Chapter 23 – Cooper
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cooper
“ A re you sure?” I pull back from her embrace, needing to make sure I didn’t talk her into something she didn’t want.
I wasn’t bullshitting her when I said I’d gladly stay here and hang out. Sure, it wasn’t what I had in mind for our second date, but the important part was right here: Ramona. I would sit in the middle of a cornfield in 100-degree weather if she asked me to, as long as she was there beside me.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
I pick her up off the floor, spinning her around in my excitement. “I have to make a phone call and do some creative rescheduling, but I think I can get everything worked out in about an hour.”
“That works. I can make sure Darius is settled and grab his food from the restaurant. Do I need to change?”
Although the location of our date has changed, the date itself can still be easily executed. There’s no need for her to dress up or anything. The black jeans and long-sleeved Timberwolves shirt she wore to the game tonight are perfect. She may need to add a coat or hoodie to the ensemble, but that all depends on how her body reacts to the cold.
“Nope. You’re beautiful just the way you are.”
Her cheeks pink slightly as she swats at my chest. “Cooper, I’m being serious.”
“So am I. Just make sure you’re dressed warmly.”
“Still not planning on giving me a hint?”
Beauty has been trying to get any hints about our date for the last week, but I haven’t fallen for one. This time isn’t any different. Much to her dismay, I love surprising her. I’ve become addicted to the way her whole face lights up in delight when I do something for her, no matter how small it is.
She gives so much of herself to take care of Darius and her ma that she rarely thinks of herself. And now she has me. I may never be the most important person in her life, and rightfully so, but I can make sure that she remembers how special she is. I never want her to forget that there’s someone out there in the world who’s always thinking about her.
“Nope.” Her nose crinkles in the cute little way it does when she doesn’t get her way, and I laugh. “I'll see you when I get back.”
“Can I just meet you there? If something happens to Darius…” Her teeth worry her bottom lip, her eyes flicking back and forth as her mind races.
I know there’s nothing I can say that will make her stop worrying, but I don’t want her to think I don’t care. “Nothing is going to happen to him, but if it does, there’s no way you are getting rid of me. I’m just as concerned about him as you are, Beauty.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she pushes up on her toes, kissing my chin. “Thank you for putting up with all of this.”
“All of what? You’re worried about him and want to be close in case something happens. How can I fault you for that? Besides, I’d put up with anything to be with you.”
Her entire body melts into my arms as I pull her into my chest, my arms tightening around her waist. I want to be her rock, her strength whenever she needs someone to be there just for her. And after tonight, I have a feeling she might just let me.
“Now get out of here before I change my mind.” Beauty giggles, stepping out of my embrace.
“See you soon, Beauty,” I say over my shoulder before strolling out of the house and to my truck. The second I climb in, I find the number I’m looking for and make the call.
“Change of plans. How quickly can you get to Redwood Falls?”
I got everything arranged and ready to go in about thirty minutes, giving me just enough time to run back to Momma’s house to shower and tidy up some, not that there was much to be done. Momma keeps a very clean house, so the only place I really had to clean was my room.
My truck comes to a stop outside Ramona’s place exactly sixty minutes after I left. Ramona is standing on the front porch with a bright smile on her face. She comes jogging toward my truck, flinging the door open before I can stop her.
“You’re supposed to let me come to the door like a gentleman,” I say as she climbs into the truck, leaning over to plant a kiss on my cheek before buckling her seat belt.
“I would’ve, but I was under strict instructions not to let you back inside.”
“From who?”
“Ma. She changed and washed her face. No man is allowed to see her looking like that, not even her future son-in-law. Those are her words, not mine.”
“That’s the second time you’ve made a comment about that today. Are you against marriage or something?” I ask, pulling out of her driveway and heading toward the first stop for tonight's date.
To me . I want to add that short phrase to my question, but I don’t want to freak her out. I’m not ready to get down on one knee and propose right now, but I’d be lying to myself if I deny the fact that I’ve thought about it. There is finally something just as important as hockey and my family in my life.
“Of course, I want to get married. Every girl dreams of what her wedding day would be like at an early age.”
“Okay…” I allow my words to trail off, trying to find the right thing to say. How do I explain why I need some clarification from her?
“It's just that—I don’t want to freak you out—our mothers won’t stop saying we are going to get married someday. We only just started dating a month and a half ago after a chance meeting on the side of the road.”
My eyes flick toward Ramona as I turn onto the familiar road leading to The Chill Zone. The glow of the streetlights filters through the window, illuminating the cab just enough for me to make out the features on her face. Her plump bottom lip is pulled between her teeth, and her eyebrows are pulled down in concentration as she wrings her hands in her lap. She’s nervous, that much is obvious, but there’s something else there: fear.
“That reminds me, I still owe Bluebell some apples.” I chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.
“Bluebell has gotten enough apples from me. She doesn’t even miss the apples you promised.”
“You wound me, Beauty. I’m a man of my word. I promised that sweet girl some apples, and I will deliver them to her. I’m sure she’ll understand why it’s taken me so long to get them to her.”
“I’m sure she will,” she whispers.
I could drop this right now. Never mention it again, but I can’t stop thinking about the fear I saw on her face. I never want Beauty to be afraid of anything, most of all me.
I pull up to the front of the rink and put the truck in park. Ramona doesn’t move to get out or even turn to look at me.
“Beauty.” I say her name reverently, hoping to get her attention, but she doesn’t move a muscle.
Instead of trying to coax her into looking at me as I usually do, I climb out and head over to the passenger side. I need her to hear what I'm about to say, to look into my eyes and see that I mean every word.
Pulling the door open, I grab both her hands in mine. Her eyes flick up to mine, the fear I noticed earlier shining right back at me. I also see something else I can’t place, but it quickly disappears. “Beauty, look at me.” Her eyes snap back to mine for a moment before she looks away again. I’ll take what I can get at this point. “You couldn’t scare me away if you tried, Ramona.”
Her eyes snap to mine as a single tear tails down her cheek. I lean forward and kiss it away. “You have all the control here. You’ll have to send me away because I’m never leaving you.”
She throws her arms around my shoulders, burying her nose in the crook of my neck. “You are too good to me, Cooper. I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Beauty. You deserve so much more than I can ever give you. You deserve the world.”
We remain locked in each other’s arms until my phone vibrates in my pocket. I refuse to let her go, keeping one arm tight around her waist while the other grabs my phone. I pull it up to my face to unlock it, noticing a new text from Beau.
Second-Best Hendrix
It’s done. You owe me huge for this, brother. I have calluses on my fingers from trying to get everything perfect for you.
Thanks, Beau. I really appreciate it.
Second-Best Hendrix
You’re welcome. Ollie texted and said he’s getting started right now, as well. He should have everything ready for you when you arrive.
I don’t respond this time and pocket the phone before pulling away from Beauty. “Are you ready for our date?”
“Of course, I am, but why are we back here?”
“You’ll see.”
I step back and allow Ramona to slide out. The minute her feet hit the ground, I grab her hand and kick the door shut before pulling her toward the front door.
I’d originally planned to give her a tour of the Timberwolves’ arena before having a candlelight dinner in the team box and hopefully convincing her to stay with me at my apartment instead of heading home, but this is just as great of an idea.
I pull open the door and stop just inside. “Do you mind if I cover your eyes?”
“Yes.”
I give her my best puppy-dog eyes before she caves.
“Fine. But don’t you dare let me fall.”
“Never,” I say with conviction before pulling the piece of cloth I tucked into my pocket for this moment. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“Yes.” She gives my hand a small squeeze before shutting her eyes. “I love how you always double-check, wanting to be sure I’m okay.”
I wrap the cloth around her eyes, tying it loosely. “I never want to do anything to hurt you, Ramona. Ever.”
I thread my arm through hers and make my way slowly through the darkened rink. I promised her I wouldn’t let anything hurt her, and I meant it. There are electric candles casting a soft glow around the arena. Beau scattered them around the rink on benches and strung patio string lights across the ice, creating a romantic glow. I pull Beauty to a stop directly in the center of the rink before removing her blindfold.
“Cooper.” She gasps.
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? It’s gorgeous. How did you manage all of this in an hour?”
I chuckle softly, resting my chin on the top of her head. My arms move around her waist before slipping my hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Beau. He was headed down here tonight to spend the weekend with Momma, since we had planned to have our date in the city.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Cooper Hendrix.” She leans back, her head dropping onto my chest.
“The same could be said for you, Ramona King. Now, are you ready for your lesson?”
“Lesson?”
“Skating lesson.”
“I don’t think that’s the greatest idea.” Her entire body tenses in my arms. I don’t have to see her face to know the pure panic in her eyes. “I’m so clumsy that I trip over thin air.”
She’s right. I stopped counting all the times I’ve had to save her from an invisible force causing her to trip or fall. There’s no rhyme or reason to it other than she’s just clumsy, but she’s never fallen. Not once, and I don’t intend to let it happen tonight either.
“Didn’t I promise I wouldn’t let you fall? Don’t you trust me?”
“I do.”
“Then can you try for me? If you hate it, just say the word and we can move on to phase two of your date.”
“Phase two? How many phases does this date entail?”
“Three. Maybe four.”
“And what might those entail?”
“Food and Desert.”
“And what is the possible fourth one?”
“You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you, Beauty?” I spin her around in my arms, planting a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Are you willing to try skating?”
Ramona’s eyes scan my face, searching for something before her head drops to my chest. She mumbles something too low for me to hear. “What did you just say?”
“I was praying that I won’t have matching bruises with Darius in the morning.”
“So, we’re skating?”
Beauty steps out of my embrace, plopping down on the bench beside us. “We’re skating.”
“It’ll be fun, Beauty. I promise. Just remember, if you completely hate it, we can forget this ever happened.”
I grab the bag Beau stashed here for me and unzip it quickly, pulling out my spare pair of skates from Momma’s house and a pair of white figure skates I snagged for Ramona earlier this week.
“Are those for me?”
“Of course. I can’t let you wear just any skates on the ice with me. I have a reputation to protect.” I wink, carefully removing her left shoe and sliding the corresponding skate onto it. “It fits.”
“You say that as if you were worried they wouldn’t.”
“Getting the right size skates can be tricky. With hockey skates, you need to buy about one whole shoe size smaller, sometimes a size and a half down. With figure skates—those are what these are—it’s usually a whole size. Alise said you had wide feet, so I went with a half size instead.”
“That sounds complicated.” She has a bemused look on her face. “How do you even know all of this? Are you some skating guru or something?”
“Or something.” I chuckle, sliding the other skate onto her foot and lacing them both up. “It was a lot of trial and error. I was Momma’s test dummy for everything hockey. By the time she got around to outfitting my youngest brother, Kyle, we had everything down to a perfect science.”
“That web page wasn’t kidding. The Hendrix family is a freaking hockey dynasty.”
“Nah, we are just a bunch of boys that all like the same sport.”
“And are freaking amazing at it. You three have more Stanley Cups between you than some hockey franchises have had in their entire existence.”
“For someone who doesn’t like sports, you sure know a lot about hockey.”
“I like to know things about the people I care about. And Darius has fallen in love with the sport. I want to support both of you, and I can’t do that if I know nothing about it. However, don’t ask me anything about the rules.”
I toss my head back and laugh, the sound echoing around the empty rink. “Beauty, I’m going to turn you into a hockey fan.”
“I’m a Cooper Hendrix fan. Isn’t that enough?”
“It's more than enough. It’s perfect,” I respond with a smile before toeing off my sneakers and sliding them into my skates, lacing them up quickly and pushing to my feet. “Now, let’s get you on the ice.”
Ramon reaches both of her hands toward me, and I grip them tightly, pulling her to her feet. She wobbles slightly but keeps her balance. We slowly make our way onto the ice. “Now what?”
“Now, you fall.”
“Excuse me?” Ramona questions, her head cocked to the side as she tries to understand if I’m kidding or not.
“You need to fall down so you know how to get back up. Ease your way down onto the ice, and I’ll show you the easiest way to get back up.”
She eyes me skeptically as I help her lower to the ice. “Fuck! This shit is cold.”
“It is ice. What did you expect?”
She scowls at me, daring me to make another joke, but I continue the instruction instead. “Get on your knees and put one knee up. Using your hands, hold your balance so you can put the other knee up and stand.”
She tries a few times to follow my directions, usually tumbling onto her side when she attempts to stand up straight, but on the fourth time, she gets to her feet. “I did it!” she squeals in delight, clapping her hands in front of her like a toddler.
“You did great. Are you ready to start moving?” I hold out both of my hands toward her, and she drops hers into them.
“Let’s do it.”
“Now it's time to march. Right, left, right, left.”
She takes a deep breath and follows my direction. She wobbles a few times, but we make it down one side of the rink without any incident. Once we reach the curve in the wall. I have her march and then glide a few moments on both her feet.
“Now I want you to make a lemon shape with your skates, heel to toe,” I instruct, showing her exactly what I mean while skating backward.
“Showoff.” She giggles, holding her arms out to her side and copying my movements, moving toward me as I move backward.
We continue this down one side of the rink and around the curve before stopping where we started. “Are you ready for the final step?”
She gives me an enthusiastic yes as I show her how to skate properly. “Turn both of your feet outward and push off to the other foot. Rinse and repeat.”
She watches me closely for a few minutes, asking questions as I move, but soon, she is skating beside me, her glove-covered hand wrapped in mine. We make our way around the ice slowly, talking about everything and nothing at all. I thought we’d run out of things to talk about after spending hours on the phone with each other every night for the last few weeks, but I just want to know more about her.
“We covered all the favorite questions already. What else do you want to know?” She giggles as I grip her wrist and pull her in, her back to my front, as we continue to glide around the ice.
I’ve been skating around, telling her my feelings all night, being purposely obtuse instead of just outright telling her I’m falling in love with her. I wanted to find the perfect moment for me to say it, but that moment has come and gone a few times since we arrived. But now it comes bubbling out of my throat as if I’m unable to contain it any longer. “I’m falling in love with you, Ramona King.”
Beauty spins in my arms, her eyes filling with tears as she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me toward her. Our lips brush against each other, and every part of my body is on fire, an overwhelming sense of rightness settling over me. I know I should ask her how she feels about me, if this is too fast for her, or even a million other questions, but I don’t do that.
I can feel her curves pressing against my body as my arm snakes around her neck. My lips part as she slides her tongue between them, pulling a guttural groan from my lips. My senses are overwhelmed with the taste of her toothpaste and something that is just her.
My fingers slide into her hair, fisting her locs and pulling her head backward to give me better access to her mouth. My cock hardens against her belly, and I try to pull away, but her grip around my neck tightens.
“Don’t run away from me, Cooper,” she pleads against my lips before pressing hers against mine a second time.
I need to put a stop to this somehow and put some space between us. We are in the middle of the local ice hockey rink, for fuck’s sake. She deserves more than to be taken against the boards, but I can’t stop myself. How can I possibly push her away when she is the first thing I’ve allowed myself to want in years? She makes a surprise sound as my hand trails down her back and cups her ass in my palm. She mewls softly into my mouth as I lift her into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and pressing herself closer to my body.
The warmth between her legs seeps into my skin as I skate forward, opening my eyes just enough to press her body against the plexiglass surrounding the rink.
Ramona nibbles and sucks her way down my neck, pure need burning through my body with each caress of her teeth against my skin. “We need to slow down, Beauty.”
“If you stop now, I’m going to explode.” She must have lost her gloves because crackles of electricity shoot across my skin as her nails drag down my back, gripping the hem of my shirt and tugging upward.
I lean back far enough to rip the shirt over my head. The cold bite of the rink tickles across my skin for a few moments before my lips press tightly against hers, grabbing the hem of her sweatshirt and tugging lightly. “Turnabout is fair play, Beauty.”
“I’m all about being fair,” she whispers, ripping the shirt over her head and tossing it onto the ice. My eyes drink in the swell of her breasts beneath her bra, her pinking skin as goose bumps pebble across her exposed skin, begging to be traced by my tongue.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, wanting to make sure she knows that this is the point of no return. I need her to spell it out for me, to be sure that right here in the hockey rink is how she wants to do this. She deserves so much more, but I don’t have the strength to stop myself.
Beauty drags her warm center up my cock before grinding down hard, her hips rotating as blissful agony makes its way through my body. “Beauty.” I groan loudly, skating toward the opening in the rink wall and placing her on her feet.
Her hand slides down my chest, her hand cupping my cock through my sweats, pulling another groan from my lips. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
“But here?” I question, wanting to make absolutely sure this is what she wants. Ramona reaches back and unclasps her bra as we inch slowly toward the closest bench. “And I don’t have any condoms.”
I drop my sweatshirt near the bench before spinning her around, taking a seat on the bench, and burying my nose into the flesh of her stomach. I nip and suck at her skin, popping open the button of her jeans.
“I’m on the pill and haven’t been with anyone in years.” My hands skim down her legs as I make quick work of unlacing her skates and tossing them to the side, each one landing with a thud a few feet away from us.
“Same goes for me,” I whisper against her skin, gripping the waistband of her jeans and pulling them, along with her panties, to the floor as the words I’ve been longing to hear finally slip from her lips.
“Take me, Cooper. Make me yours.”