Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
She could only stare at him, her heart going crazy, her whole body buzzing. “You… you can’t! No one can!”
“None of those other men could. But I can.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because. Because I wanted you for a long time, you’re right.
That time the horses got out when we were talking…
I wanted to kiss you. I was about to kiss you.
I’m going to take the horses back to the ranch.
I’m going to put them away. And then I’m going to book us into the Remington Suites, because you and I are going to spend the night together. ”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’m going to book us there because then nothing can bother us. If the horses get out, not my problem. If there’s a seagull tangled up in your Christmas lights, we won’t know about it. You’re going to turn off your phone, I’m going to turn off mine.”
“Godzilla is going to rise out of the sea and eat us.”
“Nope. That’s not going to happen.”
He was staring at her, intense. Intent.
And she felt like she was under his spell. She did want this. She wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.
“What am I supposed to do for the next half-hour while I wait for you?”
“Pack an overnight bag, and work on a list of fantasies.”
Oh, she didn’t have to work on a list. She had them. All of them. She knew exactly what she wanted from him. Because this had been something that was part of her desire for a very long time. It wasn’t new.
But then, there was always the risk that he was going to get in a car accident before he got back to pick her up. Oh. Was he going to pick her up from her house?
“Are you just going to… come over and…?”
“Yes,” he said.
There was something so sure and determined in his voice that it made everything inside of her shimmer. “Well, what are my mom and grandma going to think?”
“Probably think that you and I are going to spend the night together.”
“Marcus might kill you.”
He arched a brow. “I thought the universe was going to do that.”
“Well, Marcus might act on behalf of the universe.”
“He’s not in town.”
“I know.” She couldn’t think of any justifications.
Nobody in her family – except Marcus, but only because of who Cooper was – would have any kind of issue with her having sex.
Her mom and grandma had always been entirely sex positive, and they themselves had taken lovers when it was convenient for them, and certainly hadn’t bothered to hide it.
But this was new for Eliana. Granted, they didn’t even know her whole situation. She might have fudged the reality around the encounters that she’d had up until this point. Because it felt easier. Because it felt less embarrassing.
“I don’t think it requires an explanation,” he said.
“Would you feel the same way if it were your family?”
“I wouldn’t be that happy about proving my brother right. But otherwise.”
He was just owning it. Owning this, and that shocked her. She had expected a little bit of secrecy, but then again, he had kissed her at the bonfire.
“Okay. I’ll… Let’s walk back, and I’ll meet you at my house.”
“Meet you there.”
And just maybe, when she got back home, she did a small protection spell in her room before coming back downstairs.
And held her breath until he pulled up. She saw his truck glide up against the curb, and she grabbed her overnight bag and rushed down the ladder.
“And where are you going?” her grandmother asked from her beanbag chair in the corner on the second floor. “Away for the evening.”
“Oh?”
“With a man.”
“A man?” Her mom poked her head around the corner from one of the nooks and crannies down the hall.
“Yes, Mother. I’m going away with a man for the night.”
“Do we know this man?”
“Yes. You do.” She kept on moving, with purpose toward the stairs.
“Which man is it?”
“Cooper Langdon,” she said, taking a deep breath as she said his name, swallowing the last consonant.
“Oh!”
That brought both her mom and grandma speeding toward her.
“Does Marcus know?”
“Marcus doesn’t need to know. Considering I don’t know who he’s sleeping with tonight, I doubt he needs to know who I’m sleeping with.”
“True. And, I love your brother, but he is a man,” her mom said.
That somehow made no sense, and all the sense, all at the same time. “Exactly.”
“This seems like a very sudden development,” her mom said.
“It’s… several years in the making, I think. Anyway. I’m off. No need to worry.”
She felt like she had done a really good job of pushing through that.
Of not being embarrassed. Because this was… It was only sex. It was only sex!
She thought that extra forcefully, out to the universe, because she wasn’t trying to fall in love. She wasn’t trying to break a curse. She was only trying to have the sort of fun that everyone else in her family seemed to get to have. She didn’t want to be so alone. She wanted…
You want him. Be honest about that at least.
Yes. She did. She wanted him.
And that was the bottom line of it.
She scurried out the front door, shutting it firmly behind her, and making her way down the sidewalk.
She turned around and saw her mom and grandma staring at her through the living room window.
Then the curtain swished and shut over their faces.
She rolled her eyes and continued to the gate, and then out to the curb.
She climbed inside his truck and settled inside. “Well. I told them.”
“Should I expect a shouting phone call from your brother?”
“No. They’re not going to tell him. They respect the right to privacy in my sex life.”
He nodded. “I want you to know that this matters to me,” he said.
Her heart went tight. It started to climb up her throat.
She really didn’t want him to say things like that, because if he said things like that, she was going to think that more than sex was possible.
Because it was way too easy for her to apply feelings to Cooper.
It was the real reason that she had never…
That she had never, ever wanted him to know about her crush on him.
Because it had never just been about attraction, it had never just been about him being handsome.
There were so many handsome men in the world.
But Cooper was something different. Something special.
He had been, from the time she was a kid.
This brave, gorgeous boy that he’d been, who had braved his loss with a kind of stoicism that she couldn’t even imagine. There had always been something untouchable, larger-than-life about him. She had always felt like he was out of reach.
And now, here he was, well within touching distance, and more than she had ever imagined.
Somehow, she had always thought that her sexual encounter – when she actually had a successful one – would have to be spontaneous. Like she could skirt the edges of the universe, but she had never imagined a man looking it head-on, and deciding that he was just going to be with her anyway.
Well, the encounter was young yet. She was basically white-knuckling it the whole way. Maybe there would be no room.
“What if there’s no vacancy?”
“Then I’m driving until we find a place where there is,” he said.
“Maybe there’s going to be some sign or another that we shouldn’t—”
He cut her off. “Do you want this?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve wanted it. I wanted you for a long time.
I’ve wanted you so much that you’re the lead star in all of my fantasies.
” Her face went hot. She probably shouldn’t be going this hard.
But right now, what was the point of having anything less than total honesty?
Right now, what was the point of trying to minimize what they had?
“Then fuck the universe. I’m not going to let anything stop me. If something explodes, I’m having you anyway. I’m not looking for a sign to tell me whether we should or shouldn’t. Maybe it’s a huge mistake. But let’s make it.”
They pulled into the parking lot of Remington Suites, the most luxurious accommodations Wild Rose Point had to offer.
“I don’t make mistakes, Eliana. And that’s one of the things that held me back from you all this time.
It could go wrong. It could blow up in our faces.
Suck it. Maybe you believe in fate and all that, and I really don’t.
But the bottom line is, either way, we have to be willing to do something, sometimes.
We have to be willing to make a move, because if you don’t, then you just sit there.
You just sit there wanting things that you don’t have.
And the reality is, I’m five years younger than my dad was when he died.
And that’s sobering shit. I’m going to be cautious forever?
Because I don’t want to put a foot wrong, because I want…
I don’t even know what I want. To do the right thing, to be something that my dad could be proud of, I guess.
But I’ve spent years, with all my emotions buttoned up, pushed down, trying to move on, trying to be strong, trying to be whatever my mom needed, my brother needed, my sister needed, and I have a ranch, and I love it.
I’m working toward having the brewery, and I love it.
But I want you. I want you, and I don’t think that I can stand living a life where I’ve never had you.
If I die when I’m thirty-five… Well, I don’t want it to have been after a life lived without something I really, really wanted. ”
She was undone by that. She didn’t even know what to say. That she was that big of a deal to him. That he wanted her that much… It was something she could hardly fathom.
And the horrible, other side of that blade was that she genuinely was afraid that being with her could be the end of him.
Or maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe it was just… Maybe it was just a way to protect herself.
Because it was easier than opening herself up. Easier than putting herself out there.
But this was it. This was the ultimate in putting herself out there. The ultimate in intimacy.