of that for my entire life.”
“Done. Although that means you need to tell me your name.” His words glided across my skin as his eyes shifted from amused to serious.
I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t told him my name. I remembered when he told me his—Cooper—but I never thought about my response. Now I almost wanted to retract my statement about working together. And about no cutesy nicknames. Telling him my name seemed too personal, as if calling him Simon Says and him not knowing my name kept us further apart.
Without that distance—
No. Nothing’s going to happen.
Not this year.
Not in this life.
I’m a single mom, and he’s an ex-con.
He probably doesn’t even think of me that way.
I breathed in and felt the air shudder out.
I was an idiot for thinking otherwise.
“Millie. My name’s Millie,” I said quietly.
He held his hand out and I felt like whimpering. It scared me—the calloused, rough, and beautiful hand of a man who I should keep very far away from. He was potentially dangerous. He was overtly bossy. He was sinfully attractive. All things that didn’t need a warning label to predict doom for a girl with a foolish heart. A girl who had spent the last year locking down her impulses to live in the moment.
I watched as it enclosed around mine. It was too comfortable, my hand in his.
The warmth seemed to protect and hug my skin, trailing along and down my body until it reached my core. I was transfixed on where our bodies touched. I forgot that I hated him, forgot the ghosts that haunted me. I was focused on the fact that I was a woman who hadn’t been touched in years, and I wasn't exactly sure how I’d survived.
My heartbeat increased and I shifted my gaze from our joined hands until I was staring into his dark green eyes. I lost myself in their mountain valleys and rolling hills.
“Hi, Millie,” he murmured, and I couldn’t explain it, but I wanted to cry.
“Hi, Cooper,” I whispered, feeling the heat bleed into my cheeks. I prepared myself to pull my hand out of his and turn our attention back to the rows of books that related to art, get my body under control and my head back into studying.
Then I heard his soft “Fuck it.”
Suddenly that same hand was squeezing and pulling me forward. My chest was hitting his chest and my mouth was slamming against his mouth.
He was wrong.
It wasn’t me who was setting him on fire.
It was him who was destroying me.
With every stroke of his tongue, it was as if he was pouring gasoline on a spark inside my body, encouraging it to build and flare. Become wild and uncontrollable. I couldn’t help but react. I had kissed people before, soft and sweet while tentatively trying to work out if we were compatible.
This wasn't that.
This was rough, aggressive, and had nothing to do with compatibility.
Hell, we'd talked three times before that day. I already knew we weren’t compatible.
This was more like battling each other. Only we were doing it with our mouths, tasting and testing each other’s pent-up desire, determining who was stronger and both realizing we were weak to whatever we had started. It was like parts of me that I thought were broken were suddenly switched on and given life again.
When we grabbed each other harder, our hands roaming over each other’s bodies, I felt myself go crazy with need. Gone was all sensibility as I yanked him closer by his jacket and he pulled me in tightly by my hair. Damn, it hurt, but there was something about the pain. It caused heat to pulsate through my body. It revealed our desperate need for one another.
Immediately after pulling me closer and feasting on my mouth, he was tugging my hair toward the ground, exposing my neck to his teeth, scratching and licking along my skin. I loved it. We were brutal with our hands, our mouths. There was so much craving inside both of us, only revealed by his inability to control himself and the way my heart wouldn't stop ripping from my chest.
This wasn't love. This was lust. Or it was some sort of war my body had enlisted me in without my permission.
; My daughter was proof that I hadn’t exactly been saving myself for marriage. I wasn’t naïve about sex, but I had never experienced anything like this. My previous sexual encounters occurred pre-pregnancy in the first few months as a freshman at my community college. Most of those kisses were from barely-out-of-high-school boys who didn't know what they were doing. Nearly all of their kisses demonstrated that I had a habit of picking boys who had yet to learn that their tongue was not meant to be anything like a turtle's head poking in and out of a shell. Nate was the only one who knew what he was doing, but even those encounters had been tentative, subtle explorations of how far I would be willing to open. A growing friendship that shifted into a slow exploration of each other’s bodies.
Cooper, however, clearly knew what he was doing and didn’t give a shit about being subtle or waiting to see if I was going to open for him. He was demanding it. As he continued to explore my mouth, he started unzipping and pulling down my jeans. I knew if I was going to object, I needed to do it now. If I was going to walk away from doing something crazy like having sex with a stranger in a public place, this was my only chance.
As he traced his fingers over my drenched panties, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. If I was going to lose control, it was going to here and now, with someone I knew wouldn’t make this more than it was.
I was also just as hungry as his eyes revealed he was for whatever I’d been missing for years. I was ready to beg, plead for him to slip his fingers beneath the white cotton fabric he’d exposed and help return my sanity. Except no words escaped my mouth. I became lost in the sight of him trailing open-mouthed kisses along my exposed thigh beside the edge of my panties. It was as if I was intoxicated, drunk on the sound and feel of his lips against my skin. I barely registered when he stopped, shifting his position so he was standing before me, looking directly into my eyes before he lifted me from my pants. I was adrift in the wanting.
When he lifted me into his arms like I weighed nothing and pushed me against the stack of books, the feel of his hands on my ass and my knees wrapped around his waist entranced me. Until his left hand started running along my hip and calf as he helped stabilize our position by placing my foot against the opposite rack of shelves. His fingers traced their way back across my calves toward my ass and spurred me on. I looked into his eyes, burning the image into my mind, and reached for his zipper. He ripped my cotton underwear and before we moved, both exposed and ready, we started kissing. He gripped the side of my face, pulling me closer, pulling me under. Furious and desperate kisses coupled with the faint air between us teased me and built the ache inside of me until it was drumming in my ears. I barely heard the rustle of the wrapper ripping, and as his hands dropped from my face to help align our bodies, I was ready to scream from the need to be filled.
As he entered me, his mouth muffled my surprised cry. I’d forgotten how much sex hurts. It had been nearly two years since someone had been inside me, and in that moment, it was like it was my first time all over again. When he pulled out and thrust back in, I decided that the momentary pain was worth it. The feeling of him sliding back in, hitting the deepest parts of me, was like a prize at the end of the battle. The glory all fighters desperately wanted.
When the pleasure built, I couldn’t help but start rocking toward him, creating an effortless rhythm between our bodies. Fuck, it was amazing. He continued to slam inside of me again and again; the books behind my back shifted and fell to the ground on the other side. I would be mortified about that later, would worry if someone heard us or saw our actions through the fallen books. Wondered if they had stopped and kept watching us. If they’d seen my face as I climaxed while holding onto Cooper’s shoulders for dear life. However, even then I wouldn’t be able to deny that this was incredible.
Foolish and reckless, but incredible.
COOPER
We were going to kill each other. I always knew my number would be up before I reached old age. And if this was how I was going to go—with her in my arms, struggling not to scream out loud, her body rocking hard beneath mine—I was okay with that.
Watching her come was fucking spectacular, finding a new grip that allowed me to use my fingers and encourage her to fall again phenomenal.
I promised myself that I wasn’t going to get involved, which I fucked up the moment I touched her.
She was a glimpse into the past that I couldn’t have back, no matter how much I wished I could change it.
She pressed her mouth into my arm, struggled to muffle her moan, and I decided that I didn’t regret my actions for a second.
I can’t change my past, won’t change my future, but I can enjoy the fuck out of my present.
When the whirlwind stopped, the sound of my breath was like a fucking steam train. I barely had a chance to rake my hand through my hair and calm myself before I realized she’d grabbed her stuff and run.
Gone in a flash.
Well, fuck.
COOPER
I ARRIVED AT THE PRISON thirty minutes before visiting hours. The wind was howling, the clouds hid the sun, and the cement structure looked more austere than when I’d first laid eyes on it from the back of a police car. The barbed wire curled around the impenetrable walls. The gate groaned with each gust of wind. This place didn’t just hold criminals until their time was up—it caged people until they turned into animals. The lucky ones came in that way; the unlucky took a week before they accepted the transition.
Nonetheless, the parking lot was crowded with families and friends, cheerful everyday men and women chatting and laughing, removing things from their pockets, preparing for their pat downs. Completely comfortable with the inspections and the loss of their dignity to see someone they loved—or, more often than not, someone they worked for.
I shouldn’t be here.
Until my parole ended, I wasn’t allowed to step foot behind those gates. Getting caught with a fake ID was a risk I shouldn’t take. The long-sleeved flannel T-shirt, John Deere cap, and sunglasses I was wearing helped me look like the damn farmer I was pretending to be. I knew, however, how quickly shit could go wrong inside those walls. My beard was half the size it was when I’d walked out, and from the look of every other dickhead lining up to get in, if I kept my eyes down, it would help me blend in with the crowd. That didn’t mean another inmate or a guard wouldn’t recognize me, of course. I knew this was idiotic, but it was a risk I was willing to take before I did something worse than get locked up again.
Like fall in love with a fiery redhead.
Like forget everything I had planned for a girl I’d had once.
Three days had passed since the library and I could still taste Millie on my lips, feel her hair under my fingers. See that look in her eyes when we finally let go of each other, both spent and reeling from our fall back into reality.
I could’ve said something, in those seconds before we let go of each other and she ran away. I could’ve told her that I’d fucked up, lost control. But even if taking her there in the library where anyone could’ve seen us made me an asshole, I didn’t regret what we did in the slightest. Feeling her was the best thing to happen to me in two years.
I just knew it would only make things worse. To continue playing whatever game I started when I picked up that golden charm would be a huge fucking mistake.
She was meant for a different life.
Hence why I stood silently as she hurried out of the library. I didn’t chase her down to try and convince her to stay with me.
When I got back to my apartment, stroking the small charm beneath my T-shirt, I made the call. I needed to remember what the fuck I was meant to be doing out here and why I was doing it.
Tony had it all sorted. All I had to do was follow the plan. From the numerous aliases on his visitor list, the guards he knew could be bribed with a measly twenty bucks, and the notes I’d found in the apartment. It was like he knew I’d need to come back. I’d need to hear his pain, his anguish, and remember why I volunteered.
Why I’d told an old man I’d avenge his dead son.
And how I planned to spend my time on the outside, however long or short that may be, destroying the only other son he had.
Anthony Waters looked like shit. His hair was nearly completely white, his complexion gray, and his orange jumpsuit looked two sizes too big.
He was a fucking mess.
“You eating?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Bullshit. You’re wasting away again. You were meant to get your shit together when I left.”
“Coop, it’s hard. Not knowing. Thinking about what happened to Nate. It eats me up. I shouldn’t . . . I don’t deserve to live,” he muttered before starting to cry.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard Tony cry. First night he was moved into my cell, all he did was fucking cry. It was the background music to my life for a year and a half. When I learned the reason behind his tears, I couldn’t help but wonder if my father had ever shed a tear over the crap that had happened to me. I doubted it.
“Tony, shut up before you draw attention to us. You know I get it. That’s why we’re doing this. That motherfucker will pay. I’m already so close. I’m on the goddamn team, for Christ’s sake. Coach Hardy will have to start me next game. All we need is one brawl and Gray ends up at the bottom or in the path of a punch. He’ll be benched, and not just for a couple of games. I’m damn good at making people want to take a swing at me. As soon as I get my shot—”
“You shouldn’t,” he mumbled like a timid mouse. “There’s no way it’ll look like an accident. With your record, no matter how friendly you guys look, you’ll end up back in here. Or worse, he’ll retaliate. You might end up like Na—”
“Tony, we discussed this. If I'm going to end up back in here, at least I'll have done something worthwhile in my time out. And maybe you’ll finally get some fucking sleep at night.”
It shocked me how any judge would throw this guy in prison. A guy who clearly couldn’t take care of himself. For as long as I’d known him, he didn’t do anything but cry and pace like a nervous meth addict. He reeked of desperation and depression. I could see him committing a white-collar crime sure, but assisting the mafia? Picturing teary Tony in front of the mob was like picturing a fish working with a cat—they would’ve eaten him alive.
Flash (Penmore #2) Page 8