shut, he would just end up worrying her. That seemed like a funny way of trying to keep from hurting her.
He said frankly, “I like you too much.”
He was still looking at the snow when he felt her hand touch his shoulder.
“I know what you mean,” Gretchen said. “I like you an inconvenient amount too.”
Knowing that—or at least suspecting it—didn’t make hearing it any less incredible.
He wanted to bridge the tantalizingly short distance between them; he wanted to know the taste of her mouth and give her everything she wanted from him. He wanted a lot of things that were probably impossible.
Cooper turned back around to face her, and what he saw in her expression changed him.
She looked so completely, incredibly sure of herself. It was the confidence he’d known she was capable of—the kind he’d noticed her lacking when she had first come back from meeting with the driver of the black car. Since then, he had seen more of her, enough to see the cracks in her armor, enough to know the little ways she sold herself short, but seeing this—
This was like he was seeing who she was really meant to be. He’d seen a beautiful shadow of her confidence before, and now he was seeing the real thing.
A guy could fall in love.
But why was he thinking that? Didn’t he know he already had? For him, the deal had been sealed the moment she had reached out and shaken his hand. Everything since then had just shown him more and more of what an amazing person she was.
“You keep getting these looks on your face,” Gretchen said, smiling a little. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“I’m just looking at you.”
“People look at me all the time. It doesn’t change their lives.”
“Maybe they don’t see you the way I do,” Cooper said.
This time, there was no stopping their kiss. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away, not now, not with that I know what you mean ringing in his ears, not with being face-to-face with her shining, golden confidence. He was completely willing to believe she was right to want whatever she wanted. He trusted her.
So much for caution.
Fuck caution, anyway.
They pressed against each other clumsily, their bodies fighting to get closer despite the console between them. Her breasts pressed against his chest. She was leaning accidentally against the bandages still wrapped around his ribs, and the twinge of pain was sharp, but Cooper had never cared less about anything in his entire life.
She tasted smooth and rich, like the aftermath of the chocolate, and there was a kind of raspberry tinge to her lips that he felt like came only from her. She was opening herself up for him, letting him sample her, linger on the sensations she was giving him, but she was also taking everything she could from him, as if she was just as eager to breathe him in as he was with her.
He had his hands in her short, silky hair, and hers were on his shoulders, leveraging herself up so that she could meet his mouth even more firmly and they could kiss even more deeply.
If he’d had some idea of getting his sanity back during all his, he knew better now. Having kissed her, he could never want to turn back the clock to a time when he hadn’t. There would be no way to get her out of his system—there wouldn’t even be a way for him to want to. Even if all this crashed and burned, he would never regret it. He had never been as happy as he was in this moment—disconnected from his griffin, stranded in a blizzard, hunted, and a prisoner. She made up for everything.
12
He kissed her until she was breathless.
It was only when Gretchen could feel herself panting for air against Cooper’s lips that she made herself pull back. She could feel the slight burn his stubble had left on her, and she liked it. Liked it a lot, actually.
All of the guardedness had once again left Cooper’s face. His cheeks were flushed, his lips reddened a little with her own lipstick, and his green eyes were sparkling. He grinned at her, and he looked years younger than she’d ever seen him. It made her heart hurt a little.
“That’s the best way to keep warm that I’ve ever heard of,” Cooper said.
“Me too. It’s killing me to stop.”
“You don’t have to stop,” he said, gratifyingly sincerely.