Lantern Lake Read Online Free PDF

now.
    Heart thumping with all the anticipation of an undiscovered country, Cooper followed Vivian up the rickety porch steps. He barely noticed the peeling paint on the doorframe and the sad creak of rusty hinges before Vivian shut the door behind them and Cooper made his move.
    With a low sound of need, he pinned her against her own front door, caging her in with his larger body. Cooper stared down at her, blood rushing fast and furious in his veins and throbbing between his legs. Vivian blinked up at him, her irises a slim purple band around pupils wide with shock or desire. Or a combination of the two.
    “Don’t you want to see the house?” Her voice was a husky whisper in the dark, like velvet stroking his skin.
    “I’ve got everything I want right here,” Cooper said, with a deliberate grind of his hips that made her gasp. He ignored how right the words felt, how true they seemed, in favor of dipping his head for a deep, persuasive kiss.
    But he didn’t need to do much persuading. Vivian met him heat for heat, bite for bite, moan for moan. The fire between them seemed never to have gone out—it had only been banked, live red coals waiting for a spark to flare into the kind of scorching heat Cooper thought he could die from.
    When Vivian clutched at his shoulders and twined one lithe leg around his, Cooper groaned and got his hands under her hips. He lifted her up until she locked her ankles behind his back and the force of his body pressed her into the door. She curled her arms around him and buried her face in his neck as he tunneled his hands under the filmy material of her bridesmaid dress.
    Vivian had never liked wearing tight, confining pantyhose, even in the dead of a New York winter—and, in that, at least, she hadn’t changed. With a growl of appreciation, Cooper got his hands directly on the smooth, heated silk of her bare skin.
    He ached to be inside her, to experience the tight clasp of her body and the surging waves of her response. In the past, he never would have taken her this way, rough and ready and up against a wall—but he’d been young, then. Young, trusting, and innocent enough to want to cherish every breath Vivian Banks took.
    Older now, more experienced and more confident, Cooper was no stranger to the quick and dirty encounter. He knew exactly how satisfying it could be, how much pleasure he could give a woman in this position.
    But some tiny corner of him, some remnant of the romantic idiot he used to be, forced him to ask, “Is this okay with you?”
    The look she flashed him made everything in his body tighten. “Everything. Anything. Just don’t stop.”
    ***
    Maybe it was greedy. Maybe it was shortsighted. Maybe Vivian was the worst kind of fool—but she couldn’t bring herself to believe she’d ever regret stealing one last night of passion with the only man she’d ever loved. Even knowing he didn’t love her back, and never would again.
    And somehow, the knowledge that it was the last time freed her up to be as brave and adventurous as she’d been as a girl, before the reality of her life taught her to keep her head down and do her best to be invisible. When Cooper stared deep into her eyes, she knew he saw her. And instead of feeling exposed or vulnerable, Vivian reveled in it. She was alive, with Cooper Hayes’s superheated, muscular body keeping her pinned to the front door like a butterfly on a card, and when he moved his hips like that…
    Vivian shuddered, her eyes fluttering closed as black starbursts exploded across her vision. Her body, which she hadn’t thought twice about in years, came to shivering, gasping life in Cooper’s arms. Yes, she thought in dazed answer to Cooper’s question—this was entirely okay. Okay didn’t come close to covering it.
    The first time against the door didn’t last long. It couldn’t. They were too hungry, starved for each other. The second time, on the stairs up to the small, single bedroom, was full of laughter and