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The notion disquieted him. He’d spent weeks navigating the troubled waters between their houses, trying not to make an enemy, hardly thinking she could ever be a friend, much less more than that. When he had started thinking of her with obvious interest—only in the past few days—that long list of reasons not to go there rolled out.
It was a bad idea, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was.
How could a man like him, who did what he did, and who’d never had a single close relationship in his goddamn life, get involved with a woman like Siena, all sharp points and rough edges, wound so tightly, so much in need and so suspicious of help? A woman raising achild. How could he be anything but a problem in their lives, and how could they be anything but the same in his?
The part of him still asking all these questions wanted to pull back, but the rest of him felt too good to listen. Yeah, it was a bad idea. Hardly the first bad idea he’d had, or acted on. But she fit perfectly in his arms, her tongue felt perfect in his mouth, lapping at his, her whimpers and moans were like music.
He wanted more. Without thinking beyond the pure id of that thought, Cooper slipped his hands down her back, over her ass—so firm and pert and fuckingperfect. Keeping their mouths sealed together, he clutched those perky globes in his hands and lifted her off the mat.
She gasped softly, but didn’t lose a beat—in fact, she brought her legs up and looped them around his hips. Cooper took the invitation and crouched, taking them down to the mat, trying to go slowly enough to give her space to stop him if she wanted.
She didn’t try to stop him. Instead, laying her on the matactivatedher. All at once she went wild, grabbing at his shirt, his sweats, snatching at his hair, rocking her hips up to grind herself against his achingly hard cock. He’d wanted to go slowly for her, but if she wanted to go fast, he was one-hundred-percent down with that plot twist.
When she grabbed the back of his shirt again, he let her have what she wanted, helping her pull it up and off. Their kiss broken, she went still for a second, studying his chest with her eyes and hands both. Her hands were hot and silky soft, her nails just long enough to make each and every nerve ending buzz.
“Jesus,” she breathed. Then her roaming fingers followed the trail from his belly button into his sweats, and he took over again before she made him forget all his better instincts.
He slipped his hand under her t-shirt, feeling the satiny quiver of her belly and side—but then, just as he started to push the shirt upward, she went still and dropped both hands to grab its hem.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice breathless but chilled.
Not until that moment had Cooper remembered about her chest. It surprised even him how little it mattered to him.
“I don’t care, baby. It doesn’t matter.”
Her eyes closed, and she turned her head.
Cooper was about at the point he thought something would break if he didn’t get inside her, but he kept still and made himself ready for this moment to end. It sucked, though. Obviously she wanted him like he wanted her, and they were right here at the precipice of something that might be really good.
What could he do to reassure her? What was she afraid of?
Well, obviously, she was afraid of his reaction, afraid he’d hurt her with it. He could promise he wouldn’t, but honestly, he didn’t know what to expect. Scars, certainly. Maybe bad ones. He’d never seen mastectomy scars. Could he trust himself not to react at all, even reflexively?
Of course he could. He’d faced all kinds of shit without reaction. His life as a Bull had been shoulder-deep in horrors, especially the past few years, and he’d taken it all with barely a blink. Certainly nothing under Siena’s t-shirt could possibly be like any of that.
“I want to see,” he said aloud. Not a promise, but a truth.
She turned back and looked up at him. “I’m not ready to show you.”
That wasn’t a no, it was a ‘not yet.’ She felt it, too: the beginning of something.
Her eyes dropped from his. “It’s okay. I get it.” She let go of her t-shirt and put her hands on his chest, pushing, and her legs slipped from their clutch around his hips.
“No, you don’t,” he said, refusing to allow her to push him away. “Unless you tell me you don’t want this, I’m not going anywhere.”
Her brow creased as she studied him. “Youwant this? Me?”
Cooper grinned. Putting his weight on one hand, he used the other to take her hand and set it on the front of his sweats. “I want you, Siena.”
The move was a mistake: too pushy, too smarmy. She snatched her hand away. “That’s just a reflex. Guys get hard at practically anything.”
He could think of only one way to convince her that what he felt was more than a physical reflex. Without asking, he lowered his body onto hers. He kissed her lightly and whispered, “I want these beautiful soft lips,” before he sucked her plump bottom lip between his teeth. Then he began a journey from there, brushing his lips to her chin, along her jaw, to her ear, pausing there to lave and suck and whisper, “I want your soft, soft skin that smells like flowers.”
He traveled down her neck, to the join of her shoulder, feeling her hair tickle his nose. “I want your silky hair and your collarbones.”
She sighed and relaxed. Cooper found the edge of her short sleeve and began his travels again, trailing kisses down her arm—“I want these beautiful, sleek arms”—to the point where her stretchy pants started. There, he tugged the waistband down and sucked at the place where her waist dipped inward, just above her hip.
“I want the feel of your body under me,” he murmured, brushing his nose over her belly, feeling her muscles jig and shimmy. She squirmed beneath him, her hips lifting to offer what lay just under the black fabric, but Cooper had other plans.
