Page 60 of Over & Out

For a moment, there’s silence between us. Then Hopper’s tipped his face down so his forehead is on my clavicle, and I realize his shoulders are shaking. He’slaughing!

“Hey!” I say.

“Did you really just say that?” he asks, his voice muffled in my jacket. “Corndog,” he whispers, kissing my throat.

“Excuse me!” I say, indignant. Embarrassed.DidI just say that?

But my embarrassment vanishes with the soft heat of his lips and tongue on my skin, inching lower, in the V of my half-opened jacket. Toward the hem of my dress. My nipples harden in anticipation of his touch. Because God, I need him to touch me there. In other places too.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” I whisper. Because for me, it is. It feels like this is what’s supposed to happen. That all our bickering, all that anger—was a front. A fragile, thin veneer on barely contained feelings of the opposite value.

I’m crazy about you, Chris.

“Yes, bangles,” Hopper says, his mouth gliding over my skin where my neck meets my shoulder. “It’s true. You feel perfect to me.”

An engine sounds, and we both freeze. Suddenly we’re flooded with light as a car rounds the bend.

In that brief flash of headlights, I see the intensity of his gaze on me. There’s need there; want. I can see that. But there’s something else. Something hesitant. Something almost…pained.

“Hopper,” I say once they’re past. “Areyouokay?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“We should get up,” I say. “This is a public place. You’re a public figure.”

But Hopper shakes his head. “Not yet. It’s not you, bangles. It’s…”

He trails off as he watches his hand, like it’s not under his control. His thumb and forefinger have found the zipper on my jacket—his jacket—and he pulls it down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. Shivers rocket through me.

But I can’t shake the look in his eyes. The sensation that he’s warring with himself.

Maybe he doesn’t want me. Self-doubt threatens to pour in, making me want to press a hand to his chest. To stop this torrent of feeling pummeling through me. But as he presses the sides of my jacket out of the way, Hopper’s gaze turns liquid. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Chris.” His finger trails down my collarbone, onto my breastbone, over my hem. His fingertips graze the curve of my breasts, right down the middle.

Heat pools between my legs, my nipples like glass, yearning for him to inch his fingers just a little wider. “Hopper,” I breathe.

“Today, at the party,” he says. “You looked like an angel in this.” He hooks a finger under the neckline.

“It’s just a dress,” I say shakily. I know that’s an old self-consciousness making an appearance. This disbelief that this man could want me when he has his pick.

But Hopper shakes his head, his eyes meeting mine. “No. It wasyouin this dress. You’re the angel, Chris.”

My heart thuds so loud it drowns out the world. Hopper kisses me once again, and every last bit of doubt melts away.

The kiss grows intense. It’s all tongue and clicking teeth and urgency. We’re tangled up on the ground now, heat flooding through me as Hopper bunches my dress in his hand, gliding it up, whispering sweet words in my ear I can barely register. My body is so overrun with endorphins I forget where we are. I want him to take me right here on this cliffside.

His hands are on me, desperate and strong, hard but somehow infinitely gentle. “So beautiful,” he whispers again.

But I realizewherehis hands are a moment too late. His right hand has drifted up my hip, landing on the bare skin of my stomach.

On what used to be skin.

And he’s not moving. Not his hand, not his lips, nothing.

I gasp, shoving his hand away. I realize as he lets out a tiny grunt that I’ve hurt him, somehow. Physically. Bent a finger back as I tried to crush the sensation out of his hand. Maybe that will make him forget. Maybe that will distract him.

But Hopper’s not easily distracted. I should know that. He’s determined, just like me, when he’s latched on to something. His eyes are wide in the dark, his hand stiff. He looks confused for a moment. No, it’s not confused. It’s disbelieving. Bewildered. Like he’s seen a ghost.

“So, there it is,” I say. My throat is thick, my words tight. My heart thuds against my ribs.

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