“We hardly know each other, Cooper. We’re not going to see each other.”
“We obviously know each other,” he scoffed.
Emma ignored that. “Is this an intervention?” she demanded. “Did you swoop up here to put a friendly arm around me and tell me everything is okay?”
“I have no idea what all I want to say, but I am pretty sure that ‘everything is okay’ is not on the list. Let’s go inside and talk about this like adults.”
“Not until you tell me why!” she demanded.
“Because I care!” he shouted, casting his arms wide. “That’s it, Emma! That’s all there is—God help me, I don’t know why, but I care about you!”
Emma’s heart slipped from its mooring, then struggled to swim back to safety. She stared at this man, this gorgeous hunk of kryptonite, unable to absorb what he’d just said. “Care . . . about me?” she asked, to be doubly sure she hadn’t misunderstood him.
He sighed and held out his hand to her. “Yes, Emma. You.”
She looked at his hand.
“I promise not to harass you. I promise not to abduct you. And I promise to leave soon—I have a plane to catch today.”
“No lectures?” she asked uncertainly. “No judgments, no condemnations, no surprises?”
“Do I need to draw blood, too? I promise.”
He cared about her? That seemed so . . . impossible. But at that moment, Emma’s heart was racing so badly she was in danger of taking flight. She didn’t believe him. She was afraid to believe him. But those words, I care about you, banged around in her head with such a clatter that she couldn’t ignore them.
She had no idea what to say to that, and she wasn’t going to risk speaking and saying something completely wrong. So Emma dipped down and retrieved her bucket, then clomped up the steps, brushing past him without making eye contact. She was afraid to look at him, afraid he’d laugh or disappear if she did. She walked to the door and opened it, then held it open. Only then did she dare to look back at him.
Cooper was quick to grab the door and follow her inside.
Emma dumped the bucket and her boots and stalked into the living room. She was on edge—no one ever said they cared about her, and she was alarmed by how ill-equipped she was to even believe it, much less accept it.
She yanked the mittens from her hands and the knit cap from her head and tossed them down, then unzipped her down coat. She shrugged out of that and threw it onto the couch, too, and turned around to face Cooper. “Okay. You’ve got five minutes. Start before I change my mind.” She punched her hands to her waist and lifted her chin, as if she was preparing for a fight.
Cooper sighed a little. “Does it really make you so uncomfortable for someone to say they care?”
How did he know that? “I just find this all a little suspicious.” Emma unthinkingly folded her arms again—until she realized what she was doing and dropped them. “I mean, what, you just woke up this morning after being furious and thought, ‘Yeah, I care about her’? No way.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.” Cooper shook his head. “Look, I’ll be honest—I was intrigued by you at the bat mitzvah,” he said, looking at her pointedly. “You weren’t wrong about my interest in you that night.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “So you really did follow me here like Carl’s lap dog!”
“Wrong,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t follow you, I looked for you. I didn’t come because of the bat mitzvah. I came because Carl paid me a lot of money to find and retrieve that medal.”
“And now you have it. So I’m guessing you’re no longer intrigued. Which makes you what? Disgusted? Repulsed? Did you come back out here to get a really good look at this train wreck”—she gestured to herself—“so you can go back and tell your friends?”
He recoiled a little as he took her in. “Are you always so hard on yourself?”
“Yes! Does that bother you?”
“What bothers me,” he said, “is that I can’t wrap my head around why you would take things from men.” He threw up a hand before she could cut him off. “I know it’s not my business, I know I’m prying. But I want to know. I want to understand why. Because I’m still intrigued with you. Even more so now that I know you’re not just another pretty face.”
“Oh my God! I don’t believe you!”
“Here’s the thing—if no one asks, if no one challenges you, then you end up going down a path so far that I don’t know if you can come back. I would hate to see that happen, Emma. So I am asking you as a friend.”
He looked sincere, but Emma was shaking, mortified to her core. “Don’t waste your time,” she said low. “There is nothing to figure out.”
“That’s not true,” he said quietly.
She felt her entire body sag with the weight of her dysfunction. How could she ever explain it? “Don’t, Cooper,” she pleaded. “Don’t try and get involved. I am begging you. Because I will probably let you, and you’ll end up disappointed. Whatever is going on with me is really messed up.”
His gaze did not waver from her. “I happen to be pretty good at messed up.”
“No, you aren’t,” she said weakly. “Even your brother can’t prepare you for someone like me. You should go back to LA and forget about this.”
Cooper shifted closer. “I did want to go back to LA yesterday. I wanted to get as far from you as I could possibly get.”
Yes, she had seen that in his face yesterday, and it was painful to remember. She winced and glanced down.
“I thought that I had known women like you all my life, women who will take from and use men without batting an eye.”
Who knew truth could sting so bad when it mattered most? No wonder everyone hated Emma’s truthfulness. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she admitted weakly. “I take and I use.”
Cooper shook his head and stepped closer. He was just before her now, his presence strong and confident, while she felt like a jumbled mess of nerves. “But then I cooled down and I thought about it, and I don’t believe it. I don’t know why you do . . . that,” he said, gesturing to space, apparently unable to find a word for what she did, “but I don’t believe that you are really the kind of woman you present to the world.”
“Yes, I am. I am exactly what you thought I was yesterday,” she said, and poked him hard in the chest. “Don’t try and romanticize me.”
“It’s hardly romantic,” he said quietly, and impulsively reached out and pulled a tress of her hair from her collar.
She shoved his arm away from her, frantic that he not touch her. “You can’t help, Cooper! What kind of trip are you on? You want to figure me out?” She suddenly shoved both hands against his chest. “I do it—I use men!” She shoved him again. “But don’t get your hopes up, because I don’t always sleep with them. Believe it or not, it’s not a sex thing, it’s anything but a sex thing. You want to know the whole ugly truth? It’s all about my father! It’s all about getting older men to pick me, to choose me,” she said angrily, shoving him again. “It’s about control! Anyone with a brain and a current copy of Psychology Today can see that! So are you satisfied?” she asked, shoving him again, harder still, the fury sparking in her, building, morphing into a monster inside of her. It was fury with herself for ever having allowed this to happen. Fury for ever having believed Grant or Laura, for ever letting their affair screw her up so completely. Emma hated herself for it, despised, loathed, hated herself. “Okay, so you’ve made me say it, you’ve made me humiliate myself even more.” She balled up her fist, hitting him as hard as she could in the chest.
He didn’t move.
She hit him again.
Cooper didn’t even blink.
Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he speak? She shoved him again with all her might and glared at him, looking for the reaction of disgust.
There was none. �
�It’s okay,” he said calmly. “I’m strong enough to take it. I’m strong enough for you, Emma Tyler.”
No, no, no one was strong enough for her! No one could endure her, and Emma despised Cooper for thinking he could. She cried out and launched herself at him with both fists, pounding them into his chest. Cooper caught her hands, easily held them. “Is that it?” he asked. “Or is there more?”
“Shut up,” she said, her voice shaking. “Shut up.” She launched again, but this time . . . this time, her lips met his.
Emma did not know how she went from fury to kissing him. It happened so quickly, in the space of a second. She had definitely intended to inflict pain and suffering—but then her arms were around his neck.
Cooper grabbed her up, his arms sliding around her waist to hold her tightly to him. He kissed her with as much fire as she kissed him, their tongues tangling, their hands sliding up and down each other’s bodies. They kissed like long-lost lovers, two people who had been searching for each other all their lives, and Emma would not have been surprised if the house had opened up and rain had poured down on them, just like the movies.
He lifted his head, impulsively kissing the palm of her hand that had somehow found his face. “Where is everyone?” he asked roughly as he nuzzled her neck.
“Town,” she murmured, and pushed her knee in between his legs, against his erection. Cooper grabbed her up again, lifting her off her feet and kissing her, then walked with her and fell onto the couch. He pressed his lips against her cheek, her eyes, and her mouth again. “I’ve been fighting it,” he said breathlessly, his eyes roaming her face. “I’ve been fighting wanting you.”
“Me too,” she admitted, and pulled his head to hers. She dipped her tongue between his lips, into his mouth, and sparked a prurient wave crashing through her, shoving her out onto a churning sea of pure, unadulterated desire. It was fantastically electric.
Cooper rolled onto his back, pulling Emma on top of him, his hands on either side of her head, his mouth on hers, and on her face, her ears and neck. He devoured her lips and her tongue while his hands explored her body, her breasts, the curve of her hip. His hands moved on her body, but there was something different about this. It took Emma a moment to realize what it was. Cooper kept looking into her eyes. He kept looking at her. He wasn’t groaning over her body, he wasn’t rutting on her. He was actually looking at her.
That realization charged Emma even more, and she was now ravenous for him. Their surroundings—the ranch house, the smell of old smoke, the moan of wind in the rafters—began to fade away. Emma was only aware of Cooper, the scent of his skin, the way he held her, touched her, his movement effortless, the tender look in his eyes. She felt nothing but his taut skin, the hardness of his erection, and the damp heat between her legs.
Their clothing came off, piece after piece tossed away until they were naked. Emma gasped in Cooper’s ear as he squeezed her nipple between his fingers, and pressed harder against him, stretching her body the length of his, and it still wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She had never wanted a man like she wanted him.
Cooper twisted again, putting her on her back on that couch and coming over her, taking her breast in his mouth. Emma was moving without conscious thought, her hands on him, her eyes meeting his, expecting to see the lust dim them. But his gaze remained completely focused on her.
Her body raged for him to be inside her, a new, electric feeling, because Emma never wanted sex. But with Cooper, everything had tilted. She was surely imagining things, because she felt as if he was looking past her body, as if he were looking directly into her. He could see her.
She wrapped her hand around his cock and began to move. Cooper braced himself and looked down at her. His breathing was uneven, his hair a mess. He surveyed her body, unabashedly looking at every inch of her, one hand trailing behind his gaze. “You’re beautiful, Emma,” he said with genuine appreciation. “I know that’s not news to you,” he said, his fingers splaying across her breast. “But you should hear it all the same. You are beautiful inside and out.”
That remark made her heart flutter. Emma smiled with pleasure. “You’re beautiful, too,” she said, and swept her hands up his chest, across his pecs. “You’re kryptonite.”
“What?” he said, his gaze on her body again, taking in every curve, every exposed patch of her skin.
“Kryptonite,” she whispered. Her arms went around his neck, and she pressed her breasts against his chest. She opened her legs to him, one of them hooking around his back. She pressed against him warm and wet, and felt herself unravel completely, caught up in her torrential desire. He slid the tip of his erection into her, and she could feel his heart beating in his chest, the steady rhythm of it on her breast. He skimmed lower, over her breasts, his hand floating down her side and across her belly, then down again, between their bodies, stroking her as he slowly pushed deeper inside her.
Emma sighed with longing and arched her neck, shifting beneath him, opening wider to his body and his hand. Cooper began to move in her, sliding in and out. Emma was falling away, the cracks in her foundation splitting open, letting Cooper seep into her and burn her with an intensity she’d never felt, as if his heat was branding her. She moved against him, her body rising to meet his, urging him to move harder and faster. Her hands gripped at him, clutching him, holding on to him with the strength of a drowning woman.
He was so hard, so hot, moving in her with unstoppable force. And Emma kept pressing back, kept digging her fingers into his hips, drawing him deeper inside her, wanting all of this, everything he had. She was panting, nearing her climax. Just before she came, Cooper took her chin in his hand and said, “Let me see you.”
That was it, the thing that tipped her over the edge. Emma cried out, arched her back, and a moment later, waves of pleasure crashed over Cooper, spilling hot and thick inside her.
He collapsed beside her, completely spent, his breathing as ravaged as hers. A few moments passed before she awkwardly, but meaningfully, twined her fingers in his hair, then drew a long line down his spine.
“You better not,” he said.
“Better not what?” she murmured, and kissed his shoulder.
Cooper lifted himself up, his eyes the color of a storm. She could fall into those eyes and stay there, bobbing around without a care in the world.
“You better not take anything from me. Because this,” he said, stroking her cheek, “is not that.”
Emma smiled. She opened her mouth to speak . . .
But the sound of a car on the drive startled them both into action.
EIGHTEEN
They scrambled around the living room, both gathering up boots and jackets and clothes as they dashed upstairs. Emma could hear the slam of car doors, could hear Libby and Madeline’s voices on the drive as she and Cooper slipped into her room.
She heard the front door open as she pushed Cooper inside her room, then quietly, slowly, shut her door so that the hinges wouldn’t squeak. She turned around and put her back to it, then covered her mouth with both hands as laughter erupted. She slid down to her bottom, doubled over with the laughter she wouldn’t allow to escape.
Cooper joined her there, his back against the wall, a grin on his face. His chest was still damp with the sweat of their lovemaking, and his hair looked as if a rake had been dragged through it.
“Emma!” one of the women shouted. “Are you here?”
Emma buried her face in Cooper’s shoulder to stifle her laugh.
There was the sound of plodding footsteps on the stairs, the movement of feet down the hall toward her room.
“Is she up there?” Libby shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
Emma and Cooper stilled as Madeline stopped just outside the door.
“I don’t think so!” Madeline called back, so close that it made Cooper jump. Emma put her hand over his mouth, her finger to her l
ips, warning him to be quiet.
A moment later, Madeline walked away. “She’s not here,” she called down to Libby. “Maybe they went down to the bunkhouse.” Her steps faded away as she jogged downstairs again.
Cooper slowly pulled Emma’s hand away from his mouth. “You’re a grown woman,” he whispered. “Why are you hiding?”
“Trust me,” she said with a smile. “They won’t talk about anything else if they know. Plus, you’re naked.” She reached for his shirt and tossed it to him. Cooper stood, giving her a view of his mouthwatering physique. Had the sex they’d just had been as spectacular as it had felt? Thinking about it made Emma feel a little wonky now, unsteady on her feet. It occurred to her that the things she’d felt only moments ago were things to be feared—how far would the fall be from that pinnacle?
She gained her feet and padded across the room to a bureau. She opened one drawer, found some panties and a T-shirt, and donned them. She reached down and picked up his jeans, holding them out to Cooper. He finished buttoning his shirt and ignored the jeans—he wrapped his arms around her and held her head against his chest. “Come back to LA with me,” he said.
What? Was he crazy? Did he think anything could really come from a romp on a couch at Homecoming Ranch? “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She put her hand on his waist and pushed away from him. “Because. I don’t have a job. And I’m needed here. Madeline is getting married. Leo needs me.”
“Emma . . .” Cooper cupped her face. “Madeline will get married and get on with her life. And Leo . . .”
Emma’s gaze narrowed.
Cooper didn’t state the obvious. “I want to see you.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, closing her eyes for a moment. “I can’t, Cooper. You know I can’t. My life is too complicated right now.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and kissed the corner of her mouth.
Emma’s eyes fluttered shut.
“There is no one like you. And, I think I can help you.”
The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River) Page 22