Page 14 of Entangled

“In a bit.”

He brings a hand up and lightly taps my bare ass. “Did I not impress you enough already?”

I flick my eyes up to him and smirk. “Oh you more than impressed me. Just… in a bit.”

“Okay, Princess.” His brows dip slightly. “We’ll play it your way. For now.”

I roll my eyes at him and look back to the stars as he brings his hand up and starts to draw patterns on my back. Sinking into him as the steady thump of his heart sounds under my ear. It’s words, I realize drowsily after he draws a particularly obvious “at” on my spine. He’s not drawing senseless patterns but words on my skin. I start trying to figure out what the words are he’s writing, but the stars start fading in and out like a snapshot with each blink and the next thing I know the sky goes dark.

***

I open my eyes to see the first rays of light breaking over the sea and sit up in alarm. My mind still groggy but alert enough to know that I’m about to be nakedly waiting to greet all the tourists of Costa Rica for the day. And while I’m all about that pura vida life… I’m not sure that law enforcement will be on the same page. I look down at Coop, my eyes snagging on the little red half-moons on his forearm that my nails dug last night and how his impressive cock is alert and at attention, ready to greet the day. One of his hands rests near the curve of my ass while the other is still holding on to my leg.

I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest and know I should wake him.

But… after one short night, I think I know enough about Coop to know what will happen if I do.

He’s going to want to walk me back to my hotel. Hell, we’d probably spend the day going for rounds two through ten and while that in itself is a special kind of temptation…

It’s dangerous.

I’m not an idiot. I know guys like Coop don’t come around often, but that indefinable thread of something between us makes me nervous in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s that damn pull to each other.

So I do the smart thing.

I smoothly slide my leg out of his grasp, standing and gathering up my dress from underneath me. Quickly checking the pockets to make sure I have all my belongings before pulling it over my head and giving a cursory sweep for my underwear, coming up empty. I look down at Coop one last time, allowing myself a moment to appreciate the harsh beauty of him. He’s even more magnificent in the light of day. I force myself to look away, knowing that if I don’t do it now, he’s going to wake soon and catch me. As I move to step around him my eyes snag on his wallet and phone lying by his side and I pause.

It really would be rude to just leave him here…

I step my way over to his side as quietly as possible and grab the ancient-looking flip phone, quickly pulling up an empty message and leaving the recipient blank.

Names are so ordinary. This way, I’m unforgettable.

It takes me forever to type out, having to hit each of the keys a million times for one letter, but I finish the text and leave the phone open at his side. I stand and begin to hurriedly walk back down the beach, an uneasy feeling spreading with each step I take. I push it away though, knowing I made the smart call, because that pull between us is dangerous. That kind of pull can turn into feelings, can turn into enchantment, can turn into love. And I am intimately familiar with just how destructive love can be.

I didn’t lie to him last night when I told him my biggest fear was becoming my mother. That love turned out to be deadly. I won’t take a chance on the same thing happening to me.

Chapter 5

Present Day

My eyes flutter open, each blink causing a dull ache to pound through my head as I’m filled with the feeling of confusion that comes with waking up in a new place. I sweep my gaze across the room, brain struggling for a moment before I remember. That’s right. Landing Point. Gram’s house. Otherwise known as the town of ghosts. Snapping my eyes shut at the realization, I roll over and try to reclaim a few more minutes of sleep before facing the day ahead of me.

But right when I’m on the edge of sliding back into the blissful ignorance of sleep, a pair of firework eyes flash through my mind and cause my eyes to snap back open. Embarrassment and regret fill me as the memory of last night takes over, the weight of it settling like a pit in my stomach.

I’ve never been a big fan of shame. It was never something I had allowed for in my life. I learned pretty early on that the world would tear you to shreds if you lived for the placation of others. So I never did. Stunning those around me with my disregard of their opinions. My longest-lasting therapist theorized that this particular trait was probably a defense mechanism due to what happened to my parents.

But personally, I always thought whatever higher power exists just built me that way. Lacking any apology for who I am or the choices I made. The span of any one life is so infinitesimal when compared to the history of the world that I never understood why the hell anyone would live their life in constraint. Which meant regret was a bit of a foreign concept to me.

And before last summer, I’d never been the girl so broken that a simple song could send me fleeing from a bar. Left feeling painfully embarrassed the next morning. So the pit in my stomach right now really doesn’t sit well with me. It’s appalling, actually.

I watch the blades of my gram’s white fan turn against her outdated popcorn ceiling and feel that pit in my stomach sour with anger as the cause of this change within me inevitably comes to mind.

Yeah… fuck you too, Coop.

And not in a good way.

Reaching over to grab my phone from the nightstand next to the bed, I check the time, not surprised to find that I’ve slept the morning away. I haven't woken up before ten in nearly a year. Pushing up in the bed, the covers fall from me as I take in the room under the light of day. I’d hardly paid attention to a damn thing last night once I’d made it back to the house. Only pausing long enough to make sure the room I’d made it into at the back of the house was Gram’s andnotmy father’s before stripping off my clothes and curling into a ball of unacknowledged misery.

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