“Whoa,” he said with interest. “This one’s good. ‘Don’t expect a man with a hard-on to be able to think. He doesn’t have enough blood to run both heads.’ Hmmm.” He shot her a wicked grin over his shoulder. “I do. Want to see?”
“You are impossible! Give me the damn thing!”
But he was still busy having fun reading her private thoughts. “‘Never agree to marry a man because he has potential, ’” he read. “ ‘Men are not like houses, they do not make good fixer-uppers.’ ” His gaze met hers. “You know I’m finding this insight into your psyche absolutely fascinating.”
She was still struggling to nab her journal, her fingers touching his warm, hard chest and those yummy abs. She refused to let them do anything for her. “This is serious for me, okay? Someone was leaning over me while I slept tonight.” Just remembering had a shiver running up her spine, and she hugged herself again. “It gave me the creeps. I know it’s silly, but writing things in my journal calms me.”
He went still, then sighed, the grin vanishing from his face as he handed her back the Palm Pilot.
“I know,” she said, embarrassed. “I’m being such a wuss—”
“No.” He looked disgusted with himself. “Fuck, no. Anyone would have been spooked, given what you saw, and I’m an ass for trying to tease you right now. Come here.”
In the act of putting away the Palm Pilot, Breanne lifted her head. His eyes were dark, opaque, and filled with things that made her swallow hard. He was half-naked, she in nearly the same condition. Moving any closer to him would be like lighting the fuse and begging to get burned.
He simply took the matter into his own hands and stepped into her personal space again, stroking a finger over her cheek before settling his hand on her arm. “Could it have been Patrick?”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. What do you suppose he was looking for?”
Their eyes held, and all the possibilities floated through her mind, none of which was exactly comforting. His other hand came up to cup her jaw. “You’re safe now,” he said. “With me. You know that, right?”
She thought of sleeping in here tonight and knew that safe was relative. “Sure.”
“We could sit around and talk if you’d like.”
“Okay.” She crossed her arms and tried to look casual. “So what’s up?”
“Considering what you’re wearing beneath that sheet, and what we just heard in the hallway, you might want to rephrase that particular statement.”
Right. Feeling a blush creep over her face, she looked away.
He sighed. “Okay, so no talking. It’s been a long day, anyway. You need some sleep.”
They both turned to the bed.
“At least it’s huge,” she heard herself say.
He didn’t say a word.
And Breanne did her best impersonation of a woman hiding her panic, because sharing a bed with him would be like sky diving. Exciting, thrilling, and dangerous as hell. “I’ll roll something up between us,” she decided shakily.
To show him, she unwrapped herself from the sheet and began to fold it in a long strip. When she was done, she crawled up on the high mountain of a bed and situated it right down the middle, moving around on her knees to place it fairly.
A rough sound escaped Cooper.
Blowing a strand of hair out of her face, she leaned back on her heels and craned her neck to look at him. At the expression on his face—an electrifying, sizzling expression—her stomach leapt as if she’d just taken off on the roller-coaster ride of her life. “Um . . . ready?”
He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his voice was husky. “Oh, yeah, I’m ready.”
Ten
My life would be much more amusing if it was just happening to someone else.
—Breanne Mooreland’s journal entry
Cooper looked at the incredibly hot woman kneeling on the massive bed wearing nothing more than a barely there silky camisole and shorts that were only called such because both legs went through them. He knew the outfit was one of her honeymoon sets that had been designed to drive her husband crazy.
The design worked.
She had one spaghetti strap slipping off her creamy shoulder, the other barely in place, the bodice of the silk dipping low enough between her full breasts to make his mouth water.
And she was cold.
Or excited.
He wouldn’t have been able to tear his gaze off the hardened peaks of her nipples—perfect mouthfuls, both of them, poking against the silk as if begging for his touch—if it hadn’t been for the shorts.
The shorts . . . those he could have stared at forever. Low on her hips, exposing the diamond twinkling in her belly in the front and the twin dimples at the base of her spine in the back, they clung to her like a second skin. The hem—God bless that hem—was so short it rode right up her ass, covering only a tiny strip right up the middle. That strip in turn outlined her to perfection, not to mention revealed a good portion of each cheek in a way that made him want to get down on his knees and explore every inch of her.
Ah, hell, with or without those shorts he wanted to get down on his knees and explore every inch of her, and that was just unsettling enough to have him standing there, staring at her like a horny teen. “Breanne?”
She swallowed hard. “Yeah?”
“I know you’re trying not to freak out here, and that you want me to be the good guy, but with you in that position, I’m not thinking good-guy thoughts.”
She sank to her butt.
Not much better. “You really think that sheet is going to work?”
She stared at it, then bit her lip and looked back up at him, her entire heart in her eyes—along with the fear of the evening, the stress of the day, all the hell she’d undoubtedly been through to get here.
Feeling like a pervert, he swore softly, shoved his fingers through his hair, and moved to the opposite side of the bed. “Forget it. It’s going to work fine.”
Looking grateful, she relaxed her shoulders. She tugged up on her loose strap and down on her wayward shorts, which might have adjusted her comfort level but then showed off more of the soft curve of her belly.
Jesus. “Get under the covers, Breanne.”
She scrambled beneath them with more eye-popping moves that had his blood pounding thick and heavy, draining out of his brain, heading south for the winter.
Then suddenly she sat back up, the blankets slipping to her waist. “Wait. I forgot to—”
“Whatever it is, too damn bad.” He slid beneath the covers on his side of the bed. “Lie down.”
“Yes, but—”
“No. No buts. I hate buts.” He lay back and closed his eyes but he couldn’t relax to save his life, not with a nearly naked woman in his bed, the likes of which he hadn’t had this close to him in . . . far too long. It’d been months since Annie had dumped him, and he hadn’t been with anyone since. His family had all tried to set him up on dates. Hell, Jack had even given him his old black book, something his brother no longer needed now that he was married.
Truth was, Cooper hadn’t had the energy to attempt another relationship, and while he could have had any number of pity fucks—his brother’s old girlfriends were generous—he hadn’t wanted that, either.
He must be getting old, but he wanted something real.
Too bad he was too screwed up for real.
Ah, hell. Sleep wasn’t going to happen, not like this. Opening his eyes, he stared straight ahead in the dark and saw they’d left the door open. “Shit.”
“I tried to tell you.”
Yes, but she’d effectively distracted him with that soft, honey voice and even softer body. Unbelievable. He got up and shut the door, then stalked back to the bed. He lay flat on his back and stared at the dark ceiling, watching the last of the candlelight flickering shadows across the wood.
On the other side of the rolled sheet, Breanne was tossing and turning, and though he didn
’t turn his head and look at her, he imagined those silk shorts riding up, her top slipping down, and he nearly groaned. “Can’t you just pick a position and stay there?”
“Sorry.”
But she kept moving, and he kept picturing her, until he couldn’t stand it. “Breanne.”
“Do you really not wear underwear?”
A laugh choked out of him. “What?”
“I just—Never mind.”
“No, this is a conversation I’m interested in.”
“I saw your clothes earlier—there was no underwear. And you sleep naked.”
“Yes. But I’m not naked now.” Much to his annoyance.
She tossed around some more. “Sorry. It’s just that every time I close my eyes, I relive my sucky day. I think about all the things that I could be doing right now.”
“With your husband?” Odd how just the thought tightened his gut. He figured if she had said “I do,” then she and her ex would right this minute be screwing every which way but Sunday. At least that’s what Cooper would be doing if he’d married Breanne this morning. Hell, he wouldn’t have waited until now, either; he’d have found a way to have her in the limo on the way to the airport, in the airport bathroom, in the airplane bathroom, on the ride into the mountains—
“Not with my husband,” Breanne said softly in the night. “Because I’d have killed him by now.” Her voice was steely. “The rat fink bastard.”
“But if he’d shown up for the wedding, you wouldn’t have had a reason to kill him,” Cooper pointed out reasonably.
“Sooner or later he’d have shown me his true colors, and if he’d done it when I already had his name on my driver’s license, I’d be even more pissed.”
“Because hell, that’s a damn inconvenience, right?”
“You’re not kidding. You ever wait in line at the DMV?”
With another laugh, he turned on his side to face her. Holding up his head with his hand, he searched out her face in the darkness. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Her smile was sad. “Want to know a secret?”
“Sure.”
“Today was my third time being ditched by a fiancé.”
“Ouch.”
She laughed unhappily. “Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“The first time?” She sighed. “I’d loved Barry since . . . well, since kindergarten. It seemed so natural, you know? Graduate high school, get married. But my parents thought we were too young. They offered him a chance to go to Europe to study foreign diplomacy as he’d wanted, paying him with a one-way ticket and a large stash of cash. Oh, and the edict that he not look back.”
“Don’t tell me he didn’t look back.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
He swore softly. “You were better off without him, too.”
“I did learn my lesson,” she admitted.
“Which was what, not to date spineless assholes?”
“No. I decided no more engaging the heart.”
“But you could still get engaged?”
She laughed a bit mirthlessly. “The second engagement, that was a favor. Franco just wanted to stay in the country, but he ended up getting deported anyway. So that one doesn’t really count. Right?”
He stroked a strand of hair from her cheek. A mistake. Her hair felt like silk between his fingers, her skin just chilled enough that he wanted to leave his hand on her. “Did your dad get him deported?”
“No, overprotective dad and four brothers never found out about that one.”
“Four brothers.” He let out a low whistle. “You must have been quite the princess,” he teased.
“You did call that one right.”
“So do you get engaged to everyone you meet? Is that how that works?”
“Hey, I’ve resisted you so far.”
“To my great consternation.”
She smiled but looked away. “Obviously I have a terrible decision-making mechanism. I’m working on it. But believe it or not, there’s a silver lining here.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I won’t be fooled again, not by another pretty face and hunky body, not by sweet words, no way, no how.” She shook her head, her eyes luminous in the dark “Love does not exist.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yes. You?”
He shook his head.
“You’ve been in love?” she asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “I guess I thought it might become love.”
“Did it?”
“Nope.” He shot her a smile. “Got my heart crushed like a grape about six months ago.”
Her gaze softened. “Oh, Cooper.” She reached out and touched his chest over his heart. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m over it.”
Shifting up on her elbow so she could see his face, she left her hand on him and looked at him intently. “So you got hurt, and yet you’d give it another shot?”
The vulnerability in her voice made him ache. It’d been easier, far easier, to resist her when she wore her sarcastic edge like a coat, because this softer, kinder, caring Breanne tore through his defenses in a way he hadn’t anticipated. “Hell, Breanne, I’m just saying it exists.”
She flopped to her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Well, it can exist all it wants, as long as it stays far, far away from me.”
Cooper lay back down as well, joining her in the study of the ceiling. He’d spent much of the recent past feeling exactly the same, but for some reason he didn’t like to think that this vibrant, exciting woman, who had so much to offer, was going to hold back from love the next time it came around, simply because she’d been burned.
“Cooper?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you really unemployed?”
The sixty-thousand-dollar question. “I am.”
“Where do you live?”
“In San Francisco.”
“So what are you doing out here in the mountains? Alone?”
“My brother thought I needed to ski my brains out for a week and get over myself.” And get laid by a pretty, warm, sexy ski bunny.
“Why?” she asked.
“Too many reasons to get into.”
“We have all night.”
“Maybe I’m tired.”
“I thought guys liked to talk about themselves.”
“Not this guy. Tell me about you. What do you do?”
“Bookkeeping for a big CPA firm.” She frowned. “At least at the moment.”
“At the moment?”