Monica hugged her effusively. “Oh I’m sure we’ll see each other again. John and I are going to be in town awhile.”
“I’m thinking of catching up with some old friends,” John explained.
“Of course,” Taylor agreed. “That would be lovely.”
“You must come with Cooper to visit us in Palm Beach.” Monica gave her a sly grin. “You know you’re the very first girl that Cooper has introduced to us. The others,” she waved a dismissive hand in the air, “we only read about in magazines.”
John chuckled. “Stop embarrassing Taylor, Monica.” He turned to Cooper. “I will see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll give you a call in the morning.”
“All right. Good night, son.”
They walked in silence to the front of the hotel, waiting for the valet to bring the car around. During the drive to her apartment, Taylor didn’t say anything. Thoughts were churning in her head. She was the first woman Cooper had ever introduced to them? With a slight shake of her head, Taylor looked out the window. She didn’t even want to begin to speculate on what that meant.
Cooper followed close behind her as she entered her apartment. She turned to him. “I can make some coffee if you like.”
He sat down on the couch and patted the space next to him. “Sit here with me for a minute.” When she did, he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
Taylor leaned her head on his chest, the sound of his heartbeat oddly comforting. “Today was certainly eventful.”
“Does it bother you to learn that John Callas is my real father?”
“Why should it bother me? I’m worried about you,” she confessed. “This can’t be easy, having everything revealed the way it was.”
“No.” His sigh ruffled her hair. “It wasn’t. But at the same time, I’m kind of glad things happened the way they did.”
“Oh?” she prompted, snuggling closer, rubbing her cheek on the smooth cotton of his dress shirt.
“It was the only ace that Bettina had up her sleeve.”
Cooper fingered tendrils of her hair, his touch gentle. “I had to be prepared for any eventuality, especially this one. I had already called John and let him know what was going on, and he decided to come out here. We both knew it was only a matter of time before Bettina revealed what she thought of as her trump card.”
Taylor closed her eyes, loving the soothing vibration of his voice. “She’s evil and desperate.”
“That she is,” he agreed. “She demanded money and I told her to go to hell.”
The ruthlessness that underlined his tone made her shiver. Bettina had made a mistake in crossing the line with Cooper.
“What are you going to do now?”
His expression was somber. “Go on the offensive. Tomorrow, the company publicist will announce that John Callas is indeed my father. Beat Bettina at her own game.”
“I hope this will make her back off.” Taylor knew it was probably wishful thinking. People like Bettina never gave up. Money was such a powerful motivator. She cupped his face in her palm. “Will you tell me about how you met John?”
He settled deeper into the cushions, his arms wrapped around her. “Mason threw me out of the house when I turned fifteen.” His voice was low. “We had a big fight and he said he was done pretending to be my father. Called me bastard and pushed me out the door.”
The picture of a vulnerable fifteen-year-old flashed in her mind. She slid her arms around his waist. “You were so young.”
He shrugged. “I probably deserved it. I was rebellious and angry and did everything I could to provoke him. I hated my life. I hated the fact that he made me live with him when my mother died. Bettina couldn’t stand me being in the house. She was the one who went digging around my mother’s past and found out about her relationship with John Callas. She did the math and figured out that I couldn’t have been Mason’s son.”
“But you were just a boy. The circumstances of your birth were not your fault,” she protested, outraged for him.
A wistful smile played on his lips. “It’s okay. Finding out that Mason wasn’t my father before he threw me out was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Where did you go?” she asked curiously.
“All over. I hitchhiked my way to Texas. I found a job at a ranch. I looked older than my age, you see, and people didn’t ask too many questions. After a while, I moved to New Mexico, then to California. That’s where John found me.”
“Thank God.” Her murmur was heartfelt. To let somebody so young fend for himself was just frightening.
“It wasn’t so bad. I learned to rely on myself, became street smart. It taught me a lot about life.”
Taylor knew he was deliberately making light of what must have been a very difficult time in his life. It had made him the man he was today, and for that, she was grateful. “Then what happened?” she prompted him to continue.
“John brought me back here, whipped me into shape. He made me go back to school and hired me to work in his company. The rest, as you know, is history.”
“You still didn’t deserve to be treated the way you were.”
“I was the result of my mother’s love affair with John Callas. They broke up and she was on the rebound when she met Mason and had a whirlwind romance. By the time she realized she was pregnant with me, it was too late. She’d already married Mason. She’d tried to make a go of the marriage while they built up the publishing company, but Bettina came along.”
She frowned. “Nobody should have their private life splashed all over the news.”
“Meeting this issue head on is the best way to take Bettina’s ammunition away from her. I don’t give a damn if people know Mason wasn’t my real father. It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m very proud to call John my father,” he revealed quietly.
Taylor laid her head on his chest, blinking back sudden tears. “I was so worried about you this morning when I found out…”
“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s this?”
“You had a rough childhood. You had to grow up in a hurry. Alone. Without a mother to guide you and with a father who rejected you.”
Cooper rubbed his cheek against her hair in a soothing motion. “I survived. That’s all that matters.”
Cooper was a strong, resilient man, shaped by his past. “Don’t let Bettina win. Don’t let her hurt you.”
“She’s desperate. I’m not worried about her.” His deep voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating under her cheek. “You were concerned about me.”
Taylor sat up at the amazement in his tone. “Of course I was concerned.”
He shifted on the couch. “Well, if you must know, I am still hurting.”
Taylor met his innocent gaze suspiciously. “Yeah?”
With a nod, he took her hand and lowered it from his chest down over his flat stomach before stopping on top of the bulge in his crotch. “I have an ache right here that only you can soothe,” he whispered wickedly.
“Cooper,” she choked, though she didn’t stop him when he curved her hand over his erect penis. Warmth engulfed her. “I’m serious.”
“Me too.” He rubbed his crotch against her open palm. At the same time, he plunged his fingers in her hair and tugged her closer. “Dead serious.”
“You’re distracting me,” she managed to say. “This whole thing is such a mess and—”
“Bettina can do whatever she wants but she’ll never win. I did what I set out to do, which was take back the company my mother poured her heart and soul into. That was my goal and I did it. Now kiss me, woman.” He captured her lips in a deep, long kiss. Taylor’s lids fluttered shut as she was caught up in the spell he wove around her, lost in the slow, luxurious licks of his tongue as he delved deep in her mouth.
Her thoughts scattered into a million pieces. The air seemed electrified as a ripple of excitement tore through her. Her breasts felt heavy and needy, which was the case whenever Cooper touched her. Hell, wheneve
r he looked at her with that glint in his eyes, her body responded as if there was a direct switch between them.
Her eyes flew open when he pulled her onto his lap. The skirt of her dress hiked up over her thighs. Cooper impatiently pulled it up and over her head, leaving her dressed in a black bra and matching panties. He traced the scalloped edge of the cup, his light touch leaving goose bumps in its wake. With a flick of his fingers, he undid the front fastening, baring her breasts.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. He kneaded her flesh with just the right amount of firmness and gentleness, his thumb rubbing the nipples into stinging hardness.
She moaned softly. “Cooper.” It was maddening, enduring the squeezing motion coupled with the teeth-gritting pinches to the tip.
“Foreplay,” he rasped, his eyes hooded and locked on her, “is definitely not overrated.”
“Torture you mean?” she forced between her teeth.
“It runs both ways, trust me.”
Her breasts were so sensitive, so worked up, that she shuddered when he finally pulled a distended nipple into his mouth. Jolts of pleasure tore through her, and she whimpered in protest when he moved back.
“Patience. I want this to last.”
“You’re going to kill me.” She plunged her fingers into his hair and pulled his face up. “Kiss me.”
He complied, giving her a brief, unsatisfying kiss. Ignoring her murmur of disapproval, he turned his attention to her other breast, giving it the same painstaking attention as the other one. Taylor bit her lip, pulling in deep breaths, trying to stem the tide of desire threatening to overtake her.
His tongue was a wonderful instrument of torment, plying her highly sensitized nipple with teasing licks, never giving her enough to satisfy her. In the next second, he sent her shooting to the moon when he pulled the tip between his lips and sucked.
Taylor tossed her head and leaned back, offering herself to him fully. She wanted to comfort him this way, to soothe and erase the hurt Bettina had wrought. Whatever he asked. Whatever he wanted.
Cooper tugged at her underwear. He grunted as he pulled the remnants of her expensive silk underwear and tossed it somewhere behind him. At this rate, she was going to have to shop for new panties soon, she thought dazedly. She was wet, of course, as he found when his fingers burrowed between her legs and plunged inside her slit.
Her breath caught in her throat. It never failed to amaze her that every time he touched her, every time they came together, the powerful desire she felt for him didn’t lessen. Instead it seemed to grow stronger.
“Jesus. You’re so tight,” he growled against her throat.
She was so wet, clamping down on his fingers as he thrust deep inside her. Taylor dug her knees down on the couch, bracing herself, opening to him fully, craving a much deeper possession.
Needing to touch skin, she fumbled with his shirt buttons, pushing the sides apart and down his arms. He left her briefly, freeing his arms from the sleeves, but returned to her pussy right away. Finally encountering delicious, warm male skin, she rained kisses wherever she could reach even as she attacked the fastening of his trousers. She tugged and pushed until he raised his hips and chucked them himself, freeing his gorgeous cock.
Taylor licked her lips at the sight, touching the hot stalk of hard flesh resting on his stomach. She indulged herself, holding him in one hand while softly cupping his balls with the other.
His groan was music to her ears.
“God, you’re so beautiful.”
“Hardly,” he disagreed, his thumb seeking out her clit.
The breath hitched in her throat as he found the nub that stuck impudently out between her labia. She retaliated by running her hand up and down the shaft. “Yes you are. Hard as steel. Skin so soft.”
He withdrew his hand from her pussy and went around her hips, sliding down the crease of her buttocks, teasing the puckered entrance of her ass. Taylor stilled, her eyes flying to meet his. The gray irises were dark with hunger.
“I want to take you here.”
The wetness from her pussy coating his fingers aided his gentle foray inside. She caught her breath. That was something she’d never done before. In fact, she had never considered it. She didn’t recoil from it now though. The hunger written plainly in his features, the tight jaw, the flared nostrils, told her he wanted this. She gloried in the excitement that streaked through her, imagining him inside that forbidden place. For Cooper, she would do anything. Give him anything.
His finger slipped between the tight muscle and he was inside her. Taylor bit her lip and took a deep breath, bombarded by sensations that were previously unknown to her. When he moved, unused muscles clenched around the digit, both of them groaning. Fresh moisture leaked from her pussy. Her skin was highly sensitized from head to toe and she quivered with the pleasure.
She placed her lips against his ear. “Fuck me.”
Cooper gritted his teeth and shut his eyes momentarily. Keeping his finger lodged inside her ass, he pulled in a controlling breath. “Put me inside you, Taylor. Now.”
She took him in her hand, raising herself and positioning him at her slit. Inch by delicious inch, she lowered herself until he fully lodged deep inside her, kissing her cervix. “Ah God.” It felt so good.
His eyes were hooded as he leaned back and positioned her over him. “Ride me.”
The soft command was all she needed to hear. Her hips went up and down, circling, working his cock deeper every time, taking him all the way to the root. He watched her undulations, harsh breaths coming from his lips. One finger in her ass became two, the pain stretching her nether muscles mixing with pleasure.
“Cooper,” she stuttered, holding on tightly to him. It was incredible. The sensation of having him in her pussy and ass was unbelievable.
“Good?” he asked, sitting up, bracing his feet on the floor.
“Y-Yes.”
“It’s going to be even better when I fuck you here.” His fingers were unrelenting, stretching, plunging.
Taylor was unable to speak. The tingling that gathered from her toes and raced up her thighs, radiating from her breasts down to her pussy, gained momentum. Cooper thrust deeply inside her, his arm wrapped around her hips, holding her steady as he pistoned inside her pussy.
The pleasure was too much. Taylor cried out and shuddered, her orgasm slamming into her. She trembled, caught in the throes of white-hot pleasure. Through the haze surrounding her mind, she heard Cooper’s harsh groan as he spewed deep inside her. It was too much. She clung to him weakly, thankful that he had the strength to hold her upright as she shook with aftershocks.
Drowsy and satiated, she laid her head on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a while.
“Mmm,” she murmured. “Perfect.” She didn’t want to move.
“Let’s go upstairs.” He picked her up, still embedded within her pussy, and made his way to her bedroom. The last thing Taylor remembered was Cooper laying her down on the bed, finally disengaging from her and getting in beside her.
Chapter Eight
Taylor read the glossy program as she perused the painting in front of her. It was an oil painting of a girl standing near the edge of a cliff. Her face was pensive, her eyes shadowed. Taylor was by no means an art connoisseur but she felt as if she could touch the girl’s hair flowing softly in the wind. As if she was right there in front of her. The painting was hauntingly beautiful.
The opening night at the local art gallery was quickly filling up. The artist, Robert Dodd, was new and on his way to becoming a star. There were a couple of other reporters and photographers present, snapping away at the invited guests who were continuing to arrive. Servers carrying trays with champagne glasses circled around, offering drinks. Ordinarily this wasn’t her cup of tea, but Jean-Paul, the e-zine’s resident movie and art critic, had come down with the flu. He had begged her to go in his place since this was a one-night show. She’d given in, but only after she extracted the
promise that he would give her free tickets to the next big concert in town. It was a good way to fill the time because she missed Cooper. She hadn’t seen him at all this week. His publicist had done a wonderful job of handling the latest Bettina incident, releasing a carefully worded statement that John Callas was indeed Cooper’s father. Taylor knew enough to give him space, and though she wanted nothing more than to see him, she wanted to keep a low profile while the media’s attention was so focused on him.
She sipped the champagne she’d snagged from a passing server. The more she spent time with Cooper and got to know him, the more she liked him. He was funny. He was genuinely interested in her work. She’d bounced ideas for future articles off him and he’d given a couple of very good suggestions.
“Ah, a smile at last.” Robert Dodd appeared at her side, a grin on his face. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
Earlier she’d had a chance to briefly interview Robert. He was charming and handsome, flirtatious and clearly talented. He was very attractive, but his eyes were a light blue. Not gray. His hair was blond and longish, well past his collar. Not dark and short. He didn’t have a dimple on his cheek when he smiled like Cooper.
“I am. You’re a very gifted artist.”
He grinned. “Thank you. I appreciate that. Painting is a passion. I’m happiest when I’m working.”
She could understand that. His enthusiasm for his art showed through his work. Taylor had no doubt he would soon be a big star.
Robert stepped closer to her. “How about a drink after the show? There’s a nice little bar down the street.”
Taylor was about to refuse the invitation when a pair of hands landed on her waist. She twisted to find Cooper behind her. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was heavy.” He bent and gave her a lingering kiss on the lips.
Shocked, Taylor couldn’t respond. What was Cooper doing here?
He held out his hand to Robert, who had no choice but to shake it. “Cooper Hathaway.” He curved a possessive arm around her. There was a moment of silence while the two men stared at each other. Then Cooper nodded. “I have one of your works, actually, The Matador.”
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