by Lane Hart
Instead of responding to my question, Cooper looks over at the guy with him who pulls a dry eraser cap off a pen with his front teeth and then starts writing on the board.
“I still can’t hear much of anything, only whispers and a roaring,” Cooper says. “Cedric here can write down whatever you say.”
“Oh, okay,” I agree. “I was worried about you,” I tell him, even though it feels odd to say it in front of a bystander. I suppose say it through him is more accurate, since he has to write it down for Cooper.
“Thanks, ah, Torin said you stopped by,” Cooper responds.
“Yeah. And you told me to leave.”
He looks at the board and then me with his brow furrowed. “Did I?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“That’s only because it wasn’t safe.”
When the room falls silent, I want to blurt out the real question I’m itching to ask – Why is he here?
“But I’m glad you came by. To see me.” He clears his throat and then says, “I’m guessing you didn’t change your mind?”
“Ah, no,” I reply softly even though I was going to until Jade told me about him and Jenna.
“No need to write that down,” he tells his young friend. “Liz, I don’t like how things ended the last time I was here. And I shouldn’t have said what I said, asking for something I knew you couldn’t give me.”
I simply nod my head in agreement.
Groaning, he looks away and runs his fingers through his long hair, wincing as if the movement hurts. “Honestly, I don’t know why the fuck I’m here! It’s probably a waste of my time…”
“Just tell me, Cooper. Tell him to just tell me what’s going on!” I say to his translator.
Cooper reads the board and then sighs heavily before he finally looks at me again. “It’s about Jenna.”
Oh great. Let’s talk more about the other women he was sleeping with.
God, I’m an awful person for thinking such shitty thoughts about a dead woman.
“What about her?” I ask.
“She had a kid,” Cooper says after Cedric shows him my question on the board.
“Oh,” I say in surprise. “Was it…is it yours?” I ask and then wait for him to see the words I just asked.
“No. God, no!” Cooper eventually remarks after reading my question. “But I feel responsible for the kid. Jenna died in our club because of one of our enemies. So, I want to try and get custody of her daughter Ruby from the state. She’s only four months old.”
“Wow,” I remark, which probably doesn’t need to be translated since my gaping mouth is still forming the word. He wants to be a father to a baby. A very young baby named Ruby. I didn’t even know he liked kids. Not that I know much about him…
“So, this is where my huge favor comes in,” Cooper tells me.
“Ah, okay,” I tell him.
“In order to have a better chance at adopting her, I need to get a wife. Would you…will you marry me?” he asks. Not only does my jaw drop open even further, but so does Cedric’s when I glance over at him to see if I heard Cooper right.
“What?” I ask. “Did he just…did he just ask me if I would marry him?” I ask the kid.
“Ah, yeah, that’s what I heard too. Let me make sure,” Cedric says, scribbling quickly on the board and showing it to Cooper.
“Yes, I asked Liz if she would marry me,” Cooper agrees. “I know it’s out of the blue and that you’ll probably say no because you don’t even want to be seen with me in a restaurant. But I have to get Jenna’s daughter out of the state system, and I can’t do that unless I’m married to someone, apparently, which is stupid, but there it is. And if I have to marry someone, I would rather it be you, if there’s anything I can do to convince you. It wouldn’t be forever, just until the adoption goes through.”
“Wow,” I mutter again. No other words immediately come to mind. First, I thought I had made an enormous mistake, ending things with Cooper when I love being with him and he nearly died. Then, I found out he was sleeping with one of his dancers and promised myself that I wouldn’t second guess my decision any longer.
Now…now he wants me to marry him, to do something so amazing that I can barely restrain myself from running to him and throwing my arms around him to kiss his incredibly sweet, incredibly gorgeous face.
“Did she give me an answer yet?” Cooper eventually asks Cedric, who shakes his head. His eyes come back to mine and he says, “Look, Liz, I know it’s a lot to ask. You were the first person I thought of to help me out with this. But if you don’t want to marry me and take on the burden of someone else’s kid, I’ll understand. It’s a huge thing. I get that. So, I can find someone else…”
“Find someone else?” I repeat with a scoff. “Like Miles picked out a wife on some website and paid cash for her?” I exclaim, before remembering that Cooper can’t even hear me. “Write that down,” I tell Cedric when he just stands there frozen, staring at me. Whoops. I may have just spilled Miles’ secret, but it wasn’t like he ever paid me to look at his contract so it’s not attorney-client privileged information.
Once Cedric gets it all written down, Cooper’s shoulder’s slump. “Yeah, yeah, I guess that would work. I can ask him the name of the website…”
Oh my god, he’s serious!
“No!” I shout because I don’t want Cooper to marry someone else. I don’t want to even imagine him touching another woman, and here he is, asking me to help him do something so selfless to help an innocent child. For him, for this little girl who lost her mother, I’ll push my fears and numerous other reasons for avoiding a real commitment aside. Cooper’s lifestyle is dangerous, unpredictable and his job requires him to be surrounded by naked women. And yet, despite all of that, I still want to be with him. “I’ll do it. I’ll marry you,” I say around the lump in my throat.
Cooper tilts his head to watch as Cedric writes only a few words. “You will?” he asks when he looks up at my face again with a small smile forming on his lips.
“Yes,” I agree without any hesitation. Which is idiotic. I’ve happily kept Cooper in the fling-with-no-strings category for a reason – because I don’t want to get hurt. And he’ll hurt me. The Jenna thing hurt me. Raising her kid with him will be a brand-new level of hell, yet still I can’t help myself. This is going to end badly for me, I just know it. Which is why I say, “I have one condition. Let me have the board,” I tell Cedric. I don’t want to say this through him. He hands it over with the pen, and then I shoo him away with my hand. “Can you go wait out in the hallway?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the kid agrees.
“And shut the door behind you, please,” I add before he disappears.
When he’s gone, I write out, “One Condition – No Sex.”
“No sex?” Cooper exclaims loudly. “No sex with other people? Yeah, okay. That’s cool.”
“No, Cooper. No sex with each other,” I tell him while adding the words to the board. I find my hand accidentally scribbling, “No sex with other people” too and then want to kick myself for being so insecure.
“Hold on. So you’ll agree to marry me, but you don’t want to fuck me anymore?” he asks, sounding confused and also hurt.
“Yes,” I write down. “Well, no.” It’s not that I don’t want to. Jesus, this is more of a notebook conversation than one for a small board. After trying to figure out how to phrase it, I finally write, “We agreed this would never be more than sex.”
“So you don’t want to marry me?” he asks. “Then why the hell did you say you would?”
I try to figure out what to write next; but before I get a chance, Cooper jerks the marker out of my hand and tosses it to the floor.
“What–” I start, and then he takes the board from me and throws it over his shoulder where it lands on the hardwood with a loud thud.
Cradling my face between his palms, he says, “Just talk to me. I want to hear your voice again.”
“How?” I ask.
/> “Come closer,” he says, and then his arms are winding around me, pulling me flush against his hard body so abruptly that the wind is knocked out of my lungs. But when I wrap my arms around his waist and sink into his embrace, it feels like I can finally breathe for the first time since he last walked out of my office, when I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him again.
Cooper sucks in a deep breath of his own, and then says, “If you speak up with your lips next to my ear, I’ll be able to hear you.”
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I say with my lips close enough that they’re almost brushing the side of his face. His grip on me grows impossibly tighter. Our chests are pressed together, and I can feel his heart beating.
“I don’t know what else to do here, Liz,” he replies softly. “All I know is that I can’t let that little girl go into some home where they hurt her or don’t care for her the way she deserves.”
“Yeah,” I agree as I swallow down the emotions that tighten my throat.
“And I can’t deny that I want to be with you. I hated, hated, the way things ended the other day. I shouldn’t have pushed you. Even though you deserve better, I’m selfish and want to be with you. So, I’ll be good and not lay a finger on you again if you agree to go through with this. At least not until you beg me to. And we both know you will beg me. Eventually.”
A small gasp leaves my lips at his prediction, and I’m sort of glad he couldn’t hear it. But he’s wrong. I won’t beg him for anything. At least not when it comes to sex.
“W-will we need to live together?” I ask him against his ear.
“Yes,” he replies as his palm strokes up and down my back. “They’ll be doing home checks, so you’ll need to move in with me. My place is wired up with all the best security equipment, so I’d rather stay there.”
“Okay,” I agree. “When?” I ask, and this time my lips brush over his cheek and I feel the shudder go through his body.
“Can you go down to the magistrate’s office with me today?” he asks.
“Ah, sure,” I agree. “I’ll have to reschedule a few appointments this afternoon but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
How could I ever be angry at Cooper for sleeping around when he looks like he does and is so sweet he would get married just to try and get custody of a dead woman’s child?
“Holy shit,” I mutter when it really hits me, what agreeing to marry Cooper means. Not only will I be his wife, I’ll be this strange child’s mother. Being a mom is not something I’ve even considered with my busy career that doesn’t leave much time for anything else.
Maybe I should take more time and think this through.
But then Cooper pulls back enough to see my face. As soon as I see the determination and sadness on his handsome face, I know that whether it’s hours or days or weeks from now, my decision would still be the same.
Yes.
Cooper and I have been fooling around together for years now; and while I never wanted or expected it to end in marriage, I think the two of us can really do this – have a cordial enough marriage while co-parenting together to raise a baby.
“Listen, Liz, I know what you’re thinking. It’s a lot to put on you so suddenly. But you don’t have to be a mother to Ruby if you don’t want to. I won’t ask that responsibility of you too. I can take care of her, diaper changes, nighttime feedings, all of it, if you could just pretend for social services, not date anyone else –”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I want to help. We’ll figure this out together,” I say, and he nods his head in agreement, letting me know he heard me or read my lips.
“Yeah, we will. Thank you,” he says, his eyes full of gratitude, conveying just how much he truly appreciates my help. “This is a huge favor, so I’ll be indebted to you, Liz. I can’t tell you how much it will mean to me to keep this child out of the foster system.”
“No problem,” I tell him. With his gaze on my lips, just inches away, I think he understood.
“So, what time can you be at the magistrate’s office?”
“Ah, about four?” I say. That should be when I can get free, as long as my last appointments of the day are willing to reschedule.
“Good,” he replies, and then his lips brush briefly over mine before he lets me go. “See you then,” he says before he goes and picks up the dry erase board and marker from the floor. “And I thought Miles was rushing,” he mutters with a shake of his head as he starts toward the door. “He’s going to give me so much shit.”
Just before he walks out, Cooper looks over his shoulder at me for several long silent seconds. “I don’t want to sleep with anyone else,” he tells me, and I want to believe him. “I wouldn’t do that to you – marry you, live with you, and then go screw some other woman behind your back, so I hope you’ll give me the same courtesy.”
“Okay,” I agree. “Sure.”
“Oh, and ah, what size ring do you wear?”
“My ring size?” I ask. He must read my lips or the confusion on my face because he responds.
“I need to pick out our wedding bands.”
“Ah, a five,” I say holding up my hand with my fingers spread out.
“Five. Got it,” he replies with a nod before he walks out of my office.
Wow. I’m getting married today. I’m really going to go through with it. And then, if everything works out the way Cooper wants, I may be a mother.
As soon as all of those thoughts sink in, I rush over to my phone and pick up the receiver before I dial Barb’s extension.
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth?” she answers.
“Could you please call and reschedule my four o’clock and four-thirty appointments until tomorrow, whatever time you can squeeze them in?”
“Sure,” she replies. “Has something come up?”
“Yes, it has,” I reply. Flopping down into my rolling chair, I grin and tell her, “I’m getting married this afternoon!”
“Seriously? Oh my gosh!” she exclaims.
“I guess I need to make a call to find a magistrate and ask them to have everything written up for Cooper to read,” I say, mostly to myself. “Should I change?”
“Of course you should!” Barb agrees. “You wear a suit every day. For this you need a dress, one he’ll never forget.”
I start to tell her that it’s not that kind of wedding – the romantic type where we’ll gaze at each other with love in our eyes as we say our vows and imagine a life together. That’s just a little depressing, so I keep it to myself. What I’m about to do is crazy, I know. But the main reason I said yes – and what I can’t tell Barb – is that despite how determined I was to avoid a commitment, it hurts too much to think of Cooper marrying anyone else.
Now I just have to figure out how to break the news to Owen…
Chapter Seven
Cooper
Well, that went better than I could’ve hoped. Liz flat out turned me down when I asked her to let me take her to dinner, but she said yes when I asked if she would marry me.
By this afternoon, she’ll be my wife.
And my wife said she doesn’t want to have sex with me.
How fucked up is that?
If she hadn’t have written it down in ink, I would’ve sworn that I misheard. But there was no misreading, “One condition – No sex.”
I wanted to ask her why she no longer wanted me when we’ve been fucking each other for years, but I didn’t want to have to hear her answer. Or see it written in marker.
That doesn’t mean that I’m going to give up trying to get her into my bed. I may not have heard her gasp when I told her she would be begging me to touch her eventually, but I felt it. The two of us are magnetic, drawn to each other. And when we’re together, it’s explosive.
Not that I’m fond of that particular comparison at the moment.
Still, I’ll give her what she wants at least for a little while since, other than my hard cock, I’m not physically capable of having sex. My body aches just walki
ng or lying in bed. But as soon as I’m healed, I’ll try my best to change her mind.
For now, when I get back into the van with Cedric, I tell him, “I need to go by the jewelry store on Pebble Beach Road. GPS it if you don’t know where it’s at.”
He nods his agreement and then we’re off.
While we’re riding, it hits me for the first time exactly why Miles didn’t want any of our brothers other than me at his wedding - because I don’t either.
Liz is marrying me out of what I expect is mainly pity. She doesn’t want me, and I can’t say I’m thrilled about anyone other than Cedric bearing witness to just how pathetic our union will be – I’m in love with her, and she won’t even have a meal in public with me. I seriously doubt that will even change once we’re married. She’s ashamed of associating with me, a member of a motorcycle club and the manager of a strip club, one that was recently blown to smithereens.
Still, I’m grateful for her help.
And as soon as the wedding is done, we can begin the adoption process.
Elizabeth
“You look…incredible,” Cooper says, sounding out of breath when I’m the one rushing up to the front of the courthouse in my white sheath dress. It was the only thing I had in my closet that seemed even remotely appropriate. “I’ve never seen you in anything but suits.”
“It’s a special occasion,” I reply, inwardly pleased by his compliment and his eyes still taking me all in.
Gaze returning to mine, he asks, “Do we need to wait for anyone?”
“What? Oh, no,” I say, shaking my head so he will understand. Only Barb knows what I’m doing, and she has to work.
“Right,” he grits out before he turns toward the courthouse. “Let’s go.” Cedric falls into step behind Cooper, still clutching the white board under his arm.
“I’m ready,” I confirm, taking Cooper’s hand. His eyes meet mine, but then drop to my chest as I take a deep breath, which causes my breasts to almost spill out of my dress. I pause to adjust myself, failing to hide my smile at Cooper’s obvious interest.