CupidsChoice (6 page)

He got the other two he’d brought out of his pocket and
showed them to her.

“You clever man,” she said with a smile that caused his
heart to skip and erratic beat. “I vote we go to my room now and make good use
of them.”

“I second that motion.” He kissed her. “Hold on to me.”

He stood with her wrapped tight around him and navigated to
her bedroom looking over her shoulder as she did something to his ear with her
tongue that made him stagger a couple of times. When he bumped the door all the
way open, he found there were candles burning in her room as well.

He stopped walking and she raised her head.

“You weren’t kidding about the seduction scene.”

“No more than you’re kidding when you kiss me,” she said
with a smile.

No, he was not kidding when he kissed her, because it had
the same effect on him that it did her. The moment they touched he didn’t want
to stop.

Cooper laid her on the bed and shucked his jeans and
underwear at the same time. She watched him, eyes hungry and mouth slightly
open, as he rolled the second condom onto his cock, as hard as if he hadn’t
already come once that night.

She crab-walked to the middle of the bed and he crawled over
her until she lay back and reached for him. He braced his weight on his elbows
and held her head in his hands, both of them letting out a deep groan as their
bodies reconnected much less urgently, but with no less need.

They found a slow, easy rhythm, rocking their hips to meet
each other, him burying himself just a little deeper with each thrust, the heat
building on itself slowly. They kissed. They watched their bodies coming
together. Her fingers found places on his body that pushed him closer to the edge—his
nipples, his earlobes, the tip of his tailbone.

When urgency got the better of them and he was slamming into
her, her body writhing beneath him, he made sure she came long before he
collapsed on top of her in a sweaty, twitching, thoroughly satisfied heap.

“So are you glad I showed pity on your poor, sad, birthday
party-less ass?” she asked after a moment.

Cooper started to laugh so hard he shook her and the whole
bed with it. He went back up on his elbows and smoothed back the hair stuck to
her face. Her smile made something inside of him, something he wasn’t expecting
to feel, sit up and take notice.

He kissed her lightly and said, “Oh, baby, you have no
idea.”

Bree had showered, dressed and dried her hair before she
realized there was something off about the sound of her brother working on the
fallen limb in her backyard. Between the noisy bursts of chainsaw she could
hear him talking to someone. She’d just spoken to him on the phone the day
before and she could have sworn he’d told her he would be over by himself
because Patrick was sick.

The buzzing stopped once more. There was murmuring, then
laughter.

She set her hairbrush down and went to the kitchen. Through
the window on her back door she could see Cooper helping RJ lift huge chunks of
what was left of that branch into a wheelbarrow. He was wearing a breast-cancer
awareness t-shirt and running shoes with the jeans he’d had on the night
before, and there was a ratty White Sox cap turned backward on his head.

She’d woken up an hour earlier thinking he’d left without
saying goodbye, but he hadn’t. He was right there in her yard, cheerfully doing
manual labor after keeping her up most of the night, and apparently getting
along swimmingly with the oldest of her three brothers.

She wasn’t fully aware that she’d opened the door and
wandered outside until RJ looked over at her and said, “I told you I was coming
over at two, so you can’t be mad at me if I woke you up.”

She’d been working nights for so long that she stuck to her
up-all-night, sleep-until-the-middle-of-the-afternoon schedule, even on her
days off, and he knew it.

Cooper had turned as RJ was speaking. The front of his shirt
had “Save the Ta-Tas” written in hot pink letters across his chest. There was
sawdust in the dark hair on his forearms and stuck to his jeans over his
thighs. When she looked up she found his eyes were more green than brown in the
daylight.

“I take it introductions aren’t necessary,” she observed
mildly.

Cooper peeled back the cuff of the work glove he was wearing
and looked at his watch pointedly. As though they’d formed some kind of
smartass tag team, RJ said, “We’ve been out here more than an hour while you
were doing heaven only knows what inside.” He dropped a log on top of the pile.
“Cooper here was at the same World Series game when the Sox won in 2005,” he
told her with an impressed grin.

“I’ll bet your seats were much better,” she said, speaking
so that only Cooper could hear. “I bet your family has box seats.”

“Aw, come on now.” He took off his hat and wiped his sweaty
forehead with the inside of his forearm. “My family isn’t that bad. We get
stadium seats and sit among the peasants once in awhile.”

“Turns out his seats were only a few rows over from ours,”
RJ said, oblivious to their conversation.

Cooper made a face as if to say “See?” and she smiled.

“Careful or he’s going to want to play catch next.” She
meant it as a warning, but he smiled as though he liked the idea. “I’m going to
run a couple of errands, then I’ll bring back Chinese,” she said loud enough
for RJ to hear. “What do you want?”

“I could go for some General Tso’s,” he called back,
navigating the wheelbarrow toward the gate leading from the side of her house
to her driveway. “Extra spicy.”

“And you?” she asked Cooper.

“I like General Tso’s,” he said. “Extra spicy.”

“Great. My brother and…”

Good lord, what was he to her now?

“The guy who made you forget your name a couple of times
last night?” he suggested helpfully. “And once more this morning?”

She let him have that one because it was true.

“Are long lost soul mates,” she finished with a shake of her
head.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, he wasn’t exactly
pleased to see me come out of your room in nothing but my jeans when he let
himself in earlier.”

Bree sighed. “Looks like I’m going to have to have the
boundaries talk with RJ again.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve for
diffusing tense situations.”

She’d seen him turn Mama Bears—frightened mothers who
occasionally went into a full-on rage when the doctors failed to come up with
an immediate cure for their sick or injured child—into at least calm, if not
rational, versions of themselves.

“It’s a proven fact that if you offer to help a guy do free
labor for his sister he’s ten times more likely to let you hang around on his
good side.”

She crossed her arms. “Proven by who?”

“By me.” He pointed a thumb in the direction RJ had gone.
“Just now.”

“You don’t have go out of your way to impress my brother.”

“Impress nothin’,” he said with a small frown. “This saves
me a trip to the gym later this afternoon.” He put his hands on his hips. “You
look incredible, all fresh-faced with the sun caught up in your curls the way
it is.”

She smoothed her hands over his chest, copping a feel.
“Where did you get this shirt?”

“From last year’s 5K run. It was the unofficial shirt of my
team.”

“No, I mean, where did it come from? You weren’t wearing it
last night.”

“Oh.” His eyes raised to her mouth, then her eyes. “I always
keep a bag with gym clothes in my trunk.”

She blinked. “So you could have worn your own clothes the
night you got rained on and I made you wear my brother’s?”

“I could have, but it would have meant leaving you alone to
go outside in gale-force winds to get them.” His voice had become deeper,
seductive. “Do you have any idea how much I want to get you dirty again?”

If it was anywhere near as much as she wanted him to do it,
it was a lot.

He took a step and leaned in close. “Kiss me before he comes
back.”

She did. Gladly. She’d barely opened her eyes and caught her
breath when she heard the sound of the wheelbarrow coming around the side of
the house.

“I’m getting awfully hungry,” her brother called out as he
entered the yard.

“General Tso’s for two coming up,” she called back. “Should
I get two sets of chopsticks or will you be feeding each other?”

RJ took his hat off and scratched his head. “That’s funny,”
he said without humor.

“I know,” she told him, and Cooper chuckled.

That was all that mattered.

* * * * *

The rest of the tree was loaded into the back of RJ’s work
truck by the time she finished doing what she’d needed to do and returned with
food. The three of them ate at the table on her back patio, even though the
late-afternoon air had started to cool.

RJ only stayed long enough to eat, and when he shook
Cooper’s hand goodbye Bree could tell Cooper had done more than get on her
brother’s good side. RJ liked him, something made even more clear by the
approving nod he gave her just before he walked out of the yard.

The trouble with that was she didn’t know if she wanted her
brother or anyone else in her family to know about him yet, let alone have
their approval. Not that she wasn’t starting to warm to the idea of Cooper. She
just hadn’t had time to catch her breath and figure out exactly what was going
on with them yet.

Her family had loved The Jailer when she’d first started
dating him. They’d thought he was perfect for her, not knowing the way he
eventually started to dictate everything she did, right down to picking out her
clothes for her. They’d been devastated when she’d broken up with him after
more than three years together, then shocked and surprisingly angry with her
for not telling them how he’d treated her for the last half of it.

She’d vowed to not introduce them to anyone else until she
was sure about whoever she eventually got serious about. If it ever happened
again. She’d dated a couple of guys without getting sexually involved since
becoming single, and she’d had a couple of fun flings thanks to Petra and her
key parties. None of them had been like The Jailer, but they hadn’t stuck
around long enough to get serious about either.

Now RJ knew about Cooper, and he was possibly the worst of
her three brothers when it came to keeping a secret. He called it looking out
for his younger siblings, but Patrick, Bree and Dillon called it being the
family snitch.

Cooper left not too long after RJ, saying he needed to get
ready to meet with friends of his from college for their monthly poker night.
Bree spent the first hour he was gone pacing her house, waiting for her mother
to call and pester her for details. She washed and dried the only load of
laundry she had, ironed clothes she never ironed and cleaned her bathroom even
though it was already clean.

The call never came. Which only made her more antsy.

Bree called Petra to see if she wanted to do something, but
Petra had to work that night. Rachel invited Bree to come out for burgers and a
movie with her and Ben, but Bree wasn’t keen on being the third wheel in such a
new relationship.

It started to rain about the same time she thought she
should go for a bike ride and burn off some of her nervous energy, so she
started up the Maroon 5 playlist on her iPod and ran for twenty minutes on the
treadmill. A shower killed another fifteen, but doing her hair was pointless
because she didn’t have anyplace to go. She thought maybe she would give
herself a pedicure, but she couldn’t decide on a color of polish.

She’d been staring at the television without seeing it for
who knew how long when a knock on her door roused her out of her thoughts. The
clock on the wall over her couch said it was after midnight. There was only one
person she wanted to be on the other side of the door, but with her luck it was
Dillon showing up unannounced and looking to crash.

It wasn’t Dillon.

“I shouldn’t be here without calling first,” Cooper started.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed, and dragged him across
her threshold by the front of his sweatshirt.

“Oh. Okay,” he said when she wrapped her arms around his
neck.

He kissed her and her racing mind went calm. His arms came
around her and held her tightly to him and the shaking in her body shifted from
pent-up jumping bean to nervous anticipation. She’d been wanting him, and he
was there.

He smelled like good cigar smoke and tasted like mint. He
was warm and solid and kissing her that way he did that set her body on fire
from the inside out. She took his glasses off as she drew him farther into her
house and kicked the door closed.

“I was going to call,” his hands smoothed over her back, her
hips, “but then I just started driving.” Warm fingers slipped up the back of
the t-shirt she was wearing. “I wasn’t going to knock, and then I was standing
on your porch.”

“You must have heard me summoning you,” she said with a
smile, leading him bodily toward the hallway. “I haven’t been able to stop
thinking about last night.”

He let go of her long enough for her to lift his sweatshirt
off. “Neither have I. I lost so much money at the table tonight because I could
not get my head in the game.”

She stuck out her lip in a pout and he let out a heavy
breath.

“Poor guy,” she simpered playfully. “How will we ever get
your mind off it?”

He pulled off her t-shirt as they crossed into her bedroom
and they were both naked from the waist up. “I can think of about a dozen ways
off the top of my head.”

She popped the button on his jeans. “Tell me one and I’ll
make it happen.”

“Christ, Bree.” He pulled several condoms out of his pocket
and tossed them on the bed. She must have forgotten to tell him she picked up a
box between leaving him working with her brother in the yard and Chinese food.

She frowned. “I don’t know that one.” She let out a squeal
of surprise when he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, then gripped the
waist of her yoga pants and pulled them off in one quick move.

“It’s more commonly known as the missionary position,” he
said, pushing jeans and underwear down at the same time.

“That one I do know.” She rose up on her elbows, knees
raised and legs open wide, to better admire his cock and the way it appeared to
be looking right at her. “Did you drive over here with that thing going all
Incredible Hulk in your pants like that?”

He stepped out of shoes and pants at the same time. “Yes.”

She bit her lip and let her gaze travel slowly up his
beautiful body.

“And what would you have done if I hadn’t opened the door
for you?”

“Probably spend the night in jail for jerking off in your
driveway,” he told her, his dimple appearing when she laughed.

She snatched a condom off the bed and tore open the wrapper
as he crawled over her. He kissed her so hard her head pressed deep into the
comforter, then released her with a heavy rush of breath when she rolled the
condom over him.

“Good thing I—” The rest of the words got stuck in her
throat as the thick head pushed inside of her.

“Yes, it is,” he answered in a whisper, his lips just
touching hers.

She gasped when he thrust and filled her to capacity in one
move. She laid her legs flat but wide open on the bed.

She ran her hands over the taut muscles in his ass. “Fuck
me, Cooper.”

He repositioned his arms so his weight was mostly off her,
then withdrew almost all the way. The angle of her pelvis and the way her legs
came together made it possible for her to feel every inch of him as he moved
most of the way out of her body. She squeezed as he drove back inside of her
and he called out her name on a desperate groan.

“Come on.” She squeezed again, loving the way he pressed
against her clit when he was buried as far as he could go inside of her. It was
so incredibly good. “Fuck me, Cooper,” she repeated.

His gorgeous eyes opened. He withdrew and came back with a
quick snap of the hips, taking her breath away. He did it again—over and over
again—a slow withdraw and a fast push inside, his thick length rubbing and
bumping every place she needed him to rub and bump.