Chapter 7
Z oe was an idiot a hundred times over.
Mistakes so far tonight: Wearing the short sundress and heels she knew Cooper loved on her, showing up for dinner with him and her family, ordering a second glass of wine. But her biggest and baddest screw-up was giving in to the walk on the beach with him.
And right now, she wasn’t entirely sure she cared.
He’d been relaxed and charming throughout dinner. Not pressuring her in the least bit. Interacting with her family, reminding her of how engaging and caring he’d always been. Reminding her of all the reasons she’d fallen for him in the first place.
The faint moonlight from the sliver of moon and the din of the waves cast a spell over them now.
A dangerous spell. They insulated her and Cooper from the universe as they walked, her shoes dangling from her hand and her feet bare, along toward the north end of civilization on the island.
Gave them an illusion of being unaffected by any moment but the present.
Made it tough to think about their past, irrelevant to consider the future.
When he’d taken her hand, she’d woven her fingers with his without hesitation, drawn in by the familiarity of his touch, his heat and strength.
Some nights in the past, they’d been content to walk in silence, but tonight they’d talked nonstop, as if making up for lost time, reminding themselves of the ins and outs between them.
Keeping it light, as if they were both afraid any deep topics would bring them back to their impasse.
They reached the dunes just outside of the city limits, where patches of sea grass became more prevalent and the waves always seemed a little wilder.
“Want to keep going?” Cooper asked.
She knew the island stretched for several more miles, but they’d never trekked much farther than this. Her blood heated as she thought about why they’d always been too impatient to keep walking, too in a hurry to get back to the privacy of Cooper’s condo.
“It’s safe, right?” There were no lights ahead.
No development. No people. The darkness promised to protect them from the real world, to keep reality from infringing on them.
Maybe it was that second glass of wine talking, but that’s what Zoe longed for right now.
Just a little more time without thinking, without worrying. Just … being. With Cooper.
“Pretty much,” Cooper said. “Except…”
“Except what?” A pulse of alarm beat through her chest.
“Well, there’s that pack of werewolves that’s been reported…”
A laugh escaped her. “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to see a werewolf. As long as it’s not the kind that bites humans?”
“Never know.” He looked down at her with a possessive grin. “Good thing you have a badass firefighter to protect you.” He dragged her closer to his side as they kept walking.
“You need to work on your technique,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “The protect-you-from-werewolves thing is glaringly obvious.”
“Damn. Out of practice, I guess. I had this hot chick for over a year, and I pretty much had to fight her off rather than lure her in.”
She couldn’t help smiling, caught up in the solid feel of him under her cheek, the clean, earthy scent of him, the lulling, low timbre of his voice. “No luring allowed.”
She forced herself to straighten and lift her head from his shoulder. The recognition that this was a stolen moment and that it would have to end soon nudged at her consciousness. She soaked in every detail, filing them away for later, when all she would have was the memory.
“What’s that?” She stopped walking, her eyes trained on a spot in the water ahead of them. “The waves look like they’re glowing.”
Cooper made a deep sound of acknowledgement, of contentment. “Ahh. Magic,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Werewolf magic?”
“Algae magic. It’s the glowing algae. Probably from a red tide.”
“It’s blue, not red.”
“It’s a kind of algae that makes the water look red during the day. When there’s a disturbance in the water at night, they put on a show.”
As she watched, she noticed more faintly lit waves ahead of them. “That’s amazing. Beautiful.”
They walked another fifty yards or so in awed silence. Transfixed. Each glow started out as a thin blue outline of a forming wave, and as the water picked up momentum, the light show expanded with it, looking like a backlit waterfall, courtesy of mother nature.
They stopped and faced the water, with luminescent waves stretching up and down the shore in front of them.
“You’ve seen this before?” Zoe asked, her voice hushed.
“Been a long time. And never such a big display. The little algae guys must’ve known I was bringing someone special tonight.”
She turned toward him to call his bullshit, and their heads were closer than she’d realized.
There was just enough moonlight that she could see the heat in his eyes.
His familiar, beautiful eyes. Without allowing herself to think, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
Something about the otherworldly spectrum of blue, glowing waves made it seem appropriate to do something completely reckless, and she lost herself in the man she knew so well at the very first touch of their lips.
Cooper’s arm was at her waist in a heartbeat, pulling her into his warmth, fitting her to his body as if she were born to be aligned to him. The yin to his yang.
When she expected him to deepen the kiss, he reined himself in, hesitated.
Zoe dropped her shoes onto the sand and ran both her hands up underneath his shirt, kneading the muscles in his back, drinking in the feel of his skin.
Cooper pulled away just enough to make eye contact, and the connection between them in that second was like nothing Zoe had ever experienced before.
Intense. Intimate. And yet, at the same time, it was like coming home to her own bed after traveling.
Comforting and comfortable. A respite. Her insides turned to liquid and then began a slow boil as Cooper breathed out shakily, as if he was in ecstasy and torment at once.
His vulnerability in that moment drew her in, drove her to assuage all his doubts, to fulfill all his needs — and hers.
He leaned forward, closed that last inch again. Claimed her, with his mouth, his hands, and, Zoe knew instinctively, his heart. She sank into him, surrendered as if the spell of the night air and the magical glow in the water had erased all doubts from her mind.
Their kisses were filled with so much need, with a desperation like never before. Zoe fought to block out that nagging buzz in the deepest recesses of her mind that whispered this was the last time, that this was unwise.
Cooper solved the problem for her by driving her to distraction with his hands.
He worked his fingers below the halter-top of her dress, his touch on her nipples sending a shock of need to her core.
Hands dropping to his butt, she pulled him closer, gloried in the feel of his hardness where her pulse throbbed.
The relief was fleeting though. Her body begged for more.
Cooper knew her well enough to read exactly what she needed.
After spending some time teasing her nipples with his tongue, his lips returned to hers, and his fingers slid to her thighs and worked their way up beneath her dress.
This short, sexy thing was exactly the right one to wear tonight after all, she decided.
She was caught up in kissing him when she felt a tug at the side of her hip.
It took a couple of seconds to realize Cooper had ripped her string bikini panties on one side and, judging by the trail of his hands, had the other side next on his agenda.
In seconds, the warm breeze touched her skin where it shouldn’t have, and she felt the hot moistness of her own body in response.
In response to this man and his roving, knowing hands and lips.
“Cooper, we should—” She broke off with a gasp as he slipped a finger inside of her.
“Come here,” he said, his voice thick and rough.
Right now, she’d follow him anywhere. Turned out she didn’t have to, though, as Cooper picked her up, grasping her backside and guiding her legs to wrap around him.
He glanced around as if searching and then took her to a place on the sand, farther from the blue-lighted water, where the tall beach grass formed the illusion of a barrier on three sides of them.
Zoe slid down his legs, seeking out his lips again and keeping their bodies nestled together where she throbbed for him, but even though his hands were still on her rear, drawing her as close as possible, the contact did nothing to assuage her ache.
A needy whimper escaped from her as he trailed his tongue along her jawline to her ear.
She arched her head back as he kissed a trail along her neck, the heat of his lips stoking the fire of need down lower. His hands again found their way under her dress to her thighs and higher, searing her bare skin and drawing a moan from her.
“Zoe.” He growled her name in her ear. “I need you. Right now.”