Page 71 of The Love of My Afterlife
I literally have nothing to lose—this is the only time in my life when there won’t ever be consequences for my behaviour.
Despite everything, my shoulders soften. I trust Cooper. I’m safe with him and, to my surprise, I don’t feel awkward or embarrassed. I feel excited.
“Yes. I want this,” I say firmly, my breath catching with anticipation. “I really…I really just want to know what it’s like.”
“Then let me show you,” Cooper whispers into my ear, drawing me back to him.
32
The first time doesn’t hurt like I thought it might. It feels enveloping and unusual but good. Really fucking good. Cooper explores my body, and it transforms from something that holds nothing but fear and anxiety into a conduit for electricity. As he pushes into me, I rise my hips up to meet him, feeling more comfortable with every thrust until I’m the one who quickens the pace.
When Cooper comes, he presses me so tightly against him that I feel his heartbeat reverberate through my entire chest.
We lie back together on the bed, breathless and dazed.
Cooper leans up on his elbow and grins at me. “Whoa.”
I nod, waiting for the stars in my eyes to abate. “Whoa.” I laugh out loud.
Cooper chuckles. “Why are you laughing?”
“I never thought the first person I slept with would be the downstairs neighbour who told me to fuck off because I asked him to turn down his music at six in the morning.”
Cooper frowns. “Huh? I didn’t do that.”
I nudge him lazily with my shoulder. “You did. It was fiveyears ago. The morning after Halloween. I remember because you had pumpkins lit in your window. You’d had a party, I think?”
Cooper inhales. “I don’t remember saying that to you.”
“Still drunk?”
He shakes his head. “No. That was actually the morning Em died. My head was…Iwas somewhere else.” He strokes my shoulder, causing my whole arm to break out in goose bumps. “Your skin is porcelain.”
“Like a plate?”
“Like a figurine. But sexy. A hot figurine.”
I shrug. “I’m an indoor cat.”
“I didn’t think this would ever happen either,” he says. “Although Idoknow you thought I was handsome.”
“Oh really? How’s that?”
He laughs. “That Christmas Eve after I first moved in. I accidentally opened one of your packages—a box of paints, I think. I brought them up to your flat, and you were clearly pissed, open bottle of sherry on the table.”
The old bottle of Christmas sherry I found in the cupboard. I had been sad that night. Lonely.
“Shit. What did I say to you?”
Cooper’s eyes glint. “You told me I was handsome on my face. I hadn’t remembered the exact expression until you said it to that bouncer earlier.”
I bury my head in my hands. “Wow.”
“I liked it,” he laughs. “I told you that I thought you were pretty on your face. But then you told me to get out because you were a lone wolf, unable to love or be loved. Something like that. You told me to leave, so I did.”
“Mortifying.”
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you.”
