The Space In Between(13)

He led me to the couch, thrusting his body on top of mine. His mouth began to travel down to my neck, kissing me with nice pecks and sucking me gently with each new location. My toes curled into the couch cushion and I couldn’t stop from arching my back as I longed for more. He placed his hand on my bare leg and began to travel under the trench coat up to my thigh. Everything inside of me heated up more and more at his touch. I lost all connections to the real world. It was just the two of us. Sampling each other. Discovering each other.
“Coop…” I whispered. With immediate care, his eyes shot to mine and he stopped his actions. A level of guilt filled his eyes, which made him even more attractive. I shook my head, pulled his face closer to mine, and murmured, “Bed.” His guilt vanished with the taste of my lips. He lifted me up and carried me down the hall as I wrapped my legs around him and rested upon his strong body.
I needed Cooper that night and I could tell he needed me just as much. It was our escape from reality. Time didn’t exist when I was with him that night. There were no yesterdays and no tomorrows. There was no thought involved, just passion. One kiss after another. One embrace made everything else seem meaningless just for a few moments. My mind was emptied. The feeling of overthinking every little detail of life vanished. The replaying of the accident wasn’t happening within my head during those moments. Yes, we both were in need of some space between our all too messed up realities. Real life was too tough to face, and right now Cooper was forgetting about his drama in the world and I was forgetting about Derrick.
Derrick.
My eyes slowly opened to find Cooper kissing my nose. We’d finished our escape from reality. Our bodies spread out on my bed, clothes scattered across the floor, and my eyes shifted away from the handsome man lying next to me. And I remembered.
Derrick. I felt dirty. The same dirtiness washed over Cooper’s face as we sat up in the bed. The night’s autumn breeze was chillier than most nights as it flew past my open window. I quickly stood to shut it. All the heat that had run through my body a few minutes ago was long gone, and I was freezing.
Bending down, I wrapped a sheet around my body and handed Cooper his shirt. I couldn’t even hold in my smile as I watched him stand from the bed. He had the most perfect butt I’d ever seen. I couldn’t find the strength to look away as he slid his boxers on—he was gorgeous. I was torn. My heart was crying out as the pains of my previous actions were now creeping into my mind, yet at the same time I wanted round two of Cooper Davidson.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” he stated as he continued to get dressed. I couldn’t believe it either.
I had a feeling Cooper wasn’t one to partake in random flings. And it wasn’t extremely random what we’d done— we knew each other after all. We’d grown up together. Well, kind of.
“I don’t know if you felt it…I mean it just felt like…” He paused and shook his head as he continued to button his long-sleeved shirt. My softened expression probably showed him I’d felt it too. It felt like an escape. A way out for a moment in time. But the moment passed, and time had a way of never standing still.
He looked at me in my sheet and studied my curves. I aggressively pulled the sheet tighter to my body and watched as his eyes shifted away from me. He clearly could tell how uncomfortable I was.
“Let me take you out to dinner,” he suggested.
“No.”
He turned to face me and delivered a smile which made every inch of my skin tingle once again. How did he do that? “Why not?”
“It's against the rules.”
“What rules?”
The rules I had already pretty much destroyed. The Pretty Woman rules. No personal information. That kind of went out of the window when I walked into the VIP room and saw him standing before me.
No kissing on the lips.
Crap.
And no second meet ups. I could hold up to that one. I felt pretty silly thinking about the rules, but Ladasha had taught me them, and it was my duty to follow through with at least one of the rules. And going out to dinner with gorgeous Cooper Davidson was not allowed.
“Come on, tell me. What rules?” He was interested as he raised one of his eyebrows. Everything he did was sexy. The sweat dripping down his forehead? Sexy. The way he bit the tip of his thumb? Sexy. The way he growled in my ear while nibbling it? Sweet mother of everything righteous…He could call me names, ignore my existence, tell me to piss off, and it would still make my body want him to claim me all over again. But, he would never do those things. He was too much of a southern gentleman.
I blushed at the thoughts filling my head, and lowered my voice to answer his question. “The Pretty Woman rules.”
He drifted over to me, sporting his perfectly perfect dimples. “You do know how that movie ends, right?” Cooper turned away from me and slipped into his pants. I couldn’t help but let a small grin slip from my lips. I realized the expression of pleasure plastered on my face and shook it off as Cooper kept talking. “I just…I don’t want to be one of those guys. I want to take you out to—“
“YOU BITCH!” was heard from the living room. Ladasha was home. “How the hell did you get Roger to let you get a damn promotion without even staying the whole freakin’ night?! And how the hell did you get someone to pay six hundred dollars for a damn lap dance?!” she hollered.
My eyes widened, looking to Cooper. “Six hundred dollars?!” I paused. Well, he got what he paid for.
“I picked up a pizza on the way back, dude. Seriously though. Teach me your…” Ladasha barged into my bedroom before I had a chance to tell Cooper to somehow turn invisible. The piece of Brooklyn style pizza in my roommate’s hand froze in mid-air as Ladasha saw me wrapped in a sheet. Her eyes landed on Cooper and she finished her sentence. “…secrets…”