The Rebel (The Millionaire Malones Book 3) (13 page)

‘Which will all be great if you can’t—’

‘I’ll be fine, Maggie Mac.’ He shook
his head slightly, to shake her off. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She got it. Big man with a sore paw does not want to discuss it.

Cooper hobbled over to her, standing in front of her, his legs brushing against her knees. He reached for her glass, took it from her hand and set it on the coffee table behind him. ‘Now. There’s something I need to say.’

Maggie swallowed. ‘There’s something I need to say, too.
But you go first.’

‘I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for having me here. For looking after me.’

‘You don’t have to thank me. It’s what friends do, right?’

‘Friends?’ His eyebrow quirked.

‘Yeah, Cooper. Friends.’ If she repeated the word she might start to believe that’s all she had ever wanted from the handsome and damn sexy Cooper Malone.

‘I think I’ve worked out a way to repay
you.’

‘You don’t have to repay me anything,’ Maggie replied, shaking her head adamantly.

‘Oh yeah, I do.’ Cooper looked into her eyes and he seemed to get taller with a full intake of breath. He held out a hand to her. ‘I think we should have sex.’

‡

T
hey should
 …
what
the hell
?

Maggie automatically checked the room to see that Evan hadn’t woken and wandered into the living room at the exact same time Cooper had suggested they should have sex.

Sex. Her and Cooper. Oh no. The slow flame of that thought
had been flickering in her and now, with his words, he’d thrown gasoline on that fire.
Whoosh
. Damn her body and how it reacted to that look in his eyes, his dark and intent gaze, the husk in his voice. Damn how tall he was and damn his chest. Damn his cock and how strong and hard she knew it could be. And damn it all that he’d seen through her disguise and guessed how she felt.

Maggie gripped
a throw pillow and clenched her thighs together to quell the throbbing.

‘What did you say?’ Maggie aimed for calm confidence but the sound that came out of her mouth was kind of shrieky.

‘Wait a minute. Isn’t that what you were going to say?’ Cooper looked confused.

‘Was I going to suggest we have sex? Er,
no
.’

Cooper ran a hand through his hair and then scrubbed it over his jaw, which was
bristling with growth. Clearly, he was doubly confused. ‘Well … I’ve just shot my load, haven’t I? What
were
you going to say?’

‘I … I was going to whip your ass because … that kiss earlier today? In the kitchen? That was just showing off and you need to stop it.’

‘Showing off?’

‘Yes.’

Cooper watched her for a moment. ‘You didn’t react like you wanted me to stop.’

‘Well, I did.’

‘You didn’t
like it?’

That throbbing in her thighs had been replaced with a twisting in her stomach, giant knots turning in on themselves, tighter and tighter, squeezing the air from her lungs. ‘No. Well, yes … okay, I liked it. But that’s not the point. This—you and me—it has nowhere to go and a kiss like that needs somewhere to go.’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And that somewhere is sex.’

‘C’mon, Cooper.’ Maggie
looked away from him, hoping the wine buzz would hit any second to take the edge off what was skittering and tingling through her body.

‘Six years, Maggie.’ He reached for her hand and pulled her to standing, then lifted a finger and teased it down a single curl, which spilled over her shoulders and down on to the curve of her breast. ‘I can see it in your eyes. You need to have sex. And I’m
a man and I’m here.’

She stared at him, blank faced.

‘No strings. We’re friends now and we’ll be friends after. Nothing has to change.’ That finger in her hair teased down the collar of her shirt, lightly brushed her décolletage as it headed lower. When it met the first button, he slid a finger inside the fabric and traced the edge of her bra against the curve of her breast. Her skin zapped
and tingled.

Maggie looked down where his fingers grazed her skin, shooting sparks right into her heart. She started to remember what it was like to be spontaneous, to be free to do what her body wanted. And damn she wanted to have sex with him. So, so much.

‘Just because we’re good at kissing, doesn’t mean the sex would be any good. Sex would be another thing entirely.’

‘Damn right it would,’
Cooper murmured.

‘And you’re injured. I’m sure you wouldn’t be up to your full strength, if you know what I mean.’

He chuckled and the sound of it was the sexiest thing Maggie had ever heard. His breath was hot on her neck as he whispered in her ear, ‘There are ways around that. I’m good, Maggie Mac. You know that about me, don’t you?’

When Cooper’s lips touched her throat, parts of her sparked.
Parts that had been lonely for a man’s touch for a long, long time. Parts of her that had been imagining for six years what it would be like to make love with Cooper. Maggie stood completely still, willing his fingers to move across her breast, to cup her there, to flick her budded nipple with his thumb. He was right about one thing. He was a man, and he was there, and she was reacting the way
any woman would.

She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what’s bigger. Your cock or your ego.’

Cooper pressed his lips to her throat again. ‘Why don’t you be the judge of that?’

He popped a button on her shirt, and he kissed her there, in the dip between her breasts. When he glanced up at her, she tucked her index finger under his chin and directed his gaze away from her breasts to her
eyes.

She froze at what she saw.

She’d expected a tease, a laugh, to go along with the game she thought he was playing.

But what she saw was raw desire. His darkened eyes, the clench of muscles in his shadowed jaw and the sound of his breath, ragged and quick, revealed that this wasn’t a game to him anymore.

She stepped back. Wrapped her arms around herself. Her head had won. ‘Thanks for the
generous offer,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

And turned on her heel and left.

*

Cooper’s knee was
throbbing like a bastard. Probably because all the blood in his body was pooling elsewhere. He picked up Maggie’s wine glass, finished what was in it with a huge gulp – even thought he knew he shouldn’t – and put the glass back
on the coffee table.

He caught his reflection in the mirror behind the picture frames and told the man reflected there the truth. ‘You’re a fuckwit, you know that Cooper Malone?’

What the hell had he just done? He’d let the ghosts and regrets of six years ago come back to life in his head. When he should have acted, but he hadn’t. And now, he’d acted when he shouldn’t have. He’d made a stupid
proposition to Maggie that she was right to reject. Trust her to be the sensible one. He guessed that’s what came with being a mom and with being part of a family. A family. The word rang inside his head. His own had shattered when he was fourteen, and he’d spent the past nearly two decades moving around so much so he wouldn’t feel the yearning for home and for that comfort; the longing for one
place to rest his head, for one woman to be waiting for him. For calm and peace, for a safe haven. His brothers had it, finding love with two great women, which only made Cooper feel more distant than ever from the happiness he wanted.

The happiness he wanted but couldn’t have. As long as he was a surfer his life was on the road. It was all he knew. He’d turned it into a professional career to
make up for not having a family, and now it was the one thing standing in the way of what he’d always hoped would be his future.

A future his former friend Vance could have had but had walked away from. A future that could have been Cooper’s if he’d taken the chance when he’d had it. Damn it. And just now, he’d acted like an idiot instead of a friend and missed his second chance, but it was a
chance he had no right to take. Maggie’s life was in California, his was all over the world. She’d created a life here that he was a guest in, not a partner.

But that kiss … His suggestion had started as a hopeful tease but holy hell, it had turned into something he hadn’t planned. The way her breath had hitched and caught when he’d touched her, the sweet smell of her, so intoxicating when he’d
pressed his lips to the swell of her breasts. If she hadn’t walked away …

She was right to have done so.

Cooper made it to the sofa and fell backwards onto it. It jarred his knee awkwardly and he cursed. No matter what happened—in or out of the bedroom (or the kitchen or the sofa)—they needed to remain friends. He would never walk away from the kid he thought of as his own. He would never let
Evan go through what he’d been through.

And he would never walk away from the woman he’d been in love with for six years but could never have. The woman who’d chosen Vance.

He had to remember that, no matter how much it burned.

Cooper grabbed the remote control to the TV, found something mindless to watch and settled in to count the explosions.

*

Maggie had torn
off her clothes, tugged a camisole top over her panties and slipped between the cool sheets on the sofa bed. She was too wired to do anything but lie there, twisting the sheet in her fingers, and think about Cooper’s totally stupid, ridiculous-as-all-hell offer. His patronising, ridiculous-as-all-hell offer.

His words swirled around her head like the wine in her glass had.

I’m good, Maggie Mac. You know that about me, don’t you?

She’d always thought he would be. There was a physicality about him that was undeniable. That masculine, testosterone-filled competitive streak he had meant he would want to be good. He was attentive to women, and boy did he know how to flirt. When he’d turned it on her just now, lowered his eyelids and his voice, even though she knew it
was a game, she’d fallen for it.

Almost.

Maggie tossed and turned, twisting the sheets around her body, sweating now and itching for someone’s touch.

God, she wanted him. She hungered to feel someone skin to skin. She was desperate to be kissed the way Cooper had kissed her. She craved the blissful satisfaction of taking a man inside her and then the throb and release of her own orgasm. It
had been too long. Criminally long. Beyond-human-endurance long.

But she couldn’t have any of that, could she? Not with him. Life didn’t turn out that way. Just because a woman was about to explode from desire, didn’t mean she could find someone to share the fireworks with. There was no point in going down that road with Cooper. As soon as his knee was better, he’d be back on a plane and off
to the next beach. That wasn’t what she needed. That wasn’t what Evan needed in a father.

There were lopsided, stomping footsteps in the hallway and then the sound of the bathroom door closing. She lifted her head from her pillow and looked up. The dim strip of light bleeding under her doorway had disappeared. A moment later, more footsteps and another door quietly closed. He was in her bedroom.
In her bed. He was probably kicking himself out of his board shorts right about now, and then getting into her bed, naked.