He pulls away, grunting out his release even through the aftershocks. Our bodies are slick with sweat as he collapses on top of me, and our breathing is labored. I hold him to me with my fingers playing with the back of his hair, causing him to sigh.
Cooper kisses my neck until he finds my lips. This kiss is different, hungrier, if that is even possible. When he slides off me, I feel a loss I’ve never felt before. In past relationships, I’ve never had the desire to be locked in someone’s embrace, but that is what I’m feeling now. I reach over and touch him. He smiles and holds my hand.
Rolling onto his side, he brushes my damp hair out of my face. “I feel like I should thank you.”
“For what?” I chuckle.
He shrugs. “That was the most intense love-fucking I’ve ever done.”
“Make fuck?” I question, rolling onto my side to match him. He places his hand on my hip and leans down to kiss the valley of my breasts.
“I don’t want to scare you by saying the wrong thing,” he says in between kisses.
When he finally looks at me, I smile, hoping to convey that I’m more than okay with everything right now. “I love that you’re so sensitive, Cooper. It’s endearing.”
“Don’t tell the guys, okay?”
I laugh, and he pulls me into him. We start to make out until he pushes me away.
“I need to dispose of this condom.” He slides off his bed and disappears from his room as naked as the day he was born. It’s a good thing his roommates aren’t home, although if they were, I don’t know if we would’ve done what we just did.
Cooper returns with two glasses of ice water, handing me one. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
His phone starts to ring. It must be a designated ring tone, and by the look on his face, whoever is on the other end is someone he doesn’t want to talk to right now.
“Hello,” he says as he sits down on the bed, placing his glass of water on his nightstand so he can put his hand on my leg.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Fine.”
“Yes, I know, Dad.” He sighs heavily.
“I said tomorrow.”
“No, I can’t right now.”
“I just can’t. Tomorrow.”
“Yeah, bye.”
Cooper throws his phone onto the chair in his room and leans back on his bed, covering his face. I’m sure that was a conversation he didn’t want me to hear, and because I’m nosy, I’m going to ask him about it. “Everything, okay?”
“You’re here, everything is perfect.” He pulls me to him, and my body molds to his. His words don’t match his body language, and even though I know better, I press on.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head. “That was my dad. He’s in town, and he’s pissed about my performance today.” Seeing what a conversation with his dad does to Cooper gives me mixed feelings. When I sat next to him earlier, I thought we’d have a friendly bonding moment over our admiration of Cooper. It only took one inning for me to realize that his father is on the extreme level of parenting. I know I should mention something to Cooper but don’t want to worsen his mood.
“Well, the performance I just witnessed was a home run,” I say, winking at him. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sorry, Cooper.”
“It’s not your battle. I’ve been trying to cut the cord, so to speak, for a while, but short of me telling him to get lost, he doesn’t get it. He said I’m distracted, not focused, and if I’m lucky, they’ll send me back to Triple-A.”
I don’t have a clue as to what any of that means, so I don’t ask. So what if he didn’t get a hit today? There was a bunch of other players that performed the same as he did. “It was one game. You have thirty more to prove that you are where you belong.”
He looks at me quizzically. “How do you know how many games we have left?”