Chapter 16 #2
“Bells.” Her name comes out fractured as my entire body stiffens. Every nerve ending is ablaze. Every muscle quivers.
I feel it everywhere—in my fingers, my toes, my chest, and my throat. The pleasure is so intense it’s almost painful. It makes everything else fade away except for her.
My hips jerk forward. Once. Twice. Three times. Driving myself deeper with each pulse. My heart pounds so loudly I can hear it in my ears, in my chest. Everywhere.
The orgasm seems to go on forever. My cock jerks inside her with each pulse. Empties everything I have into the condom. My fingers are still digging into her hips, holding her exactly where I want her. Keeping myself buried as deep as I can go while the pleasure rips through me.
Finally, it begins to fade. The waves slow down and my body starts to relax. My muscles unclench. My breathing evens out. But I’m still trembling, still shaking, still completely wrecked.
I collapse on top of her. Both of us are shaking and gasping for air, completely exhausted, and covered in sweat.
My chest presses against her back. My face is buried in her hair. I can smell her—sweat, sex, and her unique scent. Her heart races beneath me.
“Fuck,” I breathe against her long hair. “That was...”
I can’t finish. I don’t have the right words for what that was.
After a long moment, I roll off her. My body feels heavy and spent. Every muscle is loose and relaxed in a way they haven’t been for God knows how long.
I pull her against my chest and hold her while we both try to catch our breath, letting our hearts slow down and come back to reality.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
I hold her tighter. I can’t seem to stop touching her.
I should get up and deal with the condom. But I don’t move. I simply keep holding her.
I lift my hand and brush her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. My thumb gently strokes along her jaw. It’s not something I usually do.
She shifts in my arms and turns her face towards me. Her eyes are hazy, still soft with pleasure.
As I gaze at her, something big and terrifying twists in my chest that I have no words for.
“What?” she asks softly.
“Nothing.”
I shake my head and glance away because I can’t let her see whatever the hell is written all over my face right now.
How the fuck am I supposed to tell her what I’m feeling when I don’t even know what it is to begin with? When I’ve never experienced anything like this before, when I have no idea how to put it into words that make sense?
She’s quiet for a moment before her hand comes up and rests on my chest. Right over my heart. I wonder if she knows how it stutters at her touch.
I don’t say anything. I just let her touch me and feel the warmth of her palm against my skin.
This is dangerous. I know it is. It was supposed to be casual, meaningless. It’s not. At least for me, and I know this isn’t what we promised each other.
Finally, I drag myself away from her. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a moment, elbows on my knees, breathing hard as I try to clear my head.
“I should deal with this,” I mutter, gesturing vaguely to the condom.
I push to my feet and head for the bathroom. Once inside, I tie off the condom and toss it into the trash before turning on the faucet and scrubbing wet hands over my face. The water flows cold over my skin. I brace both hands on the sink and finally lift my head.
The guy looking back at me in the mirror appears exhausted. His hair is a complete mess, and his skin is flushed. There are red scratches on my arms from Lola’s nails—angry little lines that will stick around for a few days as a reminder of just how little self-control I have.
I run a hand through my hair and exhale slowly.
Something about me seems different.
I shake my head and quietly laugh to myself.
“Nice work, dickhead,” I mutter to my reflection. “You really fucked this up, Cooper. The second you let Bells in…”
I run a hand through my hair, letting out a quiet breath. “That’s going to be your fucking downfall.”
I push away from the sink and shut the bathroom light off.
When I come back to the bedroom, she’s still lying there. The sheet is wrapped around her body, barely doing its job. Her hair is spread across the pillow in a dark mess, glasses on again, her eyes immediately locking onto me the second I step through the doorway.
For a moment, neither of us utters a single word.
My mind quickly replays what we just did in this bed, and my cock immediately thinks that was a fantastic idea and maybe we should do it again. My eyes scan her body, tracing the curve of her shoulder and how the sheet dips at her waist.
Her phone rings, piercing the house’s quiet.
Lola’s head turns toward the hallway, her phone still sitting out on the kitchen table where we had dinner.
“Shit,” she mutters, pushing the sheet aside and swings her legs out of bed.
She moves toward the door, and my eyes slide down her body. Beautiful tits. Tight waist. Bare thighs. That damn curve of her ass that makes my mouth go dry.
Fuck.
She quickly leaves the room, rushing down the hall, and I have to force myself not to follow her.
I lean back against the headboard and run a hand over my face, exhaling softly. Focus, asshole.
All of a sudden, the ringing stops.
“Fuck,” her voice echoes down the hall.
I shift on the bed, debating whether I should get dressed or just stay right here where the sheets still smell like her.
The answer never comes, because as soon as her phone starts ringing again, Lola appears in the doorway, phone in hand and face pale.
Her fingers grip the phone so tightly that I can see the tension in them even from across the room.
She looks up at me, fear clear in her eyes.
“It’s the hospital,” she says quietly. The words come out thin and fragile.
Her thumb hovers over the screen, but she doesn’t answer. She just stares at it as the phone keeps demanding her attention.
“Bells,” I say softly.
“I don’t know if I can answer it,” she whispers.
The fear in her voice hits hard. She’s scared this is the call she’s been dreading—the one that ends everything and changes her entire damn world.
Without thinking, I swing my legs off the bed and cross the room in three strides until I reach her.
I gently take the phone from her fingers. I know I have to do this for her—to be the one to hear the news first so I can catch her if she falls.
I press the answer button and lift the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I say.
“Hello, this is Nurse Patel from St. Mary’s ICU. I’m looking for Lola Bellamy.”
I glance up and see Bells still frozen in the doorway. Her eyes are locked on my face, terrified of what I’m about to hear.
“She’s... uh,” I clear my throat, forcing my voice steady. “She’s in the shower right now.”
A little lie. The kind that gives me a few seconds to figure out what the hell is going on before I have to watch her fall apart.
“Okay,” the nurse says gently.
I can hear hospital noise in the background. Machines beeping. Voices moving somewhere down a hall.
“Could you please let Lola know her father has woken up.”
“Sorry,” I say. “What?”
“He’s awake,” the nurse repeats calmly. “Her father regained consciousness about thirty minutes ago. We’ve been slowly reducing the sedation over the last few days and he’s responding well.”
I blink.
Across the room, Bells is staring at me more intently now. Her breathing is shallow. She knows something is happening; she just doesn’t know whether it’s good or bad news. If this is the call that destroys her or saves her.
“Okay,” I manage. “I’ll let her know.”
“And please tell Lola that even though it’s outside visiting hours, she’s more than welcome to come in tonight if she’d like to see her father.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “She’ll want that.”
“Good. We’ll be here.”
The line clicks and goes dead.
I lower the phone and look over at Bells, who hasn’t moved an inch. She looks at me with those terrified eyes, as she steps forward. Her entire body trembles now.
“What did they say?” Her voice breaks on the words.
“Your dad’s awake,” I tell her, and for a second, she just stares at me. Then her face crumples as relief floods through her so intensely that her knees buckle.
I cross the room quickly and catch her before she hits the floor. I wrap my arms around her and hold her up.
“He’s awake,” I say again, my mouth near her ear. “He woke up about thirty minutes ago. The nurse said he’s responding well.”
A sound escapes from her throat as her hands grip me so tightly.
“He is okay?” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I hold her tighter. “He’s okay.”
She completely collapses in my arms. Her whole body trembles with sobs that tear through her. Tears soak into my chest. Her breath comes in ragged gasps.
I hold her through it. Let her break down and cry until there’s nothing left.
And while I’m standing here holding her, as she’s breaking apart with relief, I’m happy that he is awake.
The man she has been sitting beside for days, waiting for any sign he might come back to her, waiting for some proof that she’s not about to lose the only family she has left.
But right after that relief, another thought sneaks in. It slips in quietly, ugly, and unwanted. What if she no longer needs me?
The thought settles in my chest and stays there.
Heavy, dark, and fucking terrifying. Because the only reason she crawled into my bed in the middle of the night was that her world was falling apart.
She was breaking and needed someone to hold the pieces together.
I was there, I was willing, and I could give her something that made the pain stop for a while.
The thought makes something in my chest crack open in a way I’m not ready for. I push it down and bury it deep where she can’t see it.
Eventually, she pulls back just enough to look up at me. Her face is streaked with tears and her eyes are red and swollen.
“They said you can go in and see him,” I tell her.
She nods looking up at me.
“I need to get dressed,” she says, pulling away from me completely.
Lola looks around the floor for her clothes that are scattered everywhere.
I watch her bend down and grab her jeans near the foot of the bed.
She steps into them and pulls them up over her hips.
Her hands fumble with the button. She’s moving too fast. Too frantic.
She finds her bra next, then her shirt crumpled on the floor by the doorway where I pulled it off her.
“My phone,” she says, looking around the bed.
“I have it,” I say, holding it up.
She moves back across the room to me and takes it from my hand. Our fingers brush, and something passes between us—something I don’t have time to analyze right now.
The next few minutes go by quickly. I grab my clothes from the floor, get dressed, and meet Bells at the front door, pulling on her shoes.
We step out of the house into the cool night air. Bells slides behind the wheel of her car and I settle into the passenger seat. Her hands still shake as she fumbles with her keys.
She starts the engine, throws the car into reverse and backs out of the driveway faster than she should.
Streetlights flash across the windshield as we drive—yellow light cutting through the darkness in rhythmic intervals. The roads are mostly empty at this time of night, with just us and the occasional car passing in the opposite direction.
Bells grips the wheel tightly. Her eyes are fixed on the road ahead. Focused. Determined.
I don’t say anything or try to fill the silence with meaningless words. I just sit here watching the girl who might not need me anymore.