He shifted his weight, looking down again at the hat he was still holding tightly in his hands.
“I see us changing, and I’m not sure I like the new direction we’re heading. I
know
I won’t like it if you take on this extra work. I
know
I don’t want to spend the next thirteen months alone in this apartment.”
“But Cooper, two million
dollars
—”
God! Didn’t she hear
anything
he was saying? “It’s not worth it,” he said.
“I think it is,” she said.
His head came up, and Josie saw the light of anger was back in his eyes. “What am I worth to you?” he asked.
She took a step backwards. “Are you asking me to choose between you and the business?” She sounded shocked.
Shaking his head, Cooper walked down the hall. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m not asking that because I already know what would win. And it ain’t me, babe.”
He disappeared into their bedroom. Josie followed. “Cooper, you’re wrong—”
Her eyes widened as she stood in the doorway and watched him.
He had his gym bag on the bed and was throwing several pairs of underwear and socks into it. He took a clean pair of jeans from the closet and rolled them up, putting them inside, too.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to Connecticut.”
“You can’t be
serious
!”
He grabbed the top two shirts from his T-shirt drawer, closing it with his hip. “I need some time to think.”
Josie was stunned. She clung to the door frame as if the room were an amusement park ride and she was about to be thrown off. “Cooper, I’ve got to make the decision about this contract by
tomorrow,
” she said. “How can we talk about it if you’re not here?”
He zipped up his bag and put the strap over his shoulder, brushing past her as he strode back into the hall. “You’ve already made up your mind,” he said. “What difference does it make whether I’m here or not?”
“Cooper,
please,
” she said, but his long legs had already carried him down the hall and out of the door.
Josie didn’t bother going to bed. She sat in the dark, in the living room, listening to herself breathe.
Cooper had walked out on her. He’d finally left her.
It was about time, her conscience goaded her. They’d been married more than five years now, and she’d canceled plans, broken dates, been late, and returned home early from vacations more times than she could count. She’d gone into the office on holidays and weekends. She’d stayed late in the evenings even though she knew Cooper minded, even though she knew it made him feel hurt and neglected.
But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t warned him what he’d be getting into. On the day Cooper had asked her to marry him . . .
It was August—the kind of hot, humid summer evening reminiscent of the inside of a pressure cooker. The entire city was on edge. Throughout the afternoon, thunderheads were building up, and the heavy evening air was charged with an electricity so intense it was nearly palpable.
They’d gone to a movie—mainly to get inside the air-conditioned coolness of the theater and off the stiflingly hot streets. The movie was awful—a romantic comedy that was neither very romantic nor very funny. But Josie had barely paid attention. She was more aware of Cooper’s arm stretched loosely across the back of her chair. She was acutely conscious of him sitting next to her, their bodies separated only by the arm of the seat in the nearly deserted theater. She found herself watching him instead of the screen, as the light from the movie flickered across his handsome face.
He was, without a doubt, the most attractive man she’d ever known. His jaw was strong and so obviously smooth and clean-shaven that Josie knew he must’ve shaved that afternoon, right before he’d met her at her office. His nose was big, but just the right size for his face—any smaller and it would have been out of proportion. His cheekbones gave his face a rugged, almost chiseled masculinity, and the lines on his face—laughter lines, crow’s-feet around his eyes—gave him an air of maturity. But that sense of maturity was often countered by his quick, cheeky grin and the devilish twinkle that could light his blue eyes.
He turned, as if he felt her looking at him, and met her gaze in the dim light. But she didn’t get the smile that she expected as he studied her own face as carefully as she’d studied him. The serious intensity of his expression made her pulse leap, and she knew that with very little encouragement, he would kiss her.
Kiss me.
She wanted to say it, but her mouth was dry. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. All of the searing heat and the electrical undercurrents they’d come inside to avoid seemed to swirl around them.
Cooper’s eyes held a fire that Josie knew he often worked hard to keep hidden from her. He couldn’t hide it now—he didn’t even bother to try, and Josie knew that if she let it, the heat from that fire would consume them both. It was raw desire, powerful and passionate. And uncontrollable.
One kiss. All it would take was one kiss. And she would no longer have to find the courage to ask him back to her apartment. Cooper would go with her without having to be asked. The decision would be made, simultaneously, unspoken, but in total agreement as that one particular kiss made the sexual attraction that had been simmering between them all summer erupt into a full boil.
Kiss me.
But she couldn’t say it and Cooper looked away, breaking their eye contact. When he looked back at Josie, he somehow managed to smile, but even that wasn’t enough to totally conceal the fire that still burned in his eyes.
“This movie is the pits,” he whispered to her.
She nodded, somehow finding her voice. “Yeah.”
He was silent for a moment, then he said, “Do you want to leave?”
Josie looked at him. He was watching her, a curious light of expectancy, or maybe it was anticipation, in his eyes.
Suddenly breathless, and once again rendered speechless by the sheer magnitude of her own desire for this man, Josie nodded her head. Yes.
The night’s heat hit them like a soggy towel in the face, and they both stopped outside of the theater’s doors, unsure where to go, what to do.
Come home with me, Josie longed to say. But she couldn’t. Lord, she didn’t have enough nerve even to ask him to kiss her. Did she honestly think she could
proposition
the man?
“Are you hungry? Do you want to go get something to eat?” Cooper asked.
Josie cleared her throat. “No, I—”
A tremendous thunderclap interrupted, reverberating between the buildings, echoing down the streets. Startled, she jumped back—and found herself nose to nose with Cooper, held tightly in his arms.
“Wow, that was loud,” she managed to say.
“Yeah,” he breathed. He didn’t let her go.
Seconds passed—a handful, and then a handful more, and still Cooper didn’t release her. It started to rain and still he stared down, into her eyes. Large, heavy drops of water spaced far apart made dots of moisture on the sidewalk, on the street, on the top of Josie’s head. The pace of the falling rain started to accelerate, and then another crack of thunder seemed to split the sky wide open.
Cooper grabbed Josie and pulled her with him back under the theater’s marquis, but it was too late. They were already soaked.
The rain was warm, but Cooper’s hand was warmer. And this time it was Josie who wouldn’t let go of him.
“Come on,” she shouted over the roar of the rain. She tugged him back out into the deluge. Hand in hand, they ran down the sidewalk, splashing through the puddles that had appeared almost instantaneously.
“Where are we going?” Cooper asked, but she didn’t answer.
The rain ran down Josie’s back, and into her eyes, and splashed up onto her bare legs. Her sneakers were already waterlogged, but she didn’t care.
Two more blocks, and they were running up the stairs to the front door of Josie’s apartment.
The door kept out most of the sound of the rain, and in the sudden quiet of the lobby, Josie could hear her heart beating. Cooper was wringing out his hair and as much of his clothes as he possibly could.
“It’s hopeless,” he announced, realizing that he had created a pool of water on the entryway floor. “I’m soaked.”
Josie took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Why don’t you come up,” she said, “and change out of your wet things?”
Oh Lord, had she really said that? What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just come out and tell him that she wanted him to stay, that she wanted to make love to him?
Impossibly, amazingly, he didn’t understand what she meant. “Somehow I doubt that you have anything in my size that I could change into,” he said with a laugh.
Who said anything about changing
into
. . . ? Josie didn’t say it aloud, but somehow Cooper must’ve read her mind, because he suddenly got very, very quiet.
“Josie?” he said.
She looked up at him. The expression on his face, in his eyes, was wonderful. He wanted her, that was clear to see, but he was hardly daring to hope that he could have her.
“Stay tonight,” she said softly, no longer shy or embarrassed or afraid to say those words out loud. It was what she wanted so desperately, and she knew without a doubt that he wanted it, too.
Josie held out her hand and he took it. Together, silently, they went up the stairs. Josie fished in the pocket of her shorts for her keys, but before she could open the door, Cooper put his hand over the lock.
“Before we go inside,” he said, his voice husky, “there’s something you have to know.”
As Josie looked up at him, he raked his fingers back through his wet hair. His eyes were so serious, so probing and intense as he said, “If this is just some kind of game for you, then it’s got to stop right here.” But then his face softened and he reached up to catch a drop of water that was running down Josie’s nose. “Because I’m in love with you, babe,” he said softly. “And if we go in there, and make love, I’m never going to leave you. Ever. You’re going to have to spend the rest of your life with me.” He pulled his hand away from the lock. “So if you think you can handle that, then go ahead. Open the door.”
Josie could barely breathe. He loved her. Cooper—wonderful, vibrant, magical Cooper
loved
her. Her hand shook, but somehow she managed to get the key into first one lock and then another. The final click of the deadbolt sliding opened echoed in the hallway, as if announcing her decision. With one push, the door swung open.
“
Yes
,” she heard Cooper breathe, and she looked over to find him smiling at her. But he didn’t move, didn’t go inside the apartment.
“Josie, do you love me?” he asked.
“Do you think I’d agree to spend the rest of my life with any ol’ man?” she said, trying to make light of his words. Was he talking about . . . marriage? But he hadn’t actually said that word . . .
“I’m serious,” he said.
“I am, too.”
“Say it,” he said. “Please?”
“I love you.” Josie could hear the conviction in her own voice, and wondered if he could see the love that she felt by looking in her eyes. She wondered if he could see into her very heart. It felt good to say those words aloud, to say them to Cooper. And Lord, if she could tell him
that,
she could surely tell him anything. “Kiss me, Cooper.” For the first time, she had no problem saying it.
Cooper laughed with delight. And then he kissed her. It was a kiss designed to knock her socks off, a kiss of possession, a kiss that promised that the rest of her life—if indeed he had meant what he’d said—was going to be very nice indeed.
He closed and locked the door, and then he kissed her again.
Josie felt herself melt, molding her body against his. She’d dreamed about the way this would feel, but her dreams didn’t even come close to the reality. His body was muscular and hard, and—Lord! There was no mistaking how badly he wanted her.
He kissed her again and again, long, exquisite kisses that propelled them both through the living room and into Josie’s bedroom. Cooper discarded his T-shirt and she had to catch her breath. Sure, she’d seen him without his shirt on before, after a basketball game, or out riding his skateboard in the park. But she’d never seen him this way—knowing that she would soon be touching him.
He reached for her, gently tugging her shirt free from her shorts, pulling it over her head.
Somehow he knew that she was embarrassed, that she wasn’t comfortable with her body, because he moved quickly then. He rid them both of their shorts and tumbled her back with him, down onto her bed.
The explosion of sensations was amazing as Cooper’s legs intertwined with hers, as his hard, lean body pressed against hers, as he kissed her, and her face was briefly covered by a soft, faintly damp, sweet-smelling curtain of his long hair.
She felt him touching her everywhere, caressing, exploring. Their underwear disappeared as if by magic—and in the same way, the outside world ceased to exist. There was only Cooper—Cooper, who loved her.
He took his time, kissing, stroking her, moving deliberately and tantalizingly slowly as she ran her fingers through his wild hair and touched him in return. His skin was so soft—soft over the hard steel of his muscles. She trailed her fingers down the ridges and hills of his back, down to the even smoother, softer curve of his buttocks.
Josie sat up then, pulling free of his arms, wanting to touch his long, powerful legs. Solid and strong, covered lightly with springy hair bleached light brown by the sun, his legs were gorgeous. She’d had plenty of opportunities to watch those legs as he played basketball at the Y. Watch them, study them, stare at them, fantasize . . .
She looked up to find Cooper’s eyes on her. He was looking at her, inch by inch, and it was clear that he liked what he saw. She resisted the urge to cover herself. Cooper was her lover now. She shouldn’t feel embarrassed or shy in front of him. But shouldn’t wasn’t the same as didn’t.
Josie felt her face grow warm as she blushed.
“Josie,
querida,
I love you.” Cooper sat up effortlessly and cupped her chin with his hand, turning her face so that she had to look into his eyes. “You’re beautiful—don’t you know that?”