by Stacey Lynn
“I see.” I moved to the floor, close to the dented wall, which I tried to ignore and grabbed my bag. I flung it onto the bed and unzipped it. Digging through my crap, I grabbed the box I’d brought and added it to the pile. “Looks like Brooke and I think alike.”
Her hands settled on her hips and she laughed. It was cute and sweet, and she shook her head. “I honestly think there is not enough time in the world to have enough sex to go through all of these.”
I’d be willing to prove her wrong. I considered teasing her about it but changed my mind.
She nibbled on that lip again, and she only did that for two reasons, she was either nervous or thinking.
I didn’t want her doing either of those things when I brought her back here later.
“Come on.” I took her elbow in my hand and tugged her toward me. “Brooke took off. Said she had to get home before the boys had to be picked up from camp. But she did tell me to enjoy my night…which now makes so much more sense.”
“Brooke sucks.”
“Brooke loves you. And she’s hilarious.”
“Yeah. She still sucks, though.”
I’d give her that. Her friend was a complete nut, but everything Rebecca told me about her before I ever met her still rang true. She was crazy and loud, but loyal as hell. It actually felt good to know I had Brooke’s approval.
“I’ve got steaks marinating, ready to grill for whenever you’re hungry and I have some wine opened for you. How about we eat dinner”—and since I couldn’t resist, I continued—“and then see how many of those packets we can use tonight.”
“Oh God.” She made a choking sound and stumbled on her feet. “You are ridiculous.”
Yeah, but I made her laugh, too, and hearing that sound, knowing I’m the one who made her make it, always made me feel like a king.
* * *
Dinner was delicious and the company even sweeter. When we got downstairs, Rebecca had set to work roasting a pan of Brussels sprouts and whipped up garlic mashed potatoes. While she cooked, I kept her company near the kitchen counter, stealing snack-sized bites of whatever she was working on until she whacked my hand with a spatula.
It was just so damn easy to be with her. There were no pretenses, nothing hidden besides what she kept locked up in her brown eyes. Rebecca wasn’t only beautiful and determined and one of the hardest workers I’d ever met in my life, she was just her. She wore little makeup, casual clothes that hugged all her sexy curves, typically tank tops and frayed denim shorts. Her hair was down around her shoulders, but still held the kink of a ponytail band she’d put in it earlier.
She stunned me breathless not only with her beauty but the ease in which she simply invited everyone around to come closer. She had the vulnerability a man like me wanted to protect, the backbone to stand on her own.
Fucking hell. I’d gone and fallen in love with a woman who not only lived half a country away from me but was still in love with her husband. I’d known I was falling for her. Knew I cared a hell of a lot about her, but it was this moment, that night, where we were sitting in the fresh air, doing nothing more special than enjoying each other’s quiet company and easy laughter when it hit me.
I would die a happy man if this was all I had to live for and carry not a single damn regret of walking away from dreams I’d had my entire life. I just hoped like hell when it was time for me to let Rebecca know, she’d want it just as much as I did.
I took a large, cooling swallow of the sweet drink and turned to Rebecca.
Her feet were propped on the edge of the rock fire pit we hadn’t lit. Her gaze was on the skyline, the setting sun lighting up the sky in pinks and purples mixed with brilliant orange hues. Her drink was still in her lap, her hands wrapped around it, but she hadn’t taken a single drink since we came outside.
“You’re quiet,” I said, noticing for the first time both of us had been. Were her thoughts as heavy as mine, as revealing as mine just were? Or was she able to enjoy the peace and quiet with a blank mind.
The tightening of her lips when I spoke told me her mind was anything but blank.
She brought her glass to her lips and sipped, licking her lips as she settled the glass back in her lap. “Joseph cheated on me. I’ve never told a single person.”
She twisted her head, met my gaze, and looked forward. There wasn’t a single emotion splayed over her features I could name.
Her words knocked the wind and my vocabulary right out of my chest. She loved him. She didn’t hide that. And over the last several weeks, she’d shared so much about her life with him, with me, I sometimes went to bed wondering how in the hell she’d ever move on from him, she loved him so much.
“What?” I shook my head. I had to have misunderstood.
“Ryan knows, but I don’t even think he’s ever told Kelly but if he has, she’s never brought it up to me.”
“Rebecca—”
She shook her head. “Let me get this out.” Her head twisted toward me again and back to the land before I could respond. “I have to get this out.”
I resisted the urge to haul her into my lap and hug her while rage boiled my blood. To Rebecca, Joseph walked on water. She made that clear. And the asshole had cheated on her? What in the fuck was wrong with him?
“We argued the night he died. That was when I found out. He said it had only happened once, but…”
My hand curled into a fist and I leaned forward, setting my drink glass on the fire pit edge before I shattered it. I shifted the chair, turned to face her so I could watch her even if she needed to stare off into the distance to talk to me.
I’d give her whatever she fucking needed.
“The year before that had been hard for us. My parents had died, we were learning how to work together as the ones running this place, not just helping out my dad, and we weren’t really seeing eye-to-eye. He wanted to change things, I wanted to keep everything the same. It was too much, too much stress and fighting after losing my parents. I didn’t know he’d gone to the bar one night and taken Jenni Akers out back, though. The night I found out, I was on his phone and she texted him, saying how much she missed the feel of him.”
God, what a dick. In my mind, the betrayal of seeing Camilla screwing another man flashed and I shook it away.
Rebecca had always said she and I had gone through similar circumstances, I just always took it to mean we both knew the pain of loss…not the sting of betrayal, too.
“I kicked him out that night and he went to Ryan’s. He told him everything, begged him asking how he could fix it with us and even though I’d told him not to come back, he had. He called me, left me a message that said he loved me and he was coming back home so we could talk—” She tripped over her words and I reached for her, settled my hand on her knee so she knew I was there.
She acted like she didn’t feel it, there wasn’t a single twitch of her skin to show she knew I was touching her. She was lost in a sea of horrific memories. I settled in to hear more even though what I’d already heard was enough.
Goddamn it. No fucking wonder she hadn’t been able to move on for so long.
“It’d been raining, and it was unseasonably cold. So damn cold the roads iced over. He hit a patch on a bridge and lost control.” A heavy breath fell from her and her shoulders sagged. She twisted, her gaze landing on me. “I never got answers and I never got closure. He died and the last thing I screamed at him was how much I hated him.” Her chin trembled and I squeezed her knee. God, I wanted to pull her into my arms. “I didn’t hate him.”
Her eyes filled with tears. I took her glass away and pulled her into my lap, cupping her cheeks with my palms. “It’s okay to hate him and be pissed, and it’s okay to still love him, too. No one would judge you for that, Rebecca.”
“I never wanted anyone to know. Not just because I was embarrassed and ashamed, but because I didn’t want that as everyone’s memory of him.”
“So you hid,” I concluded.
I hated that for her, hated
she felt like she had to do it to preserve the memory of a dead man who didn’t end up being that great, or at least that faithful of a man, and I hated it more she didn’t feel like she could turn to anyone.
But mostly, I was really fucking honored she was telling me. She was giving me something of hers no one else had and she trusted me with it, trusted me to handle her with care through it.
I pulled her to my chest and hugged her, settling my hand at the back of her head, fingers tangled in her hair while she fought through tears and her memories.
Eventually, she pulled back and wiped beneath her eyes. “When I saw the picture of you last night, you were smiling at Camilla, and it was the same look you’d given me in the photo I saw of us at Down Home.”
“If I was smiling with Camilla, it’s because I was thinking of you.”
“It doesn’t really matter. Joseph shattered my trust and I’ve never been able to get closure on it. I’ve never been given the answers I needed or even the time to be pissed, or forgive, or lash out at him, or slash his tires.” She laughed and I shook my head. Brooke’s brand of crazy had definitely rubbed off on her. “And you, you’re leaving anyway, you know? And I’ve never seen your movies, but I know how popular you are, you’re Cooper Hawke, one of the richest men in Hollywood according to Brooke, and it’s hard for me to grasp that you’re here and that…well, you’re so damn sweet.”
I’d have to piece my way through everything she spewed. And I knew that uncertainty in her eyes. I recognized that fear in her eyes.
Now, all of it made so much more damn sense.
This woman began falling for me, possibly even before she realized she was doing it and it didn’t scare her, it terrified the hell out of her.
But now, all those mines I had to navigate were exposed, and our path easier. She’d ripped off the veil that hid the last pieces of her from me.
I just had to handle it with care, and I’d die trying to prove to her I was never going to be the kind of man Joseph was.
I leaned forward and grabbed our glasses, handing hers to her before taking mine. She adjusted herself on my lap, legs draped over the side of mine and rested her shoulder against mine.
She took a drink. I did the same.
I slid my other hand through her hair, starting at her scalp and dragging it out, letting her silken hair fall through my fingertips. She settled her head against my shoulder and sighed.
I could tell her then, that I didn’t want to leave. I could tell her all the plans I had to make with Max, all the ideas I had that could actually keep me here. But tonight wasn’t that. I’d wait.
I had all the time in the world to be with her, and since she admitted how hurt she was, how much she felt like she couldn’t trust, my words would mean little to her. Actions and time would prove it.
So I couldn’t give her everything I wanted. It was too soon. Too much too fast.
Still, I could give her something.
I kissed her forehead. “I will never regret, never be more thankful than I am right now, for every single moment I get to spend with you.”
Thirty-Two
Rebecca
That night, Cooper held me and listened while I told him everything about Joseph, the problems we’d been having and that night. Once the sky when pitch black, clouds obscuring our ability to see the stars, he ushered me inside and sent me to bed. I figured something would happen. After all, there was a large box of condoms he’d added to the mix already covering my bed. Nerves raked my spine while I brushed my teeth, scrubbed my face, and slid into a satin nightgown I rarely wore. When I left the bathroom, he was standing next to the bed, dressed in only a pair of jeans, and every single square scrap of foil had disappeared.
He walked by me, pressed his lips to the top of my head without saying a word and helped himself to the bathroom. When he returned, he slid into the bed next to me, correctly assuming I wanted him there.
Then he held me close until I fell asleep.
That was three nights ago. Three days of working side by side with Cooper again, laughing and talking and cooking and kissing and touching and every night we went to bed, he pulled me to his side, pressed his lips to the top of my head, breathed deep, and...we slept.
I was tired of only sleeping next to him.
I was awake, sunlight barely beginning to rise in the morning, and I was still settled up next to Cooper. His arm was draped over my back and his hand rested on my ass.
My hand on his chest drifted across his thick, coarse hair. It tickled my palm and sent sparks of excitement through my arm and to better places. I pressed my lips to his chest, right over his heart, and unable to help myself, I slid it across his nipple. The tiny bud hardened beneath me and even though he was sleeping, I needed more.
I wanted him. I wanted to feel him move inside of me, lose all the control he always seemed to have when it came to me. He treasured me and treated me like porcelain and while I liked being taken care of, I wanted him to lose his damn mind when it came to me.
My hand on his chest drifted lower, down the thick ridge between his sculpted abs, to where his hair created a path to my destination. I ran my fingertip along that line and tilted my chin.
His eyes were slits, opened and facing my direction.
“Good morning.”
His lips curled at the ends. “You seem to have some wandering hands.”
I slid my hand beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs. Black or white. Always skin tight. It was all he wore to bed and he looked damn sexy wearing them, too.
I still imagined burning every pair he owned.
“I had hands on a mission,” I said and brushed over a patch of shaved hair right before I reached his base.
“Shit.” His hips arched and his eyes closed. I curled my hand around his thick length. He was beautiful. Handsome and strong and confident and patient and sometimes he seemed too damn good to be true, but I still hoped it was all real.
My knight in shining armor. My protector. My caretaker.
I desperately needed him to become my lover.
My hips rolled into him, needing friction. Touching him turned me on and my breath quickened. He shifted, his hands moving to shove down his underwear. He kicked off the covers and I never lost hold of him, but then he was there, completely exposed, making himself available.
Yes.
His hips lifted and he lunged for me. I squealed, losing purchase of him, but he was on top of me, pinning my hands next to my head on the bed, and his smirk was infectious. “Perhaps I have a mission of my own to complete first.”
I lost sight of his grin because his head dipped, and then his lips were on mine. There wasn’t time to think about anything besides the weight of his body pressed against mine, the grip of his hands on mine, the taste of him, the feel of his excitement rubbing against perfect spots of me.
He lit me up like a firework, and it only took moments until I was writhing beneath him, so ready, so hot, throbbing for him I was about ready to lose my mind.
“Let my hands go,” I gasped, pulling them fruitlessly from his grip. “I need my clothes off.”
His mouth was at my neck, lower, he pressed his lips to my breasts, sucked my nipple and bit it through the thin satin. Beautiful, delicious zings of pain shot straight to my sex and I rubbed myself against him.
“Please,” I begged, gasping for breath.
“Patience. I’ll get you there when I’m good and ready.” He sucked on my nipple again. And, oh heavens. That friction between his mouth, the scrape of my satin nightgown. Bright flashes of light blinded me while I tried to focus on him and his ministrations driving me mindless.
He pulled off and glared at me. Muscles popped on his shoulders and throat, that beautiful, corded throat called to me, to mark him and bite with some animalistic need to have him.
“I’m letting you go, but you need to keep your hands where they are.”
“No way. I want to feel you.”
“You’ll get to
.” He pressed my hands into the bed. “Deal?”
His self-control knew no bounds. If I didn’t agree, I risked the very real possibility he’d call this off. He had the control to do it. I, on the other hand, had lost all of mine.
“Yes.” I nodded frantically. “Deal. Please just touch me.”
I arched into him, ground my center against his thick length, silently pleading with him to take care of me. He gave me a chaste kiss on my lips.
“I’ll touch you.” His hands went to the hem of my nightie, slowly, torturing me as he pressed it up the length of my body, over my stomach, pausing to brush his thumbs over my nipples where he swirled his tongue around the one he’d neglected earlier. “You’re so damn beautiful,” he murmured against my skin.
His voice was thick.
Mine had disappeared for anything more sensical than pants and pleas to hurry.
I arched my shoulders and lifted my hands when he moved farther up, sliding my nightgown off me and flung it off to the side.
His eyes went wide, soft and admiring as his hand drifted between my breasts, down my stomach, and settled lower, cupping my sex. I throbbed against his hot hand and rolled my hips.
His gaze never left mine. “You’re so damn beautiful. Sexy and alluring.”
My abs tightened with a quiet laugh. “Stop teasing me.” A finger pressed against my clit and then slid inside. “Oh shit.”
“You want me to stop?” His lips were curled up. I wanted to kiss them and slap away his smile. He pressed and pushed that finger inside of me, and added another. “I can stop.”
“No.” I shook my head, arching into him. I contracted muscles and pulled his fingers deeper. “Don’t stop.”
“Jesus, you’re so damn tight.”
He worked me slowly, one hand on the bed at my shoulders, but like we were tied together, needing that connection or unable to stop whatever started between us, our gazes held. I gaped at him, panting and moaning for more, while he brought me to the edge, teased me with a release. He watched every expression on my face until liquid fire spread from my thighs inward, to my center and ignited.