Throb(60)
“Cooper,” I whisper as he rests me gently on the bed and buries his face in my neck. He pulls his head back to look at me. “Make love to me.”
His eyes roam my face and he kisses me softly. Then he slowly makes love to me with the same domineering possessiveness that he always has. Only, this time it’s sweet and filled with heartfelt emotion.
It’s almost one in the morning by the time we’ve both quenched our desire. “Do you know why I wanted to bring you there tonight? To meet Mom and Kyle?” I say as I snuggle into the crook of his arm, fully sated.
“To show me why you’re doing the show?”
I should have known Cooper would see right through my thinly veiled plan to remind him why he needs to have patience with me when things get harder during the taping of the final four. “Did it work?”
“I already knew why you were doing the show.”
“I thought maybe it would make it easier to see the reason. Telling you what I’m working for doesn’t have the same effect. Making it to the end will go a long way for them. I would be able to almost fully pay off my mother’s mortgage and cover Kyle’s therapy while I finish school.”
“I can certainly appreciate your determination more. But if we’re being honest, nothing is going to make it easier to see you going out on romantic dates with another man.” He kisses the top of my head. “Although it means a lot that you tried.”
There’s a long silence and I start to think he’s fallen asleep. “Go away with me while you’re on hiatus?”
The question is unexpected. “Where?”
“My house in Barbados.”
“The house we’re going to stay at when we film?”
“I want you all to myself until then. Plus, I need to have you all over the island so there isn’t one place that you could sit with him and not remember me coaxing an orgasm from your body.”
I certainly don’t object to a marathon of orgasms on a tropical island. “I have to work tonight. But then I’m all yours.”
“Good. We leave tomorrow morning.”
I laugh. “You’ve already made the plans before asking me, haven’t you?”
“I did.”
“What would have happened if I would have said no?”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“That’s not the point.”
“I suppose I would have had to change your mind.”
“Let me guess, you’d screw me into submission.”
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a thing at all. You couldn’t make me change my mind by having sex with me if I really didn’t want to do something.”
“Then I’d have to use my mouth on you if my cock didn’t work.”
“You’re totally not getting what I’m trying to say.”
“Let’s try out your theory, shall we?” My exhausted body shudders at the challenge in his voice.
“I’m too tired.”
“Are you?” He flips me on my back and is above me, his mouth sucking my nipple in deeply, before I can even object. I am exhausted, but my traitorous body reacts anyway.
Forty-five minutes and two orgasms later, I drift off, thinking I might need to say no more often, just to get him to change my mind.
chapter twenty-eight
Cooper
The first thing I notice as I step foot into the casino is the costume the dealers are wearing. It’s basically little more than lingerie. In their red corsets and short black skirts, they look more like they belong at Hugh Heffner’s mansion than at a casino about to deal cards. I follow the sign to the high-stakes room with renewed purpose in my step.
It’s six in the morning, so the only people still playing cards are the degenerate gamblers and the drunks. Both appear to be at Kate’s table as I approach.
She watches me intently as I take a seat and pull my billfold from my pocket.
“Cash in.” She lays out my ten one-hundred-dollar bills on the felt table and turns to a suit, who nods.
“What can I get for you this morning, sir?” She arches an eyebrow and, just like the first time I met her, my damn dick twitches in my pants.
“Whatever you want to give me.” No one at the table notices our exchange. There’s four players, an old guy wearing a thick gold bracelet and four different diamond rings, and a group of three drunk young people who may have gotten in using fake IDs.
She pushes a stack of chips in my direction and smiles. “Good luck, sir.” Another damn twitch.
She deals the first hand and I win. “Looks like you’re lucky this morning.”