“Bathroom, I think,” he says, pointing in the direction he just came from.

I knock gently on the door. Her voice hits me like a ton of bricks. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I wait, eyes anxiously patrolling the empty halls. Finally the doorknob begins to turn and I see Kate before she sees me. I guide her back into the bathroom and close the door quickly, successfully avoiding being caught by anyone.

“Cooper!” Her eyes go wide. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you.”

“Here? What’s the matter?”

“Why did you let me win?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cards. Why did you let me win?”

“You know why.”

“No, tell me.” I move in closer.

“I wanted to be with you.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m here. You knew I had to come back.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“Did you seriously just come here and push me into a bathroom to ask me that?”

“Answer the question.”

“No.”

“Answer the damn question, Kate.” I grip her hip tightly.

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is.” My other hand combs through her hair and I wrap the back length around my fingers.

“We agreed to one night.”

“I lied.”

“But—”

I interrupt her. “I’m going out of my mind. Just tell me. Did you sleep with him? Answer the question.” I sound desperate and I hate myself for sounding that way. “I need to know, Kate.”

We hold each other in an intense stare-off before she finally responds. “No, I didn’t.”

I let go of any hesitation I’m restraining and my mouth crashes down on hers fiercely. It takes less than a heartbeat for her to join me. We claw at each other, desperation and longing mixing together into a combustible spark that leads into a slow burning to be inside of her. Now.

We tear at each other’s clothes. It’s a testament to our need that we can’t even wait until we’re both fully unclothed. I grab her ass and lift her to the sink. It’s the perfect height. Her hands clench my ass, and before I even realize what’s happening I’m poised at her opening.

“Fuck.” My body trembles as I pause. “You want this?” I push the desire that’s fueling me aside, needing to hear I’m not forcing her into something she doesn’t want to do.

She responds by lifting her legs from the floor and wrapping them around my waist. “God, yes. I’ve missed you.” Her voice is raw and needy and it’s all I need to hear.

I sink inside of her with one thrust of my hips, burying myself as deep as I can. The feeling overwhelms me. It’s raw and carnal and I can’t even try to fight the urge to fill her body like an animal claiming his mate.

I fuck her hard. Starved for the feel of her perfect body taking every inch of me inside of her. It’s a ferocious race to make her scream my name. My name. One hand wraps around both her wrists holding them behind her back, subduing her as I pound into her without mercy. She trembles as she climbs higher and higher, until I feel what’s left of her resolve flee from her body, finally surrendering to me completely.

“I’ve been going crazy thinking of you here.” My lips worship her neck. Sucking and kissing and biting along the pulsating heartbeat running from her ear to her collarbone. “I can’t think of anything else but you,” I rasp. Both of our breaths are ragged, fast, erratic.

A juddering moan falls from her lips. “I’m … I’m …”

“That’s it, beautiful.” My hips slam into her harder and harder until I feel her body tighten and then go limp. Her eyes roll into the back of her head and shut as her pussy convulses around the length of me. It takes everything I have to hold back my own orgasm. But I do, until her gaze finds mine again, then I look deep into those sated blues and come inside of her. Erupting long and hard and deep.

Chapter twenty-one

Kate

My reflection stares back at me, looking like what I am—thoroughly fucked. Lips swollen, hair disheveled, face completely flushed, I respond to the third knock on the bathroom door. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

The production assistant sighs from the other side of the door. He probably thinks I’m busy dolling myself up before I go on camera. Although for all I know, the whole place may know what I was doing in here fifteen minutes ago. I try hard to remember if we were loud, but all I can seem to recall is the incredible feeling of having Cooper inside my body once again. Everything else faded into the oblivion.

Five minutes ago he slipped out the door after the second knock came. I could tell he wanted to fling open the door and give whoever was on the other side a piece of his mind. But he didn’t—he held back and let me answer. I told the assistant sent to beckon me for my turn at filming that I wasn’t feeling well, that I needed some time.

The minutes that followed after orgasm are a haze. Sated and in Cooper’s arms, nothing, it seemed, could go wrong. But with every moment that ticks by, the haze clears and the trouble brewing rings so loud in my ears, I can barely hear.

I do my best to fix myself, the disheveled exterior anyway. A few minutes later another knock comes. “Kate, it’s Flynn.”

Shit.

“Are you okay?” he asks when I don’t respond.