Page 35 of Weathering the Storm of the Century

The damn woman started choking.

Chapter 10

Aelix~

I wasn’t choking, so much as sputtering at the wild idea that Cotter would already start talking about rings. Granted, he could be referencing a lot of things, but I knew better. Cotter Moore wasn’t the type of man that gave women promise rings or nonsense like that.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked when I had finally managed to get myself under control.

“You heard me,” he drawled out.

“Nope, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t,” I replied. “Because it sounded like you just proposed, and that seems a bit…insane, considering that we were just talking about moving in together.”

“I didn’t say that we had to get married tomorrow,” he reasoned, still sounding goddamn crazy.

“Cotter-”

“I’m not interested in waiting, Aelix.”

I could only gawk at him.

What in the hell?

“Cotter, I am not marrying you,” I told him. “We…we’ve still-”

“It’ll be a long engagement,” he offered, completely ignoring reason. “You can even pick the wedding date.”

“How magnanimous of you,” I deadpanned.

Cotter chuckled as he reached down, then lifted me until my legs and arms automatically wrapped around his body. Unfortunately for my common sense, Cotter felt like home when he was holding me like this. Even though our relationship had been nothing but sex, there was no denying that Cotter in my bed had always felt right. I’d also never felt uncomfortable in his bed, though I’d never actually slept in it, and that was why I had to slow this down a bit.

“Don’t you think that this is all a little bit too much, too soon?”

Cotter shook his head. “It’s not fast enough if you ask me,” he answered as he walked us back to my bedroom. “Now that I’m not blinded by routine, it’s not happening fast enough for me.”

“Is that what you’re calling it? Blinded by routine?”

“I took you for granted, baby,” he admitted. “Even if you did agree to our arrangement, I should have taken a second look at it way before now.”

“It’s easy to take a situation for granted when it’s not threatened,” I conceded as Cotter sat on my bed, my legs straddling his lap.

“That’s still not a good enough excuse, and I realize that now.”

“All that from Kent Racier asking me out to dinner, huh?” I teased.

“No,” he retorted. “I can handle another guy asking you out just fine. It was you sending me that fucking text that changed things.” He leaned forward, then placed a kiss on my neck. “I read that fucking thing a million times before I realized how badly I’d been fucking up.”

“Cotter-”

“Just let me learn from my mistakes, baby,” he said.

“Think you can?” I retorted. “I mean, your ego is kind of out there.”

He nuzzled my neck again as he said, “If anyone knows that my ego is warranted, it’s you.”

Before I could say anything to that, I felt one of Cotter’s hands slide underneath my skirt and in between my legs. Like the expert that he was, his fingers immediately found their way inside the gusset of my panties, and I was already closing my eyes, letting the pleasure wash over me. It never took much when it came to Cotter’s touch, and we could both hear how ready I was for him.

“Cotter…” I mewled.

---