“How’s that new show you were shooting for going?” I asked in a strained voice.
She ignored my question and I heard a squeaky noise in the background. Her bed, maybe? “I’m dying to see you, woman. What are you doing this weekend?”
“I’ve got to study up for a scene next week. Sorry, babe, but I can’t fly to L.A. to see you,” I said. I mean, it was partially the truth—the part about the scene, that is.
Jessica made a sniffling noise. “Actually, I just finished shooting a guest appearance and wanted to take time to see my best friend. I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was a kid.”
I froze in place. Jessica wanted to come here to see me. I should have felt excitement about seeing the girl who’d been my best friend since I was thirteen, but instead, a chill crept down my spine.
“We can meet up when I come back home in the next month or so,” I suggested, but she quickly brushed that off.
“I want to see you now. I won’t take no for an answer.”
No, I was sure she wouldn’t but that didn’t stop me from saying it over and over again. I came up with a half dozens excuses not to see her until finally a guttural sound bubbled from the back of her throat. “Do you just not want to see me?”
“That’s not it,” I said.
“Then what the hell is it?”
“I—”
I could practically here her eyes rolling when she said, “Then I’ll see you this weekend. Call you tomorrow to let you know when my flight will be there. Love you!” Then she squealed, making the spot between my eyes hurt, and hung up before I could get another word in.
I was still seething five hours later as Cooper and I watched an Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler movie at my rental house. We’d thrown around the idea of going out to dinner with Paige and Eric and a few of their other friends (including Miranda), but I’d said I had a headache. Now, my head lay on his lap, and I held on to the hem of his long cargo shorts as he stroked his fingertips across my skin.
“You know, Wills, if you want to rip my clothes off, just ask,” he teased, staring down into my green eyes.
Groaning, I sat up, sliding my hands through my long hair and pulling it into the band that I’d put around my wrist earlier. It’d left a deep indentation in my skin, and I rubbed it as I bit the inside of my cheek.
Cooper moved closer, his blonde eyebrows knitting together in concern. “You’ve been scary quiet. What’s up?”
“Jessica wants to come visit me,” I said. He held up his hands and shook his head, waiting for me to elaborate, and I groaned. “Sparkly pastie girl,” I said.
That got his attention because I felt his body go rigid. A friend of a friend had been a smartass and had posted a picture of me and Jessica at some party a year and a half ago on Cooper’s Facebook wall. We’d been flashing whoever wielded the camera phone, red-faced and laughing.
Cooper touched his fingertips to his full lips, and I licked my own, feeling that pull between my legs. “And you said?” he asked.
I stared down at my hands. “I can’t stop her from coming to Hawaii.”
He groaned, but motioned me to him. I locked my legs around his hips, one at a time, my breath catching when I saw the need in his blue eyes. “You’ll be fine,” he said. He’d been saying that to me more often than usual and I’d started to wonder if it was more for his benefit than my own.
But I nodded, touching my forehead to his as his fingertips skimmed under the elastic of my panties to slip inside of me. “We’re filming too fast,” I moaned, ready to get the thought of Jessica out of my head for now. I’d worry about her later or hell, once she showed up in Hawaii.
Cooper murmured something against my shoulder blade then traced the tip of his tongue across the delicate bone there. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered, my voice heavy. I closed my eyes, my head falling forward, my hair falling over his shoulder, as his fingers picked up speed inside of me.
He was unraveling me.
Driving me crazy.
“We won’t have to let go,” he said, raking his teeth gently across my flesh as I came for him.
I slid down his body a moment later, undoing his shorts and wrapping my hands, my mouth, around him as the floor bruised my knees. I caught his gaze, and the corners of his lips lifted, his blue eyes softened.
Then I lost myself in him.
Chapter Nineteen
In a move that was so typically Jessica, she changed her mind about coming to Hawaii at the last minute, claiming that she’d been brought on to act as the love interest in a music video. But instead of cancelling her plans all together, she changed her flight to nine days later. By the time Miller and I met her at the airport Thursday afternoon, I was a bundle of stress. I waited for her, chewing on the inside of my lip and squinting at the escalator through my giant sunglasses. Then I saw her, carrying her signature Vuitton bag and looking like she was bored out of her f**king mind.
Jessica squealed once her eyes landed on me, wobbling forward on four-inch heels that had to make her at least six feet and threw her arms around me. I sucked in a deep breath. She smelled like too much booze and too little perfume.
“I’ve missed you,” she cried, kissing me a few centimeters from my lips. Miller flushed and stared down at the airport floor.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“We’re parked in short term parking so we should hurry this up,” I said, and she slid her fingers into mine.
Her mouth dropped open and she gave me a surprised look. “No limo?”