Page 70 of The Love of My Afterlife
The look of shock on his face sends a bubble of laughter into my throat. “It was an accident,” I hoot. I lean forward for a closer look. “You’re not even bleeding!”
“Hmm. I suppose you did warn me not to touch you,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly light.
“Not even if I begged you to,” I reply. My voice has gone all croaky.
I notice then that his eyes look completely black. Like his pupils have swallowed his irises whole. My breath quickens.
“We have fun, don’t we?” he murmurs. “Me and you.”
I think of how annoying he is. How frustrated I get when he’s near. How, before I fall asleep, I’ve started thinking of comebacks to use on him, things that might make his lip twitch in amusement.
“Yes,” I whisper, my heartbeat quickening.
Cooper tilts his head to the side, reaches out a hand, and gently wraps the ends of my hair around his fist.
“Jonah is a fucking idiot,” he says, voice low.
I blow out the air from my cheeks, feeling suddenly hot at the slight soft pull of my hair in his hand. “I mean, I came on a little strong to Jonah. Sort of locked him in a room with me? Idiot. Very dumb of me. I should have taken it slowly. But alas, time has not been on my side.”
Why am I talking so quickly? Why am I using the wordalas?
Cooper’s eyes mellow. He removes his hand from my hair and uses it to hold my chin between finger and thumb, lifting it so that my face is half in the moonlight. Then, just as I had started to hope he would, he leans forward and presses his lips cautiously against mine.
That felt…Oh no. That was not supposed to feel likethat.
He pulls away and stares at me hard, his own breath hastening. Then he kneels up on the bed, hooks an arm around me, and roughly scoops me upwards so that I’m also on my knees, my torso pressed completely against his.
I gulp. “Are…Is this because you’re lonely?” I say, my cheeks reddening. “Because I…”
“No, Delphie. This is because today is the first day in five years that I haven’t felt lonely. Not one bit.”
He grabs my face with both hands then and kisses me again, his tongue dipping softly against mine. I melt, my entire bodystarting to pulse in time with my heart, the beat of which has accelerated to a hum. I kiss him back, swinging my arms around his neck, one hand running up into his dark curls, the other trailing down to his arm, which feels solid and sure beneath my fingers. I squeeze and make a noise I don’t think I’ve ever made before—a sort of half gasp, half squeak.
“I thought you hated me,” Cooper murmurs, trailing his mouth across my throat, his bottom lip like velvet against my neck.
“I do,” I breathe, tilting my head back, because whatever he is doing feels like magic on my skin. “But you hate me too, so…”
“I despise you, Delphie,” Cooper groans into my mouth.
My body takes over and I kiss him harder, my tongue exploring his. I feel how hard he is and go dizzy with the pull of it, the anticipation.
I pull back, breathing heavily. “I…I…”
“What is it?” Cooper asks, leaning in to kiss my shoulder and then my earlobe and then my mouth again.
“I’veneverdonethisbefore,” I blurt out.
Cooper leans back, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Never done what?”
“I’m a virgin,” I say. And then I start to laugh because it sounds so unlikely but also because I’m a little embarrassed. Which I know I shouldn’t be because past Delphie was certain that it was the right thing. But now everything has changed. And I’m going to die in three days. And if this is what it feels like to be wantonly kissing an objectively hot yet despicable man in the moonlight, I suspect I might have been a fucking idiot to have avoided it for so long. And yes, sleeping with your neighbour is probably a terrible idea, but what does it matter?In three days I won’t ever see him again. It’s not like he will care. He’s used to one-night stands. He’s probably an expert in them.
Cooper doesn’t question me. He doesn’t ask about Jonah and the hooking up all over town. Instead, he looks me right in the eyes. “Would you like me to stop? Just say the words.”
“Do…doyouwant to stop?” I ask, fiddling with the edge of the sheet I’m wrapped in. “Because I, well, I really don’t have very much idea what I’m doing. How to do it. I mean, technically I, you know,know. But there’s a lack of field research. So we can stop now. You know. If you want to.”
Cooper swallows, his gaze locked on mine. “I’d rather scoop out my own eyeballs than stop whatever this is,” he says, which elicits another laugh. “But it’s in your control. Whatever you want, Delphie. Seriously.”
I examine his face in the silver light. I think about the way he just wrapped my hair around his fist and how it was the sexiest thing that has ever happened to me.
