Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1)

by Andrews, Amy

  “But you’re going to come back for the wedding this arvo, right?” Mrs Duncan insisted. She’d been insisting for hours now and Lacey was finally too tired to turn her down. Besides, who didn’t love a wedding?

  “Yes, you must, dear,” Mrs Hoff, who was already on the guest list, pressed.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Lacey said, summoning a smile.

  “And bring that sexy man of yours,” Caroline said. “I hear he’s a hottie.”

  “Oh yes,” her mother agreed. “Even I’ve heard he’s quite the spunk.”

  Lacey wondered if delirium had set in or if she’d just heard prim-and-proper Esther Duncan call Coop a spunk. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “He’s not that social, though, so no promises.”

  Lacey almost laughed at her understatement. Coop would probably rather stick himself in the eye with a hot poker than attend a Jumbuck Springs wedding, but if she was going then her boyfriend was going too. They still had a façade to maintain after all.

  He wasn’t at the hotel when Mrs Hoff dropped her off. He’d be at the garage—of course. The damn man might as well take his mattress down there and be done with it.

  She shot off a quick text before crawling into bed.

  Dress fixed. Wedding at 3. We’re going. Be home by 2.

  Lacey supposed she should have given him some kind of choice but she was too tired to cajole and, as she fell headfirst into sleep, she hoped that he’d take it as a fait accompli.

  * * *

  At nine o’clock that night, Coop was well and truly over the wedding. When he’d arrived home at two to tell her he didn’t think he should go, she’d looked at him from the bed with big sleepy eyes and said, “But they’re expecting me to show off my boyfriend.”

  So here he was, the son of a sheep farmer seated on one side of him, talking about an old farm ute he was wanting to do up, and Lacey in a red swirly dress on the other, taking full advantage of their fake relationship to touch him every opportunity she got. She’d even stolen two not very chaste kisses.

  He was so freaking turned on he doubted his discussion about reconditioned motor parts was remotely coherent.

  “Oh, I love this song,” Lacey announced suddenly. “Dance?”

  And then she was dragging him up to the raised wooden dance floor again. It sat to the right of the bridal table and was lit by pretty paper lanterns that gave the voluminous white marquee an added bridal feel.

  Lacey pulled him into the middle of the dancers, pressing her body against his, snuggling her head into his shoulder and swaying to the low, sexy tune. With her skyscraper heels their hips were reasonably aligned and his dick felt every single sway. He wanted to grab her ass and hold her tight against him to stop the sheer erotic torture.

  But then she’d know how aroused he was. If she hadn’t already figured that out from their previous half dozen dances.

  “Relax,” she teased suddenly, looking up at him. “You’re so tense. Is it really such a hardship to dance with me?”

  Her eyes sparkled out from the fringe of long sooty lashes and her hair swung all long and loose over her shoulders, exactly the way it had been the night they’d first met.

  A hardship? Hardly. “I’m sure I’ll survive it.” It wouldn’t pay to give her any indication of just how easy it was to hold her.

  “But you’re not enjoying the wedding, right?”

  “I’m enjoying how you’re enjoying it,” he said.

  And that was the truth. Lacey had been in her element, fielding a barrage of compliments on the wedding dress—which was stunning considering the photos Ethan had shown him yesterday. She’d smiled for pictures taken with the bride by the magazine photographer and laughed with old school and family friends.

  In fact she’d chatted with just about everyone at the wedding, obviously happy and comfortable and loving their company. And it was clear that they loved her too, these people. That they were her people.

  And she was theirs.

  She’d been dazzling. Gone was the sad girl that he’d seen lurking one too many times. He’d loved watching her like this.

  Hell, he could look at her like this all damn day.

  An enthusiastic couple jostled past them, elbowing Coop even closer to Lacey. His cock rejoiced and Coop was relieved when the song started to fade out.

  “Another?” she asked as the dancing hit a lull before the next song.

  “Lacey …” Coop hoped there was more foreboding than plea in his voice because if he had to do one more duty dance with her he was going to pass out from lack of cerebral blood flow. It wouldn’t be so bad if she’d chosen rock songs and kept her distance, but she’d favoured slow, sexy ballads and had shamelessly invaded his space, taking advantage of their fake coupledom.

  She sighed dramatically as the music started again but took pity on him with a smile. “Okay, fine. We’ll go. But on one condition.”

  Oh no. Coop did not want to be backed into a wall. Nor did he want to rain on her parade. She was having a good time, there was no need for her to leave. “You can stay.”

  She shook her head, her hair swishing, suddenly serious. “I leave with the one who brought me.”

  He rolled his eyes at her old-fashioned response. Lacey was a strange mix of small-town values and big-city vice. “What’s the condition?”

  “We stop at the garage so I can see my car.”

  Coop almost kissed her. The scenarios in his head had been way dirtier than that. “Deal,” he said, taking her elbow and walking her off the dance floor.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later they were pulling up outside the auto shop. Coop was relieved to have some distance between them and not be under such close scrutiny from half the district. He was also pleased to be in his environment. Being around Lacey, particularly in that dress, left him daunted and uncertain. Being in a garage—on his turf—gave him the semblance of control he needed to deal with her.

  And her dress.

  “You forgot your hat,” she said, passing it to him as he opened her door for her.

  Lacey had made him pull up at the Stock and Feed shop on the way to the wedding, insisting he buy an Akubra. Coop had been worried about his lack of formal clothing for the wedding but Lacey had assured him that most of the men would be dressed in their fanciest Wranglers, best boots and their best hats reserved for special occasions only.

  She hadn’t taken no for an answer and he’d walked out with a hat.

  He’d felt silly wearing it to start with—Coop was more a baseball cap kinda guy. But with ninety per cent of the male wedding guests decked out in fancy Akubras, he’d soon forgotten he was even wearing it.

  “I haven’t been wearing it since we sat down to eat.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s night time.”

  “I know.” She smiled as she slipped out of the car, the skirt of her dress fluttering around her knees. “But it suits you.”

  Coop put it on her and adjusted it to a jaunty angle. She tipped her head back and looked at him from under the brim.

  Damn it. Big mistake.

  A woman really had no business looking that good in a man’s hat.

  She looked like a cowgirl. In a red floaty dress and six-inch heels. About a dozen images of being ridden by her in that hat and those heels, her long gypsy locks rippling down her back, crowded his mind.

  So not helpful.

  “It suits you better,” he said, forcing a calmness into his voice and his actions he didn’t feel as he shut her door.

  She nodded absently as she rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “Bloody hell,” she said. “It’s going to be a cold one tonight.”

  If Coop had been in possession of a jacket he’d have given it to her, but he wasn’t. And he was damned if he was going to put his arm around her shoulders and loan her some of his body heat. Not in that dress. “I believe I mentioned something about bringing a coat.”

  She grinned at him, clearly not perturbed by
the unsuitability of her outfit. “Fashion is pain,” she quipped.

  Coop rolled his eyes. So she’d prefer to freeze her nipples off and look good? Although that line of thought wasn’t good given she was high-beaming the hell out of him. “Come on, then. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

  Before he did something really crazy like offering to warm her cold nipples with his hot tongue.

  “Now remember, it’s a work in progress,” he said, hyperaware of her behind him, of the tap of her heels on the concrete path as they headed around the back. “There’s still all the interior work to do but the paintwork is done and the engine is in. The wheels are on, but the mags I’ve ordered won’t be in ’til next week.”

  Coop concentrated on pushing the key into the lock of the back door instead of thinking about Lacey, and her nipples, waiting behind him for entry into the relative warmth of the garage. The door gave and he reached in to flick on the light switch before stepping aside to allow her to precede him.

  “Oh,” she said on a half groan as she entered. “That’s better.”

  Coop followed her in. It wasn’t exactly warm but it was an improvement from outside. He shut the door against the creep of cold air already pushing in as she walked ahead, disappearing momentarily, blocked from his view by a car up on the hoist. “Just be careful,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to get grease all over your dress.”

  She might have to take it off. Not good for the state of her nipples. He might have to help her with them after all.

  “Oh Cooper!”

  She came back into view, her hands over her mouth as she stood a foot away from her car and took in the work that had been done. She dropped her hands as she turned slightly to look at him. “It’s …” She shook her head and looked back at the car. “It’s a—mazing.”

  Cooper always got a kick out this moment. But with Lacey it was extra special. He loved his job, but her car had been different. He hadn’t realised just how much a labour of love it was until her obvious pleasure washed over him like a physical force, stroking all the right paces.

  His pride and honour. His ego and libido. His heart. His soul.

  “You like it?”

  “Oh like is far too mild a word,” she said, running her hand over the highly polished duco of the hood. She looked up at him. “I freaking love it.”

  Their eyes locked and Coop’s breath hitched, cutting off somewhere around throat level as he fell a little more in love with her, standing there in her red dress and cowboy hat, her eyes shining with excitement and gratitude.

  “You’re the best,” she said, launching herself at him for a quick yet cataclysmic hug before pulling away again and heading back to her car. She trailed her fingers over the paintwork of the roof as she slowly circumnavigated it. “The paint looks awesome,” she enthused.

  Coop had to admit it did look great. The light shining down on it refracted a fiery red-orange luminosity. Out in the sunshine the effect would be even more dazzling.

  She reached the front again and tapped the hood. “You said the engine was in, yeah?”

  Coop nodded, taking two strides until he was standing beside her. Ignoring the brush of her arm, he reached under the lip of the hood with his fingers, feeling for the lever and released the latch. She stepped back slightly as he pulled up the hood to reveal the gleaming engine he’d painstakingly pulled apart, cleaned, reconditioned then put back together again.

  “I have no idea what’s what in there,” she said bending over it, inspecting the engine like she was seeing it for the first time, “but it looks beautiful too.”

  Coop chuckled. “Beautiful on the inside and out.” Just like her.

  She grinned then straightened, obviously done looking at the mechanics. Coop felt that smile right down to his toes and a lot of places in between as he shut the hood, pushing down hard on the lip so it clicked shut properly, before stepping out of her gravitational pull.

  “I don’t know what to say, Coop,” Lacey said as she turned and rested her butt on the hood of the car.

  “Leave it for the end result,” he said, waving away her search for compliments. “Once the inside is done and the doors and mags are on whatever you say now will be completely inadequate.”

  She quirked an eyebrow, a smile playing on her mouth. “Oh really?”

  He nodded. “Absolutely. They may have to invent new words just for it.”

  She laughed and Coop wanted nothing more than to lay her back on the hood and test out the durability of the paintwork and the damn Akubra. He shoved his hands in his pockets to stop himself reaching for her.

  “I like a man who’s confident. It’s sexy.” She used her hands to boost herself onto the hood properly, her feet dangling for a second before she placed her heels wide apart on the bumper he’d polished until it shone just this morning. Her skirt slipped down her thighs a little, the hem of the floaty fabric drooping into the space between her legs, protecting her modesty.

  But only just.

  He followed the path of her flattened palms as she caressed the gleaming duco either side of her. Coop understood the need to touch. The smooth-as-glass paintwork was irresistibly tactile. His own palms itched to touch too.

  But not the paint.

  He wanted to step right between those bare knees and glide his palms down those smooth thighs and hitch her close. Coop swallowed at the image and forced himself to look at her face. Not at her provocatively spaced legs or the way the slippery fabric was very slowly inching down those thighs.

  She looked up from the hood, their gazes meshing as she leaned forward at her hips, propped an elbow on her knee and tipped back the brim of her Akubra.

  Now that was sexy.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said as she looked at him with a gaze so direct it hit him straight below the belt. With predictable results. “About ways to thank you.”

  “No need.” He swallowed against a throat as dry as dirt. “Free advertising … the website, remember?”

  She looked at him for long moments before easing herself back onto her bent elbows. Her hem slid down her thighs a little more as she regarded him from under the brim. “I was thinking about something a little different.”

  So was Coop. Bad different. “Instead of what we talked about? You welching on the deal?”

  He had to keep this businesslike or he was doomed. Lacey had already pushed him to the edge of his sanity at the wedding today. Touching him, kissing him, holding his hand, looking at him with flirty eyes, making him laugh. Charming him with her perfect rendition of besotted girlfriend, killing him with every rub of her body as they’d danced.

  The strands of his resistance were threadbare.

  She shook her head real slow, her gaze searing into his. “As well as.”

  Coop kept his hands jammed in his pockets. “Lacey.”

  She dropped her head on an angle. “You think I don’t know that you’re hard for me right now?”

  Her gaze zeroed in on the zipper of his jeans. His erection stiffened further, clearly appreciating the recognition.

  It was such a freaking narcissist.

  “You think,” she continued, returning her gaze to his face, “I don’t know you were hard for me on the dance floor? You think I wouldn’t have a hard-on for you right now if it was anatomically possible?”

  All the oxygen in the garage seemed to evaporate as Coop dragged in a heavy breath. “I think if you had a cock we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  She ignored his attempt at deflection. “We’re both consenting adults and I’ve lain in that bed next to yours for almost two weeks now and wanted to join you every single night. Haven’t you?”

  Coop was hard and throbbing now as he thought about her wanting him as much as he’d wanted her. He should just lie. Prior to his confession to Ethan he probably would have. But he couldn’t lie to the woman he loved. Not about how much he wanted her.

  Even if it was only going to inflame the situation.


  He tightened his hands into fists in his pockets. “Yes.”

  She nodded nice and slow, her gaze boring into his. “What the hell are we doing, Coop? You want me. I want you.”

  Coop almost groaned out loud. His cock felt like it was about to burst out of its skin and if only she’d said I love you he’d have walked right between those legs and given it to her. But she didn’t. And this would be over in a few days and he wasn’t sure he could go back to his old life in Brisbane after being in Lacey’s bed again. Because if they had sex right now it wouldn’t just be a one-off and they both knew it.

  Not while they were living in each other’s pockets.

  They’d go from the hood to the hotel and she’d be lucky if he let her out of the goddamn room for days.

  “I’m really trying to do the right thing here, Lacey.”

  “I know. And I’m a terrible person for trying to get you to change your mind. But it just seems so incredibly stupid when this is what we both want.”

  Coop’s gaze flicked down to mid-thigh where hem met skin then back up again. Jesus he wanted to put his mouth there. “Please don’t ask me to do this, Lacey.”

  “I’m not asking.” She slid her feet wider, the skirt falling further down her thighs, her fingers gathering it from her hips aiding the inexorable slide. “I’m offering.”

  Coop watched on helplessly, his fists clenching and unclenching, as the skirt revealed more and more of her legs until it had fallen down as far as it could go and he was staring at acres of bared thighs and a red lace triangle held on by what looked like two sides made of dental floss.

  His pulse pounded through his head and surged through his cock with a rhythmic imperative. Do it. Hit that. Take her.

  Desire blurred all his common sense and love got lost in a sea of lust. Or maybe it just made it more acute? Hell if he knew when he was seconds away from busting out of his shirt—and his underwear—like the freaking Hulk.

  The air grew heavier between them.

  “Please, Coop?”

  Her voice was low and soft with a note of yearning, but it wasn’t that which undid him, it was when she held out a hand to him that Coop’s resistance snapped with a ping that could probably be measured on the Richter scale.