The Risks We Take Duet Box Set

79. Cooper

COOPER

I kiss the inside of Carys’s thigh, just getting started.

She lays still on the bed with a sated and sexy smile on her face.

Like a woman who’s just been well fucked, but I have other plans for her.

Kissing and licking every inch of her skin, I enjoy the sounds of Carys’s whimpers while she basks in the happy afterglow of her orgasm. I continue dragging out each lash of my tongue against her skin. Grazing my teeth over her hipbones. Pressing a kiss to her taut stomach. I swirl my tongue around her incredible tits and suck each of her pale-pink nipples into my mouth before covering her body with mine.

“I think you broke me,” she murmurs against my mouth.

With the taste of her pussy still on my lips, our tongues dance in a slow rhythm.

Tasting.

Exploring.

Remembering.

She mewls against me, bringing her knees up to cradle my hips between her legs. Urging me for more. Silently pleading for me to move.

My cock lays heavy between our legs, the tip teasing her pretty cunt but not pushing in.

Not yet.

I lace my fingers with hers and hold them against the bed on either side of her face while I tease her clit with my dick. Taking my time and rubbing against her soaked core.

“Cooper,” she gasps. “Oh God, Coop. I need...” Her breath catches in her throat as I inch in slowly, barely moving, before I pull back out.

“What are you doing?” she hisses.

My nose runs down the length of her neck, and my teeth graze her pounding pulse.

“I’m taking my time tonight.”

“Cooper . . .” she whines.

“Let me worship you, baby.” As if my words break something within her depths, tears leak from the corner of Carys’s eyes.

I let go of her hands and try to pull back, but she wraps her arms around my body and holds me to her. “I love you so much, Coop. I’m yours. My body. My heart. My soul.” She clings to me like a lifeline. Her lips press against mine until we breathe the same air. “Show me how you love me. Give me you.” She wraps a leg around my waist and drags her wet pussy over me. “Give me everything.”

Nails scrape up my spine and dig into my shoulder blades as she moves her hips.

I wrap my fingers around her headboard and slowly drive back into her heat as electricity arcs between us. “You were made for me, Carys.” I snap my hips, picking up speed.

“Only you, Cooper.” She brings her other leg around me, linking them behind my back, her heels digging into the muscles of my ass. “Take me.”

My abs contract with each thrust, pulling at my healing scar.

But the pain is exquisite.

It reminds me I’m alive. That I’m here.

That she’s not a fucking hallucination I dreamed up because I’m in hell.

“Stay with me, Coop.” Carys’s hands capture my face, bringing me back to the here and now, and I take her mouth in a bruising kiss.

Our tongues collide, and every hurt, every heartbreak, every fear and doubt we’ve been carrying falls away.

We move together, drowning in each other.

Clinging to one and other.

“I’m so close, Cooper.” She traces my bottom lip with her finger, and I suck it into my mouth, running my tongue around it. Carys’s breath falters, and her eyes close. Her inner walls squeeze me like a vise.

Her arm wraps around my neck when she shatters around me, crying out with silent tears pooling in her green eyes.

Pleasure ripples, shooting up from the base of my spine until I follow her over the cliff, filling her. Holding her. Loving her.

T he first time I wake up the next morning, it’s early. The sun is just peeking over the horizon, and its warm light filters into Carys’s room. She’s tucked against me. Her hair is a tangled mess, attacking my face, and she’s hogging the blanket. But I wouldn’t change a single thing.

I adjust my hold on her and close my eyes, deciding this is the only place I have to be.

It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the bright room when they open later. Carys is no longer tucked against me. She’s sitting against the headboard with her legs crossed and her sketch pad in her hands.

“Good morning.” She leans down and kisses me, giving me a glimpse of her sketch.

I pull it from her hands. “Carys Murphy, are you sketching me?” It’s not as good as her lingerie sketches, but it’s pretty damn obvious it’s me.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Coop. You’re pretty when you sleep.” She steals the book back and lays it on her nightstand. “Are you hungry? I was going to go down and make breakfast, but the house was still quiet, and I didn’t want to wake anyone up.”

I drag her down by her legs and cage her in against the mattress. “Is that what you really want?”

Carys giggles, then tickles my sides until I let her go. “What I want is to eat something semi-healthy before lacing up my sneakers and going for a run. I haven’t run once in the past week, and I need to, Coop. Please tell me you’ll come with me and let me get some sun, fresh air, and non-sex-induced endorphins... please .”

I think about how Rook’s brothers reported there was still no sign of Axel as of last night during our Zoom call.

Ford, Rook, and I went over everything we know, as well as every idea we had, and still came up with a big fat fucking goose egg at the end of it.

It’s infuriating that someone we’ve trained side by side with would be the guy we’re chasing because he knows everything we do.

He knows how to hide.

How to cover his tracks.

How to be invisible.

But that also means, if there’s a strike coming, it’s not going to happen in public.

“Fine,” I give in. “But I’m coming with you, and we’re running on the beach.” I don’t tell her that’s safest because there’s nowhere to hide. Instead, I throw the covers off and get out of bed.

“Where are you going?” She sits up with a pout.

I pick her up in a firemen’s hold and smack a hand against her bare ass.

“Cooper . . .” she squeals. “What are you doing?”

“We need a shower,” I tell her before stepping into the bathroom.

“We’re going to get dirty again, Coop.” This beautiful woman smiles as she slides down my body, and a wicked grin crosses my face.

“I know.”