Page 82 of Boss Me

Not the reaction I was going for. Still, I doubled down. “I do.”

“Ben, I—”

“Shit.” I leaped up from the sofa and stared out at the pool. I’d heard this script before. Many times. And it was better when I didn’t look into their eyes when they tossed my heart on the ground and stomped it.

“No, Ben, I—”

I felt his bulk behind me, but he didn’t touch me. “It’s fine.” I tried to make my voice breezy like I didn’t care, but it cracked and betrayed me. I cleared my throat. “It’s fine.”

His big hand came down on my shoulder, and he tried to turn me to face him. I resisted.

He stepped around me, but I refused to look up into his beautiful face that would hold only pity for me and my ridiculous feelings.

“Ben.” His voice broke, and finally, I looked up. His lip trembled. “Because of what my father did to my mom and me, I have some issues with love. With what it means. With opening myself to another person. After he hit her, my dad would always apologize to my mom and tell her how much he loved her.”

“Holy shit.” I traced the stiff line of his jaw. “That’d fuck anyone up.”

“I’m working on it,” he said. “In therapy. And I think I can get there. If you’ll be patient.”

My heart started beating again, and the warmth came back into my fingers. “I can give you time. Whatever you need. Would you rather I didn’t say it to you again?”

“No.” He stepped closer until our chests touched. “Say it again?”

“I love you.”

He brushed away the rogue curl on my forehead. “I felt something for you the moment you walked into my office. The instant you shook my hand. An energy. Like the way I feel here on the island. Like belonging. Like we belong together.” He smiled, one corner kicking higher than the other. “My words aren’t coming out right. What I want to say is that I started to fall for you that first day, and I’ve fallen a little more for you every day since.”

“Every day?” I laid my hands on his chest and felt his heart beating fast. “Even that day I was bitchy because you sprung that company-wide town hall on me with one day’s notice?”

“Especially that day. You were a general, rallying the team, making it happen. And it went off without a hitch. I deserved every dirty look you threw at me. But it wasn’t until you came here to the island and detoxed me and bought me shirts”—he plucked at the shell-printed shirt he wore—“that I thought…”

I was going to black out from the pressure building in my chest. “That you thought what?”

“That you might feel the same way. That we could be together. In a relationship. Boyfriends, though using that word makes me feel about fifteen years old.”

Everything snapped into place like Mjölnir rocketing into Thor’s hand. Cooper felt the way I did. He just couldn’t say it yet. I leaned over and kissed him, a soft brush of lips. “I’ll be your boyfriend, Cooper Fallon.”

A flare in his blue eyes was the only warning I had before my back hit the sofa cushions, my wrists pinned against the arm of the sofa, his hips wedged between my legs. I gasped into his mouth. He kissed me, aggressive, punishing, desperate as a soldier leaving for the front. The abrasion of his shorts against the front of my boxers sparked a warm tingle that radiated to the tips of my toes, which I wrapped around his muscled calves.

Groaning, I kissed from his smooth jaw down to his neck.

He pulled back to crash his mouth onto mine, and I opened to him, let him invade my mouth like the strident executive he was. He tasted like power. And affection. I believed in him. He had the power to make things right for us. He’d stay when things got difficult.

I trailed my hand from his knee to the bulge in his shorts. “Bedroom.”

“Jesus Christ, yes.” He stood then reached out a hand and tugged me upright. Holding his hand, I led him to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed I hadn’t made up. He joined me, his thigh pressed against mine. His kisses were gentler this time, almost sweet.

But I didn’t want sweet. I wanted sweaty and dirty. To claim and be claimed. We were about to leave our island paradise and return to the cold city where things would be different. I wasn’t about to let him return unmarked, unchanged. Maybe I couldn’t go into the boardrooms with him, but he’d remember me when he was there.

Straddling him, I pushed him to his back. I lifted the hem of my shirt.

“No,” he barked. “Leave it on. I fucking love seeing you in my shirt.”

I lifted one corner of my mouth in a smirk. So he wanted to claim me, too. “Fine. But your shirt comes off.”

He started unbuttoning at the top, and I worked from the bottom up until we exposed his chest. All those muscles. All mine. I traced a finger from the dip in his collarbone to his breastbone, where his hair sparkled golden in the early afternoon light. I ran my finger lower, across the bumps of his abs, which tensed at my touch. When I swirled my finger through his happy trail, he curled up, those abs bulging.

I pressed him down with one finger on his sternum. “I’m thinking about where I’m going to mark you. Not too high. I don’t want to mess up that pretty neck of yours and make you hide it with your collar buttoned. Though I love seeing you in a tie.” I ground against his pelvis. Someday, we’d make love while he was wearing one of his silky ties. Maybe I’d bind his wrists with it. Or he could bind mine.

---