Page 61 of Well, Actually
My climax bursts through me quick as a flare, my body clenching around Rylie in frantic spasms as I try to suck in a breath. My hands slip from his chest, and I collapse on top of him, wave after wave still pulsing through me. I try to prop myself up but I don’t have the strength, tiny sobs pouring out of my throat.
“I’ve got you, baby,” Rylie says into my ear, still pumping into me from below. “You’ve done so fucking good.”
I squeeze tightly around him again, and Rylie bites my shoulder against a shout, losing his rhythm, grabbing my hips and holding me tight to him as he comes. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, feel it down to the tips of my toes and every inch in between. I feel Rylie’s heartbeat too, fast and loud against my cheek, my body a boneless heap on top of his.
He doesn’t seem to mind. And for a moment, while we work to catch our breath, chests clashing in unmatched tempos, I don’t mind either.
Then Rylie goes and fucks it all up.
With the barest brush of his lips to the top of my head, he plants a kiss there. It’s too tender. Too endearing. A cuddle and kiss on the forehead isn’t how you end rough, one-night-only sex. I scramble off him, Rylie hissing when he unceremoniously slips out of me.
“You’re going to kill me,” he says, voice hazy.
An unhinged peal of laughter tumbles out of me, as harsh as breaking glass, and his eyes widen. Then he laughs too. The warmth in his face, the uninhibited enjoyment etching his features, sobers me up. Cooper notices—damn perceptive bastard, of course he does. I can see him trying to read my expression. I turn on my back, staring up at the ceiling. A moment later, I feel him shift as he follows suit.
“That was…” His unfinished thought floats there, and I know we’re both playing a game of mental hangman to see what word will fit the blank space.
Amazing. Unexpected. Game-changing. Possibly the best sex of my life. A one-off… A mistake.
The last one makes something sharp hook in my chest, and I rush to fill the silence before I can feel the crushing blow of it from Cooper’s mouth.
“Weird.” Oh good god, I landed onweird?
Cooper turns his head slowly to face me, his eyes heavy-lidded but bland. “Weird,” he echoes.
I open my mouth. Close it. Bite my bottom lip, then shrug. Everything about my time with Rylie Cooper is weird. One,becausehe’sweird, but two because he rewires my brain in a way that has me totally off-kilter.
He turns on his side again to face me, propping himself up on his elbow and resting his head in his palm. “I just delivered what was arguably the best oral sex performance of my life and the heckler in the cheap seats calls it weird?”
“That part wasn’t…”
“Weird?” he offers, nonplussed.
I nod. “That part was, er, really good.” His smirk is so arrogant I have the urge to bite him.
“So the weirdness was when I—” He gestures toward his crotch with his free hand, and I grab his wrist.
“No,” I growl, twisting his skin in opposite directions with both my hands to give him a rug burn. He easily slides out of my grip and swats me away. “That part was, uh, exceptional as well.”
“Exceptional?”he squeals, the corner of his mouth twitching up with his quirked eyebrow.
“Acceptable,” I correct through a dry throat, face heating.
“Exceptional,” he agrees with a nod, snaking his arm out to wrap around my waist, tugging me to him. I burrow into the hair on his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin against mine. And it feels good and tender and safe and…right. A flare of panic erupts in my chest. Because that can’t be. That’s not how this is supposed to go.
This is one night, a private stop on his public redemption tour for hurting my precious feelings years ago. I’m not going to be that fool again. I’m not going to find emotions where there are none just because I feel raw and exposed after sex. Again. Fucking hell.
I wriggle out of his embrace, sitting up and pulling the sheet around my body. I make sure to kick his hideous comforter to the end of the bed.
“I guess I landed onweirdbecause this whole thing is just that,” I babble. “I mean, we go from not talking to doing public dates for social media attention to having a heated fight after fake couples therapy like any of it means anything at all to either of us when we both know it doesn’t.”
I can see Cooper out of the corner of my eye, and I watch him blink a few times, his face falling. I feel a twinge in my gut, and I want to take back the words. But what would be the point? I’m not going to lie to myself just because I’m high on post-sex hormones. I can feel the intensity of his stare, an expectant expression like he’s waiting for me to laugh and say I was joking.
I don’t. Instead, I pull my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them.
After a beat, Cooper sits up too, getting out of bed and handling the condom before grabbing his discarded sweatpants. I don’t notice the thick tension in the muscles of his back or how absurdly perfect his ass is as he pulls them on.
“Bathroom,” he mumbles in explanation as he heads to the door. “Back in a second.”
