by Leah Vale
She was failing to keep herself under control around Cooper on many, many levels. Far more than with Rob. She’d thought of Rob as a comrade in arms who just happened to make her feel good about herself as a woman. Cooper not only made herself aware of being a woman, but touched her deep inside, in that dark place where she longed for an irrevocable connection. A very dangerous thing, considering their polar-opposite goals.
A voice behind them said, "Have a good flight back tomorrow, you two."
The existence of the rest of the world came crashing back. Sara jerked away from Cooper and saw Barry, his engineer and the job’s superintendent walking by. They’d gone into the bar after dinner to hash out what needed to be done to fix the roof and undoubtedly decide at whose feet the blame would be laid. Hopefully, they hadn’t raised too many more drinks to the avoidance of a potential disaster.
Sara’s cheeks flamed hot at the far-too-intrigued expressions on their faces.
How could she have forgotten where they were? She sent up a prayer that they hadn’t seen how intimately Cooper had been holding her face. The man was as big as a brick wall, after all. Too bad history had clearly established she had rotten luck.
In retrospect, she’d realized Rob had gone out of his way to make sure as many people as possible connected to McCoy Enterprises had seen evidence of their relationship. The pitying looks afterward had been difficult to withstand.
Barry pointed to Cooper, who was taking his time lowering his hand, apparently not at all appalled to have possibly been caught holding the VP of Operations’ face. "I’ll fax you the specs on the repair. And it will not be a change order," he joked.
Cooper grumbled. "Damn straight it won’t."
In an attempt to pretend nothing had been happening between her and Cooper, Sara nodded vigorously. No way were they going to pay to correct something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Cooper saying as much in a no-nonsense way filled her with respect for him once again.
Barry and the other men laughed in agreement and waved as they walked away.
Sara waited for Cooper’s attention to return to her before she said, "You handled that very well."
He shrugged. "We still heading back to the hotel?"
She nodded and started walking, but didn’t abandon the subject they’d been discussing, as he undoubtedly hoped she would. "Having been on the subcontractor’s side of construction gives you a unique understanding that’s clearly going to prove invaluable to us. Not to mention the practical experience it gave you."
He didn’t respond, his attention on the amazing restorations that had been done on the hundred-year-old former rail terminal.
Perhaps there had been a grain of truth in the story Cooper had fed Joseph about his inexperience with large corporations worrying him. She added, "You’ve soundly proved that your swinging a hammer previously isn’t going to hamper you in your new role."
He stopped and eyed her, his mouth quirked. "What makes you think I was swinging a hammer before I was picked up and dumped in the land of McCoy?"
Her face heated again at the realization that she’d based her assumption about him purely on his physical appearance when she’d first met him. Unable to come up with an alternative explanation, she confessed, "Because of your. ..your tan and...and because you’re so BIG," she stuttered, gesturing at his broad shoulders, then made the mistake of including his lower half, thinking of his strong legs.
He raised his brows.
"You know, in a hammer-swinging kind of way..." She petered off, her face flaming.
He laughed, short and sharp. "Sweetheart--"
She raised a hand. "Please. We’re in a public place."
"What? You want to kill me? Cause it’ll kill me to let that one slide. Me and my big hammer, and all--"
"Cooper!"
His chuckle was deep and captivating. "All right. All right." He waited to speak again until they entered what used to be the station’s Grand Hall, now an amazing hotel lobby with a vaulted ceiling six stories high and a gold-leaf fresco glinting despite the waning sun. "So, you figured I’m the brawn and my partner, Ted, is the brains in our construction company, right?"
She mimicked his shrug, not willing to dig herself in deeper.
"Then you probably won’t believe me when I tell you I’m mostly the idea guy. Granted, Ted and I both were swinging a hammer when we first started out, and I still like to help occasionally." He grinned slyly and flexed a biceps that threatened the seams of his dress shirt.
Sara rolled her eyes. There was no way she’d let on how impressed she was. The man had enough on her as it was.
"But I’d taken drafting and business courses at a small college, so I had the knowledge we needed. Interesting how all those sports camps I’d been shipped off to came in handy for scoring a football scholarship."
"You have a degree?" She was appalled by the surprise in her voice, but there had been nothing about any higher education in their file on him.
Cooper shook his head. "No. Blew my knee out and had to quit. But by then I’d met Ted. He had the cash and the balls to risk it on someone like me."
Sara stared at him as he pressed the call button on the elevators. "I thought I knew everything I had to know about you. I couldn’t have been more wrong,"
she admitted quietly.
He made a rude sound that mingled with the ding of the elevator doors opening. As they stepped inside, she caught him sending her a speculative glance. Had no one ever cared enough to find out all there was to know about him? Was that one of the reasons he was so bent on revenge?
No. It had to be more. Cooper was not the self-pitying type. He was a man of mystery, and the ragingly foolish desire to unravel him seized her.
She pressed the button for her floor and he did the same. She’d been ridiculously relieved when the desk clerk had informed them their rooms were on different floors as they’d checked in before going to dinner. If she’d thought Cooper a temptation best avoided before...
She inhaled deeply. She had to stop seeing these new sides of Cooper as further temptation and instead use them to get him to look beyond his need for retribution, to get him to a place where he could envision a future with the McCoys, not just dwell on the past.
Thanks to what had happened today at the store, she had the perfect argument on her side.
THE SECOND THE ELEVATOR doors opened, Cooper stepped out. He needed fresh air. Air that wasn’t sweetened with Sara’s floral scent and thickened by her looks of understanding and compassion. He didn’t want them. Didn’t deserve them. The path he’d set himself on had seen to that, and his bitterness had festered too long.
Sara followed him out, but held the elevator door open. "This is my floor. You’re two more up."
He squared his shoulders as if he hadn’t just been running away from her like a weak-kneed coward and announced, "I’m walking you to your room."
Her eyes went wider "Why?"
He shoved a hand into his slacks pocket and settled his weight on one leg. "To make sure you get there safely."
A smile spread across her face that reminded him he was indeed weak-kneed where she was concerned and it had nothing to do with his old football injury. He’d spent a lot of time with a lot of women and had never had this kind of trouble before.
She let go of the elevator door and moved toward him, a satisfied look in her bright green eyes. "You, Cooper Anders, are an honorable man."
He opened his mouth to call bull-pucky, but she stopped him with a pointed finger.
"Oh, no, you don’t. I refuse to listen to a word of argument." She sailed past him and headed down the hall toward her room.
Not exactly sure why it bugged him so much for her to think he was a better man than he was, he said to her sashaying behind, "I have news for you, babe. Using the escorting-her-for-her-safety bit is the oldest trick in the Man Book for getting invited inside. Nothing like the noble routine to help a guy get lucky."
She waved
his explanation off and stopped in front of the door to her room. Digging into her sleek and professional-looking black purse, she tsked. "Sorry, Cooper. I’m not buying it." Then she actually giggled and shook her head. "Man Book."
She pulled the key card out and pointed it at him. "You are an honorable man. That's why you couldn’t ignore the store’s structural problem. If the roof had failed with people in the building, it would have been a horrible disaster to the McCoy Corporation on all levels. But because people would have been hurt, you couldn’t allow it. You put the welfare of strangers above your own need for revenge."
She closed the distance between them, going toe-to-toe with him. She had to crane her neck back to look him in the eye, having worn much more sensible shoes to walk the job than she had that first week in the office. "That is an honorable thing. Just like becoming involved in a fight that wasn’t yours to keep the little guy from getting creamed, right? Isn’t that how you put it?"
His jaw was clenched too tight for him to answer. He feared where she was going with this. But most of all he feared how her praise filled a need deep inside him, one he hadn’t even noticed he had until she’d touched it.
Her springtime eyes, brightened by the sage color of her suit, traveled over his face in a way that made him ache clear to his bones before locking into his. "You won’t be able to go through with your plan to ruin the McCoys. Cooper. Your honor won’t allow it. Can’t you see that? Why not accept that fact now and start enjoying this new chapter in your life? You deserve to."
He closed his eyes, fighting remorse for eventually hurting her, as he’d known he would. for what might have been. But the fire for revenge had burned too long in his belly to be soothed by her delusions about him.
The gentle touch of her hand on his chest brought his eyes open as if she’d taken a sledgehammer to his ribs. He had to force the words out. "You think I’m a man of honor." He barked out a laugh that dripped with self-deprecation even to his ears.
"Yes. I do."
There was one sure way to prove her wrong here and now. The fact that it had even occurred to him was proof enough as far as he was concerned.
He started crowding her backward toward the closed door behind her. "How’s this for honor?"
Her eyes flared when her back connected with the door, but he kept coming, kept moving until her luscious body was pinned between him and her hotel-room door. He was so dishonorable that when she gasped in surprise, he used the opportunity to plant his mouth on hers, invading her to the best of his ability
with his tongue.
The lesson was supposed to be a brutal one, an irrefutable demonstration of the type of man he was, but the shock of pleasure that ripped through him was as strong as a finish nail driven into a household current.
And she wasn’t fighting him. Just the opposite. Her mouth was pliable and yielding, and Lord help him if she didn’t taste like cinnamon after all, despite their being most of a state away from the candy dish on her desk. It had to be his imagination.
What definitely wasn’t his imagination was that although he had her pinned, she had somehow managed to rise up against him, her softness rubbing into him until he was rock hard. He felt himself spiraling out of control, wanting nothing more than to lose himself in her.
She moaned, not in disgust or despair, but in distinct, control-wrecking desire. If he continued, if he slipped his hands from her slender waist to her breasts, she’d undoubtedly let him. If he took the key card from her hand and opened the door, she’d probably allow him to come in and make wild, passionate love to her until neither of them gave a damn about anyone named McCoy.
Cooper jerked away. Without so much as a word, he turned and walked back down the hall toward the elevators.
Not because it was the honorable thing to do.
Because it was the sane thing to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sara grabbed at the door handle to keep from sliding to the floor right there in the hall. Like a puppet with her strings cut, all she could do was watch Cooper storm away from her. The lingering effects of his mouth plundering hers had made her knees untrustworthy and her lungs starved for air.
Plundering. Never in her life had she expected to experience plundering, especially from a man at such odds with her as Cooper. But there was no denying that was exactly what he’d done to her. No one in her world did that sort of thing.
Still using the door for support, she turned to slide the key card into the slot, but found her hand empty. She looked to the floor and spotted the card on the carpet at her feet. In the midst of being swamped by a powerful, hot need unleashed by Cooper’s tongue stroking hers, she vaguely remembered clutching at the front of his shirt. She must have dropped the card when he pulled away from her.
A small smile touched her tingling lips.
He’d pulled away.
She bent and retrieved the key card, then unlocked her door. Pushing the door open. she nearly staggered into the beautifully appointed room. The king-size bed with its high headboard, the tall armoire, the over-stuffed cream-chintz upholstered chair and delicate desk clearly communicated elegance.
Just as Cooper’s actions gave a clear image of the man he was. No matter how hard he tried to prove otherwise, he’d pulled away because he was an honorable man.
She kicked off her shoes and took a moment to savor the feel of the plush blue carpet beneath her feet. Every inch of her was oversensitized, prickling with awareness. She shoved her dark brown leather overnight bag out of the middle of the bed, where she’d dropped it earlier in her rush before dinner, and flopped onto her back. The sky-blue-and-cream striped satin comforter was slick beneath her, instantly bringing to mind cool sheets and hot bodies.
She groaned and flung an arm over her eyes. She had to focus on what that kiss revealed about Cooper, not the kiss itself. Or what it made her want from
Cooper.
She was getting to him. She knew it. Calling him on being too honorable to go through with whatever plan for revenge he might have concocted had rattled his cage. It’d been there in his eyes. So he’d kissed her.
She rolled over onto her stomach and rested her cheek on her hands. But was that the only reason? She squelched the tickle of excitement--good heavens, hope, too?--stirred by the notion he’d kissed her because he really wanted her. He was simply trying to keep her off balance. And unfortunately, he was doing a banner job of it.
She couldn’t let him know. He wanted her to either be too flustered to see what he had cooking or to simply back off. She stared for a while at the very real-looking fake tree in the corner, trying to calm the hum of arousal he’d left her with. His plan wasn’t going to work.
If she could stand living like this, her current tactic of pointing out the good in him might just work. He expected their relationship to be adversarial--or good reason, with her having called him a snake and all--but she couldn’t let him scare her off now. If she kept at him, she might convince him that ruining the McCoys wouldn’t change what happened to his mother, that becoming a part of his father’s family might just be what his mother would have wanted for him.
THE FIRST DAY JULY dawned clear and bright, the morning sunlight reflecting off the high sheen on Cooper’s desk where it wasn’t covered by piles of folders. Because it was opening day for the new store, he’d finally come back to work after being gone for over a week.
Making himself scarce by claiming to be needed by Ted to deal with a vague. but no less critical, problem with their construction company had been the only way Cooper could avoid Sara. He hadn’t been able to avoid thinking about her, though. while pounding nails up on a roof in the blistering heat or sleeping in a job trailer.
He told himself he didn’t want to spend his days trapped in her version of the sort of daytime talk show he’d watched with his mother during her final days. Somewhere over the course of the night they’d spent in St. Louis Sara had morphed into an annoying compilation of Oprah’s compassion, Regis�
�s enthusiasm and Dr. Phil’s plain-talking tenacity.
Deep down he knew he’d been steering clear of her because the force of their kiss had knocked him completely off axis. Which made no sense. He’d kissed a hell of a lot of pretty girls in his time, and the distance was necessary to remind himself that Sara was no different. More uniquely flavored, maybe...
His side office door burst open and drew his attention. Not surprisingly, Sara was the force behind it, professionally dressed. as always, in a pale pink suit with short sleeves. An uncharacteristic frown bunched her brows and tightened her mouth.
He’d made his phone calls giving his orders early that morning before he’d come in, and had expected the subsequent outrage to reach Sara fairly quickly.