Page 76 of Over & Out

Hopper appears in the doorway, his knuckles white on the frame, his chest moving up and down as he breathes.

“No,” I whisper. Then “Hopper.” My voice is strangled. Barely a whisper.

Hopper bends to fit under the doorway. He drops down in front of me. “Chris,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that. I didn’t mean for?—”

“No.” I shake my head, tears welling in my eyes. “I don’t wantsorry. I want you to be straight with me. Like you promised.”

A shadow slips over Hopper’s face. He looks down.

I laugh drily. “Of course.”

But Hopper doesn’t move away like I think he will. Instead, he wraps his hands around my ankles, clinging to me as if he wants me to stay. “Everything in the book is true,” he whispers. “It’s the inside of my head, twenty-four fucking hours a day.”

The feeling of his rough fingers over my bare skin is torture. The heat that climbs up my limbs is torture. The way I feel about this impossible man is torture.

“Do you know,” I say, my voice unsteady, “that I’ve never been in a relationship longer than a few months?”

Hopper says nothing, just searches my eyes.

“It’s because I’ve never trusted anyone enough to let them in. Trusting someone—it’s a whole thing for me.”

“You can trust me, Chris.”

But that makes me rage. I kick his hands off my ankles. “No I can’t! I can’t, Hopper, and youknow that! The minute I open myself up to you, you freak! And that kiss”—I press my fingers to my lips as if I can still feel him there—“that kiss wasn’t the first time. Remember in the hotel? We were having a great time, and then you justchanged.” I shake my head. “How can I ever believe I could trust you with my heart?”

“Because you have mine,” he says simply. “I never wanted to hide anything from you, Chris. But there are things going on. Complicated things.”

“Try me!” I exclaim, suddenly deeply glad there’s no flight attendant here with us. “Fucking try me, Hopper.”

His jaw tenses, his eyebrows slanting.

He wants to,I realize.He desperately wants to; he just doesn’t think he can.Suddenly it hits me. He’s been hiding his whole life. From his awful dad, who, by all accounts, exploited his son at every opportunity. From the press, who did the same. From the world, who’s taken all his pain and made it their own public story.

“I’m not going to be like them, Hopper,” I whisper. “I think you know that.” I grip the bedding on either side of my thighs. “And I’m not asking you to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.”

“I want to,” he says, his voice barely a rasp. “I’ve never wanted anyone to know me before, Chris. Not once. Some people do, by proxy, but never all of it. Not the dark thoughts I have when I feel so fucking alone. Not the fact that I shouldn’t feel those things when I could call anyone up and they’d come running over, ready to be at Hopper Donnach’s fucking service.”

I reach a hand out before I know quite what I’mdoing. I press my palm against his cheek, rough with stubble. His eyes close as he catches my hand with his.

“But you can trust me,” he says. “As little as my word is worth, I promise, sweetheart, you can trust me with your life.”

There it is, that word again.Sweetheart. It strokes some deep, desperate part of me.

“Okay,” I say, knowing how foolish this is. How easily I walked back in. But I’m powerless against him. Weak. If this is all I get, it’s enough. Because looking at those words, I feel the same way as he does. The knowledge of that should strike fear through me. It will, later, I know. But right now, it’s heady. Desperate. It sends heat coursing through my chest. And want throbbing between my hips.

“I’m still not good for you,” Hopper whispers, kissing my thumb. “You should know that.”

Delicious tendrils of need curl from where his lips meet my thumb. Tendrils that explode when he takes the digit into his mouth, the hot wet of his tongue curling against me in a way that has heat coiling low in my abdomen.

“You’re right,” I whisper. “Hopper Donnach. World-renowned asshole.”

His teeth come down on my thumb, just enough to be a tiny threat. Or a promise.

My tongue darts out of its own volition, flicking across my bottom lip. Like my mind is trying desperately to intervene, to find words that will put a stop to this.

But all my tongue does is appear to make Hopper go a little wild. Because he makes a low, rumbling sound inhis chest as he releases my thumb, setting my hand down in my lap. Then he grasps my hips and pulls me to the edge of the bed. “Last chance to say no,” he whispers, his lips so close to mine his mustache brushes against me. “Say no, Chris.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I say. Then I dart my tongue out, grazing the tip against his upper lip.

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