CupidsChoice (4 page)

“Yes,” he glanced at his watch, “for about half an hour
now.”

There was only one person in the building who knew, and he
wasn’t especially thrilled that she’d gone through the trouble. Cooper peeked
around the back of the door to make sure she wasn’t waiting behind it to
surprise him. Thankfully she wasn’t.

“Langley always brings in a cake when someone has a
birthday, Cooper. Why is there no cake for you tonight?” The question was
accusatory, the little frown creasing her forehead sexy. Man he liked it when
she got sassy with him. Maybe that was why he found himself pushing her buttons
as often as he did.

He glanced sideways at the monstrosity on his desk. “Well,
for one thing, if no one knows, things like that don’t appear on my desk. In
the middle of the night.”

He made his way toward his desk cautiously. A quick glance
at the card tucked among the mostly red arrangement confirmed who’d sent them.
Lara Young, a perfectly sweet, attractive woman who worked in radiology, was
someone he considered nothing more than a friend, and only a work friend.
Unfortunately she’d made it clear on several occasions that she was interested
in being much more than that.

“Why not? Don’t you like presents?”

“No, I don’t like birthdays.”

She gave him an amused smirk. “Everyone gets older, Cooper.
It’s part of life.”

“It’s not the getting older I have a problem with. It’s the
being the center of attention I can live without.”

She coughed up a derisive little laugh. “You could have
fooled me.”

He faced her. “What does that mean?”

“Are you kidding me? The way you bark orders around here?”
She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Don’t like to be the center of attention.
Please.”

“That’s called doing my job. This,” he waved his hand and
the balloons swayed on their long ribbons, “is something else entirely.”

She narrowed her eyes and said nothing else for a moment.
“You really don’t like your birthday?”

“As hard as it may be for you to believe, I can take it or
leave it.”

Her big eyes narrowed farther and she folded her arms under
those incredible breasts of hers. “Why?”

Who asked those kinds of questions? And how did they get so
far off course from what they’d come to his office to talk about?

“Bree, not everyone needs a ticker-tape parade every year
because they were born.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Your parents never threw
you a party, did they?”

He had no idea. “I’m sure they did. When I was little.”

He hated the way her face went all soft and sympathetic.

“Listen, it’s not an issue. I have not been traumatized by
some kind of pitiful, neglected childhood, so don’t go getting any sad-sack
ideas in that pretty head of yours.” He pointed a finger close to her nose.
“And do
not
tell Langley about this.”

The humor came back into her big, dark eyes. Her work phone
went off, then his.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she told him, turning to
leave.

“Thank you,” he said, then fell into a jog beside her when
they were in the hall.

The hospital stayed steady the rest of the night so he never
got the chance to finish the conversation he’d wanted to have with her. He did
catch her looking at him a little differently than usual throughout the night,
but she never said another word to him that didn’t have to do with a patient.

Close to the end of the shift there was an influx from two
different car accicents and Cooper ended up staying over by almost two hours to
help out. Exhausted and ready to go home, shower and drop into bed for a few
hours, he was pleasantly surprised to find an equally tired looking Bree
leaning against his car in the parking lot.

“So there’s really no party?” she asked as he approached.

“My parents take me to the Signature Room for dinner every
year.”

She nodded and looked impressed. “And presents?”

He sighed. She was definitely persistent. “They donate to a
local battered women’s shelter in my name. I do the same for them on their
birthdays.”

She looked away for a moment, obviously struggling with
something.

“Do you like chocolate?” she asked.

Yeah, he kind of liked where she was going with this. “I
do.”

She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. “Would
you like to come over for dessert after you have dinner with your parents
tonight?”

A strange kind of thrill started low in his gut. An
invitation back to her house was far better than he’d dared to hope for. “I can
be there by nine thirty.”

The only explanation for inviting him over on the night of
his birthday was that she’d lost her ever loving mind. That must have really
been magic rainwater he’d been soaked in during that storm. It was unnerving
that he hadn’t gone back to looking unremarkable in the three days since she’d
seen him last, stalking out of her house in her brother’s sweats and climbing
into that sexy old Jaguar he drove.

How many times had she seen him in his navy scrubs and
dark-framed glasses and not thought anything of it? There had been hundreds
over the two years they’d worked together. Not once had she ever thought “Wow!”
when she saw him. Okay, maybe there had been a couple of times when he’d first
come to work at the hospital, but his ego and that sour disposition he usually
had quickly diminished his looks in her eyes.

After the night he screamed at Carrie for mixing up two
patients’ meds—a mistake that had seemed innocent at the time—she’d stopped
looking at him altogether. Now she couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop
noticing little things she’d never noticed before.

Like the way his clever hazel eyes didn’t seem to miss a
thing, or that a dimple appeared near the corner of his mouth when he
smiled—something he didn’t seem to do unless he genuinely meant it. She’d never
noticed the agile way those gorgeous hands of his moved, or the way the muscles
in his arms rippled and strained against his skin when he was working.

And his mouth.

Ugh. She could not stop sneaking glances at his mouth, which
was pure torture because every time she did her body lit up like Christmas with
the memory of how that kiss he’d laid on her had burned through every single
cell in her body.

As much as she hated to admit it, things between her and
Cooper Bennett had been changed by Petra’s odd choice and the way it had piqued
Bree’s curiosity. She couldn’t deny that the way he’d treated her during the
tornado warning had a big part of swaying her opinion about him as well. Any
number of men she’d known in the past, including The Jailer, would have taken
full advantage of the situation.

And when she really thought about it, she knew damn well if
he’d stopped talking and turned his head and kissed her while they were huddled
in her brother’s makeshift bedroom, she would have let him do anything he
wanted to her.

Her stomach fluttered when there was a knock on the door.
She checked her hair one more time, smoothed her hand over the front of her dress
and gave herself a nervous look before she switched off the bedroom light and
headed for her living room.

“Wow,” he said when she opened the door.

Those hazel eyes looked her over slowly, top to toe, and she
knew she’d made the right choice. The dress she’d chosen was a new favorite of
hers in a dark-emerald green that clung in good places and draped in others.

“Right back atcha,” she said, and stepped back so he could
come inside.

He was rockin’ the jacket and button-down shirt over jeans
look in a big way.

And he had flowers.

“It’s not
my
birthday,” she told him, taking the
gorgeous bouquet of red, orange, yellow and dark pink ranunculus as he came
inside.

She blushed when he bent and kissed her cheek.

“I came over empty-handed once,” he said, as though that
were an explanation.

She looked up at him, not sure what to say next. In her
past, guys had shown up for dates empty-handed all the time. Did this mean
chivalry was not dead?

Who knew?

“They’re really beautiful, Cooper.” She stepped a little way
into the living room and set them on her coffee table. “Thank you.”

“Did you do all this for me?” he asked, his eyes scanning
her house.

She’d lit candles throughout—in the living and dining rooms
and even in the kitchen. The lights that were controlled by dimmer switches
were turned fairly low, and she’d put the mellow blues channel on Pandora.

“I have to tell you, this looks more like a seduction scene
than a birthday party,” he said, his eyes dark in the low light but clearly
glittering with amusement.

He shrugged out of his jacket when she reached for it.

“How would you know?” she asked, managing to hang it on the
coat tree without burying her face in the collar to see if it smelled like him
the way she wanted. “You said you’ve never had a birthday party before.”

“But I have been seduced a time or two,” he told her.

“I’ll bet you have,” she muttered.

She realized he must have thought she had a no-shoes policy
in her house as he toed off his shoes. The fact that she’d completely forgotten
to put shoes on and was barefoot might have had something to do with giving him
that impression.

“So the concept isn’t completely unbelievable, despite your
former aversion to me?”

Damn him. He looked so smug she wanted to throw herself on
him and kiss the look off his freakin’ face. “Not completely.”

“What changed your mind?” he asked with a cocky smile.

That kiss. The rainwater. The fact that he hadn’t once made
her feel as if she was crazy because of the way she’d reacted to the tornado
warning.

That kiss.

Hell.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, turning away
before she did something she wanted to save until much later.

Like show him to her room and start ripping his clothes off.

“I have wine,” she picked up the bottle of red she’d opened
earlier and turned to show it to him. He was right behind her. “I also have
some disgusting old scotch my brother RJ gave me when he was trying to teach me
to like it last Christmas, and beer if you’d like something more pedestrian.”

His eyebrows went up and he laughed once. “What does that
mean?”

She shrugged, toying with him. “Aren’t all doctors the fine
wine, old scotch and custom-made Armani jacket type?” she asked with a nod
toward the door, where his custom-made Armani jacket hung on her
got-it-on-clearance-from-Target coat tree.

He took the bottle and eyed the label with a haughty look.
“Yes we are, the same way all nurses are Nascar-watching, cheap–beer-drinking
floozies.”

Well, well, well. Not only was he chivalrous, kind and
really damn sexy outside of the hospital, but it turned out he had a sense of
humor as well.

She smiled as something warm came alive inside her. “Good
one.”

His dimple appeared without a smile and he slid her a
sideways look. “Thank you.”

He picked up one of the two wineglasses she’d set out just
in case and poured. Bree waited until he poured himself a glass as well, then
raised hers.

“Happy Birthday, Dr. Bennett,” she told him.

He touched his glass to hers. “Thank you, Nurse Trenton.”

He still wasn’t smiling, but that flirty dimple was showing.
And he didn’t drink. He bent and kissed her instead.

Who needed wine when there was Cooper to make her dizzy with
a kiss?

She swayed when he straightened and sipped from his glass.

“I have something for you,” she told him, taking a
fortifying drink from her glass as she moved around him. In her small house, it
wasn’t a long trip from the kitchen to the dining room that was so small it
only fit a four-person dining table.

“You do?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Yes, I do,” she pulled out one of her dining chairs and
motioned for him to sit.

As he did she picked up the gift she’d gotten him. The idea
had come to her as she’d been waking up from sleep that afternoon. She’d run
out to get it between baking and frosting the cake she’d made for him, and when
she handed it to him, she knew he thought the idea was as funny as she had.

He simply stared a moment, then the dimple appeared,
followed quickly by a smile that made her grin in response.

“I thought it might come in handy,” she said, watching him
run his long fingers through the curly ribbon she’d tied around the curved
handle of the black umbrella. “You know, for the next time you’re caught in a
monsoon. Or Midwestern weather.”

He laughed. “Yes, I could use one of these,” he told her,
and the look in his eyes when he raised them to hers had her belly fluttering
again.

She slid the cake sitting in the center of the table closer.

“I hope you weren’t kidding about liking chocolate,” she
warned, “because there’s a whole lot of it here.”

She’d baked a chocolate cake, slathered it in the heaven
that was her Grandma’s special chocolate icing recipe and covered the sides
with curled chocolate shavings. Out of the corner of her eye she could see he
was looking at it with interest.

“You baked this yourself?”

“With my own two hands.”

He looked up at her. “For me?”

“No, Cooper. I bake random chocolate cakes all the time.”
She clicked the trigger on her candle lighter and lit the wick in the lone
candle stuck in the center. “Make a wish.”

He was still looking at her. There was another long, silent
moment before he leaned over and blew out the candle, then set the umbrella on
the table and took her hand. He pulled her into the space between his legs and
gently tugged on her arm so she sat.

“This is by far the best birthday party I’ve ever had,” he
told her, his voice deep, quiet, his expression strange.

“Better than a ticker-tape parade?” she asked, liking the
solid strength of his thigh under her bottom and his arm around her waist.

“So much better than that,” he whispered, holding her jaw
lightly, fingers on one side, thumb on the other, pulling her closer.

There was no lingering touch first. Not this time. He opened
his mouth and she did the same. His tongue dipped inside and hers chased it
when it retreated. She angled her head and wrapped her arms around his
shoulders when he came back with more pressure and a deeper plunge. Oh she was
in so much trouble with this man.

She squirmed against his leg, ready for him in an instant.

To hell with the cake, she thought, indescribably happy to
let him continue to have his way with her mouth. To hell with the stupid things
that had happened at work in the past. None of them mattered when he was
kissing her that way.

She didn’t want it to ever stop.

Bree reached over and pushed the cake plate back to the
center of the table, out of the way. She broke the kiss and stood long enough
to shift, hike the loose skirt of her dress a little higher and straddle his
legs.

“But the cake.” His protest wasn’t very convincing. He was
breathing just as hard as she was and the pupils of his eyes were dilated wide.

“The cake will be fine,” she assured him, shifting higher up
his thighs.

His eyes dropped to her mouth, her chest, then lower. “What
if it’s a long while?”

She pulled the fabric of her skirt up higher, exposing a
whole lot of skin.

Good thing she’d shaved all the way up her legs earlier,
just in case.

“Here’s a little known fact about my cakes,” she said,
draping the gathered fabric of the skirt over the crease where her legs met her
hips, knowing full well he was probably getting a peek at her panties. “They
just get better with age. Kind of like wine.”

His eyes lifted to hers. “We don’t have to do this.”

“Of course we don’t
have
to.” She unbuttoned a couple
of buttons on his shirt and helped herself to the feel of the hair, the skin on
the exposed V of his chest. “But don’t you wonder what might have happened if
we’d ended up at the party Saturday night?” She traced his solid collarbones
with her fingers, smoothed them over the strong muscles in his shoulders. “If
I’d simply played along with the rules of the game?”

“You have no idea how much time I’ve spent wondering that
exact thing.” He gripped her hips and pulled her higher up his lap.

She couldn’t say she’d thought about him that way before
Saturday night, but she couldn’t deny she hadn’t been able to stop thinking
about him that way since.

If he’d agreed to go to Petra’s party simply to get her
attention, he had it.

Oh boy, did he have it.

“Tell me what would have happened,” he said, eyes on hers as
his fingertips brushed over her skin just under the fabric gathered on her
upper thighs.

Bree braced her feet on the rungs under his seat and
finished unbuttoning his shirt.

“Well, since it’s such a long drive here from Petra’s place,
we would have probably had to use one of the spare bedrooms there.” She pushed
the front of his shirt aside and looked him over. “Wow, what a chest,” she
breathed.

“Or we could have gone to my apartment, which is right
downtown.” He leaned forward and kissed her neck where it curved into her
shoulder, his hands now under her skirt, stroking the skin of her ass.

“I don’t know.” She sighed and angled her head to give him
better access to that spot. “It’s kind of hot to stay at Petra and Jude’s for
the night.” Her hands slid up his shoulders and neck. “I mean, the walls aren’t
paper thin or anything, but you can hear the sounds of everyone else in the
house having a good time.”

His head came up. “While you’re sitting in a room alone
reading, right?”

She couldn’t explain why, but that tiny show of playful
jealousy made her smile.

“Of course,” she assured him.

“That’s what I thought.” He pulled her up high enough on his
lap that she could feel his cock—thick, hard and straining against the front of
his jeans. He pulled the strap of her dress off one shoulder. “Go on.”

She sighed as his mouth went back to exploring.

“So there we are, in your bedroom in your apartment…”

“
Mmm
, much better.”

“Both of us naked.”

He nipped at her shoulder. “I like where this is going.”

“You sitting on the edge of the bed with me kneeling in
front of you.”