Page 43 of Flirty Thirty

“Painfully awkward?” he offers, throwing me for a loop.

“Huh?”

He sighs, his breath surprisingly still minty from last night’s brush. He trails a lazy hand up my side, nearly making me forget the conversation as my eyes roll back.

“Not everyone can tolerate my blurting problem.” He looks down in amusement when I shiver in his arms at his light touch. “The last time I…” He waves over our intertwined bodies, a rush of red painting his cheeks. I notice for the first time that the mark Claire drew on him has faded. “She told me in not so many words that I was good to look at, but a pain to listen to.”

“Ouch.”

“It was fine,” he says with a laugh. “Nothing I hadn’t heard before.”

“That’s horrible.”

His face contorts into something that I can only describe as skepticism laced with constipation. “You can’t tell me that you weren’t put off by it.”

“By your no nonsense, skip the small talk conversations?” I playfully pinch the skin near his elbow. “If I was put off by it, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh you got the full blast of it,” he says. “My damn tongue ran away with me during that brunch.”

“That’s not normal for you?”

He shakes his head. “Not after she said that. I tried to back off, not come on so strong, but everything felt so… on the surface. Dates never led into more than a goodnight kiss because I never felt like I could get to know the girl. Ilikedeeper conversations. I like knowing where she stands, what she sees for her future. I like peeling away at the layers that really mean something. I told myself that if I was going to be with a woman, I wanted to know more than just the surface.”

“Funny coming from the man who kissed a woman after she only spoke two words to him.” I give him a look, and he tosses his head back and laughs. With a playful growl, he curls back into me and hides his face into the pillow I’m resting in.

“I didn’t say I was a purest.” His voice muffles next to my ear. “Every man meets a woman who is the exception to his self-imposed rules.”

A rush of warm butterflies soar through my midsection, and I blink at the ceiling, wondering if I’ve heard him correctly. Never have I been the exception. Never have I been anything but just another girl.

I coax him back up above me. “Please keep saying everything on your mind.”

“It’s not painfully awkward for you?”

“You have no idea how much your blurting problem turns me on.”

“Well… damn. Maya, I think my tongue is about to run away from me again.”

He lowers his mouth over mine, his tongue slipping between my lips. I sink into his kiss, my body already willing to take control over my thoughts. The fingers he was so gently caressing my skin with curl into my ribs, causing a harsh shiver to run up my spine and a gasp to fly out between our mouths. He gives me a satisfied grin before delving back into the kiss, tasting every corner of my mouth as I sink more and more into the sensations of his body, his touch, his skilled hands that I have a hard time believing are two years out of practice.

He moves suddenly, taking me with him as he sits us up. His touch is gentle against my face, yet aggressive on my waist, telling me he’s skilled in both areas of physical expression. I can’t stop the giddy, anxious giggle that sneaks out between our kisses.

As tentative as I am, I’m by far more eager to jump into the unknown waters of this complicated relationship. My fingers curl into the hem of his t-shirt, pulling at the material to get it up and over his head. It gets caught at all the right spots—abdominals, pectorals, biceps… yum, yum, yum. Laughter escapes us both as I get frustrated and turned on all at once by his muscular torso.

The cottonflumpsagainst the floor, the static making his blond hair stand up. I smile and run my fingers through the strands, giddy from the conditioned softness. My teenage fantasy about doing it with a beach blond is about to come true.

His eyes wander over my face as I trail my hand down his cheek, scrunching my nose at the adorable lines in the corners of his eyes. There are tiny grays sprinkled through the hair just above his ears, and I bite away a grin at them. My first gray hair was responsible for the Hershey massacre a year ago. His grays, however, cause my stomach to dive into another round of jitters.

My fingers fall to his collarbone, over his strong shoulders, squeeze his pectorals and scratch through his hairy chest. An uncontrollable squeal escapes me, effectively ruining any composure I may have been possessing.

His lips turn up, and he says, “Your turn,” and a torrent of nerves rush through my midsection. My body is not something one ogles and gawks at. I’m a “do it in the dark” kind of person, and as the sun streams in from the windows, I get an electric shot of hesitancy that I’m not sure I’ll recover from.

Cooper’s fingers dip under my top, and I clamp my eyes shut, terrified of the expression I’ll see on his face when he notices just how many rolls cover my stomach, or how low my bosom droops without the support of a push-up.

My knees bend out of habit, and I fold myself up hoping to cover what so many people view as flaws. The rush of cold air hits my back as it’s exposed, and the sound of my shirt joining his on the floor floats past my ears.

“Mmm,” Cooper moans, the sound coming from deep in his throat before his lips are on mine once again. His hands which have been so focused on my face are now everywhere else. My shoulders, my elbows, my ribs, over my love handles, across my plush belly. He snakes them up between my breasts, catching my chin, holding me to him, and I can’t seem to breathe. My worries have been chased away with his touch, his aggression, with his sweet and powerful kisses.

My back hits the soft cushion of the bed sheets, the coolness a welcome contrast to the heat that is spreading throughout my body. Cooper takes a hold of my bottom lip, pulling it out and eliciting a moan from the back of my throat. His hands are at my bottoms, and his voice is as anxious and heady as my heart as he says, “Help me out, Maya,” and I push off the bed, allowing him to undress me in a way we haven’t yet together. Everything joins the growing pile on the floor, and my eager hands go for his bottoms, and when I can no longer reach, I use my toes to push them down his toned legs. He laughs when they get stuck on his ankles, and I join him in his hormone-laced amusement as he fights with his clothing.