Mac
Well, I can’t claim to be Mister Experienced in the matter, but a woman running to throw up after your first kiss—that can’t be good. And even worse, Cocoa won’t let me in the bathroom to hold her hair back. I give up knocking after ten long minutes, because I’ve always told myself: if she wants me gone, I’ll go.
The stairs rock beneath me as I head back downstairs. I’ve lived here for decades, but my cottage is suddenly all wrong, with crooked doorways and too-bright paint and sharp new corners of furniture to bounce off. Like walking through a fun-house.
What did I do wrong? Did I push her too fast? Freak her out?
Shekissed me, right? I’m not remembering that wrong, scribbling over the real events with my own wishful thinking. Cocoa started it. Lord knows I’d never have laid a finger on her otherwise.
But maybe it wasn’t what she expected. Or maybe it didn’t feel good for her after all.
For me, it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Like sinking into a hot bath after a long, freezing day at sea, and feeling the prickles spread over my whole body, my nerves coming back to life.
“Shit.”
I’m lost in my own kitchen, staring at our half-made dinner like I’ve never seen a stir fry before. How do I switch the stove on? How do I hold a wooden spoon? My body takes over, fumbling through the motions, while my brain screams in the back of my skull.
What if I scared her off? What if she doesn’t want to stay here anymore?
What if she thinks I expect things from her? That if she doesn’t kiss me like that, I’ll make her leave?
My gut lurches. Now I feel sick. Have I given that impression? Christ, I’ve tried my hardest to hide this attraction, this constant gnawing need I feel around Cocoa, but it must’ve peeked through. She’s a smart girl. She must have sensed it.
“Shit,” I say again, flipping the stove off for the second time. I can’t eat like this, not with a hot ball of shame weighing down my gut, and Cocoa probably won’t be able to stomach it either. Guess we’re both on a buttered toast diet tonight.
I pack up the ingredients, methodical and dead inside. Maybe we can salvage this meal tomorrow.
If she’s still here tomorrow. If she ever wants to be near me again.
There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
* * *
My cottage has always been my happy place. It’s quiet, calm, tucked away from the world. The sounds of the waves drift through the open windows, and every wooden beam in the ceiling, every door frame, is crusted with a fine layer of salt, no matter how often I clean.
This is where I hide myself away. This is where I stay sane, recovering from the nonstop nonsense of the outside world. Or it was, anyway.
Now it’s the tenth circle of hell.
When Cocoa finally comes out of the bathroom, she’s ashen. Silent. She won’t meet my eye, and everything she says to me for the rest of the evening is painfully polite. No more teasing, no more flirting. We’re done with that now.
For the first time since she came here, I’m relieved to part ways and go to bed. It’s agony being around her like this and knowing I’m the cause.
It’s too early to sleep, but I hide in my bedroom like a coward. The moon shines through the open drapes, and stars speckle the navy sky. A line of pink still glows on the horizon. The sun’s barely set, and I’ve already brushed my teeth, scrubbed my face, and changed into striped pajama pants. I’m forty going on seventy, I guess.
The mattress creaks as I stretch out above the covers. It’s a warm night, but the chill on the breeze sends goosebumps rippling over my bare chest each time the drapes flutter.
Hush, hush, say the waves.
But for once, I can’t be soothed.
Cocoa.Is she okay?
I try reading, flicking on my bedside lamp, but it’s no use. My eyes read the same page six times but nothing sinks in, and I’m clutching the paperback so hard my hand cramps. Which book is this? I couldn’t even tell you the genre.
Bed springs plunk as I roll over, face planting in the pillows. The faded old quilt is soft against my chest, brushing the overheated skin, loose threads snagging in my chest hair. My breath is muffled. It smells like peppermint toothpaste. What was I thinking? Of course Cocoa doesn’t want a man like me.
She’s vivid, crackling with boundless energy. I get worn down by a simple conversation at the post office.
The soft click of my bedroom door barely registers. Not until I hear her whisper, “Mac?”
I go rigid. Every muscle in my body strains against my bones.
There’s a soft sigh, and the door clicks shut again. For a moment, I think that’s it—but then footsteps pad across my floorboards and stop beside the bed.
Turn over, you ass.
It’s not that easy. I’m so ashamed by what I’ve done, and what if Cocoa misreads my intentions? We’re alone in my bedroom. Her sweet voice always makes me hard, and these pajama pants hide nothing. How do I navigate this minefield when I’m cracked open and bleeding from longing?
“Is that it, then?” Cocoa sounds as sad and tired as I feel. “We only get the one kiss?”
I roll over before my brain can kick in, and prop up on my elbows. She stares down at me, fingers plucking at her baggy sleep shirt—the green one I used to run in sometimes.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve bought her plenty of clothes. Pajamas too, but Cocoa still sleeps in my old t-shirts each night, the hem brushing her thighs when she comes down for coffee in the mornings. The sight of it always kills me and resurrects me in one go.
“You want another one?” I demand, voice too rough, too hard, but she doesn’t flinch. Wherever else I’ve gone wrong, my girl has never been afraid of me. “You’re seriously telling me you want to do that again? You threw up, Cocoa. You’ve barely looked at me all night.”
Pink floods her cheeks. “Not because of…” She trails off, gesturing between us. “I, um. Some memories came back. I remembered. It was a—a shock to the system, I guess.”
Oh.
Oh, shit. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.
She didn’t hate the kiss?
Her memories are back?
“You remembered?” Cold seeps into my bones, somehow even worse than before. Does that mean she’s leaving? God, I’d give anything to keep her here, even with this awkwardness. Even if we never touch again. “It’s all come back? Everything?”
A puff of breath. She shakes her head, dark bob swaying. “Not yet. But… enough. I know where we should go tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Pain slices my insides.
Ah, hell. I’m not equipped for this. Not for telling what’s right or wrong; not for keeping my hands off this girl; and not for keeping a lid on all these goddamn feelings.
“That’s good,” I scrape out. “That’s good news, sweetheart.”
Her eyes are damp in the moonlight.
“Yeah,” Cocoa whispers. “So can I stay with you tonight?”
In here, she means. In this bed. By my side. I lurch back to make room so fast, my back twinges.
“Thought it was the kiss,” I hear myself tell her as she stretches out beside me, so soft and sweet. Those goddamn bare thighs will haunt me to my grave, golden in the light from my lamp. “Thought you hated it so much you threw up.”
Her laugh is brokenhearted. “Oh, Mac.” A small hand smooths over my chest, and her nails scratch at my chest hairs, petting me like an over-sized cat. “Of course not. Can I prove you wrong? I’ve brushed my teeth like a million times, I swear.”
My pulse buzzes in my jaw bone. She really wants to? She wasn’t repulsed before?
“I would never expect anything…”
“Mac.” She flicks my nipple. “I know.”
“I should give you more time.” Even if our weeks together have already driven me half out of my mind. “A gentleman would.”
Cocoa’s smile trembles. “But how much time do we really have?” The words are a kick to my chest. “Besides, a gentleman would listen to what I’m saying. And I want you, Mac. I’ve wanted you this whole time.”
It’s too much, too bittersweet. The exact words I’ve been longing for, coming the night before I lose her forever. I’ll be a shell of a man once she’s gone.
“You need better taste. I’m too old for you, Cocoa.” Despite my words, I roll on top of her, bracing my arms either side of her head. She stares up at me, lips parted and pink. “You should be with someone younger. Like that rock star in town.”
Her mouth quirks up. “You hate that guy.”
So I do. “Well yeah, but I’d hate any guy you were with. Every time you so much as smile at another man, I want to toss him in the ocean and carry you off over my shoulder.”
It’s rough, for the record. Cocoa smiles at everyone. Not to flirt, but because she’s a walking, talking ray of sunshine.
She laughs, the throaty sound sending tingles down my spine. And I’m confessing my sins, telling her how twisted I’ve become, but lying beneath me, my girl looks thrilled. She loops her arms around my neck, and her knees slide up to bracket my waist.
Fuck,she’s warm down there. The heat seeps from between her legs, scorching me through my sleep pants, and I don’t dare to flip the hem of her t-shirt up and check whether she’s wearing underwear. Not yet. I’m already hanging by a thread.
“I get jealous too,” Cocoa says.
I stare down at her, nonplussed. “I don’t talk to people. How’d you get jealous over me?”
She shrugs, smiling wider. “I find a way. Like remember last week when we got those ice creams? That woman kept licking hers, staring you dead in the eye the whole time.”
Huh. Yeah. Thought I’d dropped raspberry swirl down my shirt or something. I made Cocoa check me over three times.
Thick thighs squeeze my hips. Christ, these thighs. If I were a poet, I’d write them a sonnet. Two sonnets—one each.
“Remember what happened next?” she says.
Frowning, I wrack my brain, because it’s hard to think of anything while Cocoa’s body is stretched under mine. Especially with her fingers scratching my scalp.
She’s so warm. So alive. Peering up at me with so much trust it seizes my breath, and though I desperately want to keep up with this conversation, my instincts are screaming for me to shove my hips down and rut.
I swallow hard.
“You sat in my lap,” I say slowly, replaying the grainy footage in my head. At the time, I’d thought it a little weird—there were plenty of seats at the cafe—but I wasn’t about to question it. Because what if Cocoa agreed and moved? “And you were messing with me. You nibbled my earlobe, trying to wind me up.”
Cocoa shakes her head. “Trying to stake a claim.”
That’swhat that was? My heart gives an unsteady lurch.
She doesn’t need to claim me. She already owns me, body and soul. All I want is to please and protect her.
But that’s too much to put on a person I’ve only kissed once; too heavy for a girl who’s leaving me tomorrow. I don’t want Cocoa to leave here feeling guilty, like she led me on or something. Don’t want her to feel beholden.
She’s young. Beautiful. Smart and funny and carefree.
She deserves to go back out into the world and have more adventures. Not hide herself away in this cottage with a loner.
So I don’t say all the things I want to—I don’t stake a claim in return. Instead I hide my face in the crook of her neck, sucking and nibbling on the heated skin.
“Oh.” Cocoa gasps and squirms and tugs on my hair.
“Feeling sick yet?”
She smacks my shoulder, and I muffle my laugh against her cheek.
Our lips meet, and this time as we kiss, I’m not shocked. She’s not reeling. There’s only us, and our thudding hearts, and the rasp of the waves outside. The heat builds between us, lazy and molten, and the longer we kiss, the more weight I settle on top of her.
Not trying to squeeze the air out of her. But I need to feel her, the dips and swells, the bony angles and the squishy bits. All of it. And most of all, I need the way she rubs up against me, sighing into my mouth. Need the tickle of her foot up the back of my thigh.
“I want you,” Cocoa breathes.
And I know what she means by that, but I can’t give it. Can’t do that with her, not once and only once, and hope to stay sane and whole.
There are other things, though. Things I could give her. Things I’d like to do.
Reaching between us, I splay one hand over her taut stomach. The green t-shirt is rucked up between us, creased into mad folds, and the heat of her skin scorches through the cotton.
“You gonna let me taste you, sweetheart?” Her belly rises and falls against my palm. She’s breathing hard, her whole body working like a bellows. “Cocoa. Would you like that?”
“Y-yes. But…”
Crawling down her body, I pause. “But what?”
A blush spreads up her throat, and suddenly she won’t meet my eye. “I haven’t—haven’t shaved.”
There’s a beat. A long pause, where I wait for the real reason she’s nervous, but it doesn’t come. That’s really her big concern? Jesus. What does she take me for?
“Good,” I say shortly, shouldering my way between Cocoa’s legs. I flip the t-shirt up onto her belly and fix my hungry eyes on her bare sex, a pleased rumble sounding in my chest. “Now you’ll know I’m not some whiny jackass who wants a blow up doll instead of a real woman.”
She snorts. “Mac.”
“I’m serious.” Pulling her apart with my thumbs, I stare at the sweetest sight I’ve ever seen. She’s pink and glistening, and my mouth’s already watering. “You’re perfect as you are. Anyone who can’t see that is not worth your time.”
And it stings so badly to think of her with someone else—rips a hole inside of me—but the best distraction in the world is waiting for me. I duck down with a groan… and find heaven.
She’s sweet.
Salty.
Down here, Cocoa smells like soap and musk and the faint tang of sweat, and it’s good, so fucking good, so real and raw. Like I said, I don’t want some polished mirage—I want her. The real her.
For one night only. That’s all I’ll get, right? And that deadline is not my wish, but it is reality.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I set to work… and I don’t stop until she rattles the cottage with her screams.