Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
When I enter the house, all my insecurity comes rushing back.
What the hell am I doing? I shouldn’t have made him climb through the window.
Crap, what if it’s not actually open, and he ends up waiting out in the cold?
Or what if he doesn’t wait at all? I’m just about to rush back to my bedroom to check when I hear a noise from down the hall. It sounds like he made it inside.
Mom is on the couch, and the noise startles her awake. The television is still on, playing the final scene from Titanic.
“Everything okay?” Mom asks, voice coarse.
“Yeah, fine,” I reply. “Let’s get you to bed. Did you take your meds?”
She yawns and shakes her head. “Don’t need ‘em.” She coughs into her sleeve.
Yeah, she definitely needs them. I quickly grab a glass of water and the pain meds, then force her to take them.
When I try to get her to move to bed, she argues that she’s too uncomfortable and wants to keep watching the movie.
I’m too worked up to fight her on it, and she’ll be less likely to hear Cosmos and me from out here, so I drape a blanket over her and kiss her goodnight.
Then I rushed through my normal nighttime routine, checking all the doors and windows twice to make sure everything’s locked, quickly using the restroom and brushing my teeth. I make it to my bedroom door twelve minutes after I left Cosmos on the front porch.
Even though I was the one who suggested this, I suddenly feel incredibly nervous.
My hand is clammy as I reach for the doorknob, my throat dry.
I open the door and find him stretched out on my bed.
My thoughts are so jumbled it takes me a second to realize what he’s holding. Loose pages of printer paper. Oh, no.
“This is good, Hazel. Really good.”
And now I’m nervous for a whole different reason. “You shouldn’t be reading that. It’s not for reading.”
His eyebrows lift, and his dimples deepen. “A book that’s not for reading?”
“Well, it’s not for other people to read!” I never planned on anyone reading my romance novel. Ever.
I grab at the pages, but he pulls them away. This is becoming a habit of his I really don’t like. When I reach for the manuscript again, he uses my momentum to pull me down on top of him, locking his arms around me to keep me in place.
“I believe you told me I could act out the beach scene,” he says, “which requires reading, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t require reading the whole thing.” I sound huffy and obstinate. Shit, he’s not gonna like this side of me. “I mean, it’s only a first draft.” I try to soften my tone. “You should wait for the final product.”
If it ever exists.
“I plan on reading all your first drafts, Hazel. Every word you write, at every stage. I’m gonna be your biggest fan, remember?
” He kisses my forehead, my nose, my cheek, moving slowly down my neck.
The dress I’m wearing has little round iridescent buttons up the front, and he slowly undoes the top one.
“I’m going to read the hell out of all of your first drafts. ”
Is that why he likes me? I write romance, so he thinks I’m some kind of expert, some vixen in bed, some sex goddess that’s going to blow his mind. If that’s what he thinks, this relationship could end tonight.
I push off his chest, sitting up so I’m straddling him. “This is the only romance novel I plan to write.”
It’s a lie. I’ve already started the book Mom inspired the other night, but I don’t want to admit it.
“Well, that’s a shame, because it’s good. I would read this, Hazel. I’d recommend it, too.” He undoes another button on my dress, working his way down to my navel.
I’m at war with myself, one part of me panicking that letting this happen could ruin everything, another part of me already lost to the sensation of his feather-light touch. My dress gapes open, and his hands slide inside the fabric and around my back.
“If it’s inspiration you need, I could help with that,” he whispers.
Despite myself, his playful smile makes me giggle. “I’m sure you could.”
He tickles my sides, making my giggle turn into a full laugh.
I twist and squirm. “Shhh! Don’t!”
He responds to my reprimand by swallowing my noises in a greedy kiss.
“Alright, time to get serious,” he says, but his smile tells me he has every intention of continuing to play.
I’m kneeling over him, with one leg on either side of his hips, but now, he takes hold of my waist and lowers me down.
With steady fingers, he sets to work unbuttoning the last few buttons of my dress.
When it falls completely open, he puts both hands behind his head, lounging back, and staring at me.
I tug at the dress, self-consciously wrapping it around me.
Cosmos stops grinning and unwraps my arms. “Let me look at you, Hazel.”
I hold my breath as he slides the dress off my shoulders. His eyes are hooded and feral and as dark as night.
Slowly, he pushes himself upright. He unwraps the rubber band holding my hair in its messy bun and combs his fingers through the locks as they fall down to my shoulders.
“You’re perfect,” he whispers.
I’m not. That’s what worries me. I should end this now, before there’s any chance of being hurt.
But when he kisses me, I let him. Who am I trying to fool?
I’m already too far gone to back out. I want to live in the illusion as long as he’ll let me.
It’s intoxicating to be looked at this way, touched this way.
Like I’m something precious. Beautiful. Awe-inspiring.
He unclasps my bra and flings it to the other side of the room with a boyish grin that completely melts my insides. Then he’s rolling us, laying me back on the bed, naked except for my thin cotton underwear.
I tug his shirt over his head, trying to even the playing field, and go a little crazed at the sight of him.
He’s not overly muscular—I’ve never found that particularly attractive, though I know others do.
He’s lean, chiseled with the grace of a runner or a dancer, which he apparently is, as I learned tonight.
Hopping off the bed in a smooth motion, he rips off his jeans before jumping back on top of me, peppering my body with kisses so light they almost tickle.
His hand moves between us, tracing the crease where my hip meets my thigh.
I arch in invitation, and he finally brings his fingers where I want them.
But the pressure is a little too hard. I open my mouth to say something, but bite my cheek.
The one time I tried to tell someone I wanted something different in bed was with Kane.
His response was, ‘You’re as wet as a slip-n-slide, Hazel, clearly you like what I’m doing.
’ I didn’t think I liked it, but maybe I was wrong?
I didn’t say anything more after that. Later, I read wetness is just the body recognizing a situation as arousing, which is not necessarily the same as enjoyment.
But that conversation with Kane still sticks in my mind. The way he dismissed my feelings, how I shrunk back in on myself, that’s not what I want for my relationship with Cosmos.
But I don’t know how Cosmos will respond if I say something. I want to live up to the romance novel temptress he thinks I am.
Rather than saying anything, I hook my thumbs into the sides of his boxer briefs and work them down just enough to reveal what I’m really after. I take hold of his length and give a firm tug.
His hand between my legs stills as he groans into my neck, gently biting the soft skin at the base of my shoulder, making me shiver with pleasure. That’s better. That’s what I want.
“Want to try another experiment?” he asks.
No, I don’t want to be lab partners. I want you. All of you. No pressure. No experiments.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, swallowing back my protests.
Cosmos licks his lips. Pulling back, he yanks off his briefs and moves so he’s kneeling to my right. He gently takes off the last of my clothes and brings his hand back between my legs. Then he takes my hand and wraps my fingers around his shaft.
This time, his touch is soft. He start slow, brushing a finger along one lip, then the other, drawing circles on my clit and exploring every sensitive part of me.
He keeps his eyes on my eyes, and I know this is part of his experiment.
His fingers dance a new kind of salsa. Graceful.
Smooth, but strong. Firm and demanding, but not hard. Twirling, spinning and… dipping.
Oh.
“Look at me, darling.”
I open my eyes, realizing I’d closed them unknowingly. My hand is still around him, but not moving. Shit. I was so lost in how good it felt that I forgot to reciprocate. I glide my fist up his length, and he smiles.
“That’s it,” he groans. “Just like that.”
Soon, our movements sync up. No, that’s not exactly right.
It’s more like my movements are a bass rhythm and his are a melody.
Playing different parts, but perfectly in tune with each other.
It gets harder and harder not to let my head roll back and my eyes close, as wave after wave of tension builds in my body.
“Eyes on me,” Cosmos repeats the instruction, his own breath ragged.
“But, I’m—I’m—”
“Me too, darling, me too,” he gasps.
That snaps me to attention. It’s hard to think, with his movements so perfectly teasing pleasure from me, but I know I want to do more than just fool around. I want to feel him inside me. I let go of his cock.
“Don’t you want to…”
With his free hand, he takes my wrist and directs me to touch him again. “This is the experiment, darling.”
I suddenly realize what it is he wants to try, and my pulse quickens.
With eyes locked on each other and time stopped all around us, our tempo quickens, until he sends me soaring over the edge.
My whole body shakes and shudders, his hand comes around mine to keep me moving up and down his shaft, even as I give in to my release.