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“How long is this flight, anyway?” Cooper asks.
“Forty minutes, give or take.” I catch him watching me as I turn back from the window to face him. “Why?”
“Just wondering how long I get you for,” he says. “You realize I haven’t had you alone this much since we were in college?”
“We’re hardly alone,” I say, glancing around the cabin as the plane starts to taxi down the runway.
A slow grin lifts the side of Cooper’s mouth.
“We weren’t exactly alone the other night, either,” he murmurs. “But that didn’t seem to bother you.”
He means the night at the bar. Good Lord. What have I gotten myself into?
“Nope.” I drain the rest of my glass and stare at the cup in my hand. They’re tiny servings, really. Of course, I haven’t eaten yet today—too anxious at work and too busy this afternoon—so maybe I should take it easy on the drinks. Thank God it’s a short flight.
“Nope, you’re not playing,” asks Cooper. “Or ‘nope,’ it didn’t bother you?”
I’m pretty sure that smirk means he’s got me pegged, but I take a shot at denial anyway.
“I mean, nope, not playing,” I say. My breathless delivery gives me away and Cooper’s grin widens.
“Now that’s a damn shame,” he says thoughtfully, sipping his own drink. “I thought five days in the wilderness might be just the thing to help you unwind.”
“What wilderness?” I ask, laughing. “It’s an exclusive resort, not some cabin shack in the woods.”
“All the same,” says Cooper, unfazed. The emphasis he’d put on the word “unwind” pulls at me, like he knows exactly what it would take to spin me out.
And he does. If memory serves, the man knows exactly what he’s doing.
“What about Drew?” I ask, before I can think it through.
His smirk disappears and Cooper scowls. “What about him?”
“Aren’t… Didn’t you— You guys—” I have absolutely no idea how to ask him what I want to know.
“Oh,” he says. Light dawns, chasing the scowl off his face. “You mean Drew and me.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “What else?”
Cooper looks up at me through his lashes. “You tell me, Ross.”
A vivid memory of Drew pounding into me, pressing me up against the wall, Cooper’s name in the air between us flashes before my eyes and I feel my cheeks go red.
“Well, now. What have we here?” Cooper brings a hand up to touch my cheek. “That’s quite a blush, Bailey. Something you want to tell me?”
I shake my head, fast enough to make me dizzy. Or maybe it’s the altitude. Or maybe it’s just because he’s sitting so close. I can see just the barest hint of a tattoo peeking through the collar of his shirt. He didn’t have that tattoo back in college. The urge to trace its lines with my tongue comes out of nowhere, making me blush even harder.
“You and Drew,” I blurt. “You kissed him backstage.”
Cooper takes a deep breath.
“I did.”
“Why?” I ask, trying to get a handle on my own breathing before I hyperventilate from overexcitement. I’ve never been so turned on in my life. “Alan would have taken your word for it. You didn’t have to kiss Drew to prove anything. So why?”
Cooper takes his sweet time answering, his eyes searching my face for something before he speaks again.
“Why did you kiss him at the gala?”
