by Jill Shalvis
“I’m going to have to find another job.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll have to see Dean there—that’s rat fink bastard to you and me—and I still have an uncontrollable urge to kill him. That won’t look good in my review, plus it’ll be hard to get another job from prison.”
He tried to see her in the dark. “You’re not going to let him take that job from you, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with a sigh. “You should see my resumé. It’d make you dizzy.” She sighed. “Truth is, I don’t sit still for long anyway.”
“No? What jobs have you held?”
“Receivables, payables, payroll—you name it in accounting, I’ve done it.”
“So you like numbers,” he said, nodding. “Makes sense. You like order.”
“How do you know that?”
“This whole setting makes you nervous because it’s not what was planned.”
“You can say that again,” she said with feeling.
“And I’ve seen your journal. Very organized. Like an accountant’s brain.”
“I wasn’t that organized when it came to staying with one job.”
“Nothing wrong with that, as long as moving around makes you happy.”
Now it was her turn to come up on her elbows and peer through the dark. “You really believe that?”
“Sure,” he said, leaning in closer for a better look, because for a second he’d have sworn that her eyes went suspiciously bright with a sheen of tears. But then it was gone. “Breanne?”
“I’m tired,” she whispered. She turned over, curling up into a tiny ball facing away from him. “’Night.”
“’Night.” He was confused as hell, but when it came to women, that was really nothing new. Nothing new at all.
He was just drifting off when he heard her soft whisper. “Cooper?”
“Still here.” Maybe she’d changed her mind about the sheet. The thought made his body twitch. Yeah, she was going to toss that damn thing aside and roll toward him. She’d wrap that hot little bod tight to his, and he’d—
“Thank you,” Breanne said very quietly.
He blinked. Thank you? He slid his hand down to cup himself. Still hard. Nope, he hadn’t missed anything. “What are you thanking me for?”
“For chasing my boogeyman. For making me feel safe.” Her smile broke his heart. “For letting me sleep with you.”
Ah, hell. “No problem.” But as he lay there, aching for reasons other than physical discomfort, reasons he couldn’t seem to put words to, it was a very long time before he followed her into slumber.
Cooper was having the dream of his life, and he hoped he never woke up. In a bed of the softest down, surrounded by the gentle glow of dawn, she lay in his arms, the woman of his fantasies. She was scantily clad in silk that seemed to mold to her skin in an erotic, seductive way, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
And because this was a dream, he didn’t have to.
She was his. He couldn’t quite remember how or why, but in dreamland, what the hell difference did it make? Around them, the air seemed thick. Spicy. Erotic. He dragged some of it into his taxed lungs and cupped her face, trying to see her through the haze all around him, but he couldn’t quite—
A sound escaped her, a sort of breathy, wordless plea, and he smoothed his fingers along the line of her jaw, sinking into the lovely disarray of her hair, letting it drape over his forearms as he leaned over her, lowering his mouth toward hers.
“Mmm,” she murmured as he swallowed her sigh of acquiescence. Her body seemed to melt against his like hot wax, and her mouth—God, her mouth was soft and warm and luscious, indescribably luscious.
She opened it to him, allowing his tongue to stroke hers, stroking his right back, both greedy and generous at the same time. His fantasy girlfriend was the best kisser he’d ever dreamed up. Not too wet, not too dry, but juuuust right. Her hand came up between them, opening flat on his chest. He took it in his, along with her other, and slowly dragged them both up over her head, palming them in one hand, using his free fingers to skim the hair from her face while he made himself at home between her thighs.
Eyes closed, hands captured by his, she arched up into his body with a soft, needy whimper.
In answer, he kissed her, and then again, sending shivers of heat and desire skittering to the base of his spine, pooling in his groin, where he was so hard for her he could hardly stand it.
“Nice,” she murmured, sighing with pure, unadulterated pleasure. Her full breasts pressed to his chest. Her hips cradled his. Her shorts were so minuscule his fingertips grazed bare skin as he reached down, the sweet curve of a cheek filling each hand. When he squeezed, kneading, she moaned and arched up, spreading her legs to better accommodate his, nestling his erection perfectly into the crotch of those skimpy shorts. Skimming his hand higher, beneath the silk now, he palmed her bare ass.
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
Deepening the kiss, he wrapped a finger around a tiny strap on her shoulder. Tugged.
A breast popped free.
A glorious, pale, perfectly rounded breast with a rosy, pouting nipple. Dipping his head, he very gently rubbed his jaw over the full curve, absorbing every hungry sigh. Then again, over the very tip this time, watching as it puckered up all the more as she writhed beneath him, her breath sowing in and out of her lungs.
Then her hands were fisting in his hair, and she was tugging his mouth back to hers. They kissed as if they’d been separated for years instead of seconds; he poured everything he had into that moist, hot, brain-cell-destroying connection, his heart and soul, because this was a dream, a glorious dream.
Even so, far in the back of his mind came the niggling truth: she wasn’t really his. But the longer he kissed her, losing himself in the taste and feel of her, turning his head for a deeper fit, groaning with it, the easier it was to push all that out of his head.
She made it easy to do with those breathy little pants, her hands fisted on whatever part of him they could reach, stroking down his back to his butt, squeezing, pushing as she rocked to meet him with every thrust. They kissed as if it would be the end of the world to stop, as if they’d never get another chance to do this. With a low hum that reminded him of a happy kitten purring her pleasure, she slid her hands beneath his sweats. Squeezed. Cradled him all the tighter within her thighs. He could feel both her tension and his, could feel her tremble, could hear his own loud, labored breathing.
She whispered his name.
Unbelievably, his toes curled, his body tightening as he barreled down that narrow road toward climax. Given her own wild, delirious state, she was right with him. He kissed his way to her jaw, then her throat. “I’m going to taste every inch of you, Breanne.”
Beneath him she went utterly still.
Abruptly he went from a blissful dreamland to brutal wakefulness. Lifting his head, he opened his eyes in the early morning light and stared down at her.
“You,” Breanne said.
Yeah, him.
Just as in his fantasy state, he had her tucked beneath him, legs spread to accommodate his. He had one hand plumping up her bared breast for his mouth, the other gripping her butt, the very tips of his fingers dipping into heaven, his mouth wet from hers as he stared down at her.
For her part, she’d wrapped herself around him like a pretzel. “I . . . I thought it was a dream,” she whispered.
“It was a hell of a great one,” he said, half hoping she’d let him continue it.
She just stared up at him, hair tousled, eyes still sleepy, cheeks pink, looking like she’d just been fucked every which way but Sunday—and had thoroughly enjoyed it.
“I guess the sheet wasn’t enough of a barrier after all,” he said, wondering if he needed to apologize.
“Get off.”
When he didn’t, she shoved him off her in a sudden flurry of movement, scooting out of the bed, running into the bathroom, but not before
shooting him a scathing look that might have shriveled another man’s parts right off.
Not Cooper’s. Nope, his part still bounced in his pants, the eternal optimist.
The bathroom door slammed shut with a finality that suggested he should go, and was going, to hell in a handbasket. Alone. “Uh . . . Breanne?”
Nothing from the bathroom.
With a heavy sigh, he got out of bed, looking ruefully down at his tented pants. “Down, boy,” he murmured, and walked to the door. “Open up.”
“Go far, far away!”
As if he could. “What are you mad at? That I was kissing you, or that you were kissing me back?”
She muttered something, some smear on his heritage, and then the shower came on. He hoped the water heater was powered by the propane tank he’d seen outside, or there wouldn’t be any hot water.
“And for your information,” she yelled through the door. “You were doing more than just sticking your tongue down my throat!”
“Same goes, Princess.”
She replied with yet another unintelligible mutter, which for some sick reason made him grin.
It made no sense. Her late-night confessional warning that she was done with men still echoed in his ears. She wasn’t interested in him, or at least she didn’t want to be interested.
Fine by him.
But as he stood there in the early morning, getting chilled in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, a part of him wanted to prove to her that not all men were scum.
While another part of him entirely just wanted to sink into her body.
He heard the shower door open and then shut—yep, powered by the propane, because there was no way Princess was taking a cold shower—and he sighed yet again. No sinking, at least not today.
But there was always tonight.
Eleven
I hear copious amounts of chocolate solves all problems. Someone send copious amounts of chocolate!
—Breanne Mooreland’s journal entry
Breanne stared at herself in the mirror. Hot water rose from the shower, steaming the glass, but she could still see. Too much. Her hair was wild, her cheeks flushed, her lips plumped up from all the action they’d just seen . . . and there was a wet spot over the silk covering her breast—from Cooper’s mouth.
She looked as if she was indeed on her honeymoon.
This was idiotic. This was dangerous. Just the thought of what she’d just done with that man scrambled her brain and made her squirm. He’d nearly sent her shuddering into an orgasm with just a long, languid kiss that had surprised her with its potent heat and shocking intimacy.
She looked away from herself—she had to. Lined up on the counter were an assortment of goodies laid out for the honeymooners. The condoms came in all shapes and colors, and she pictured lying in the bed, watching her man come toward her, erect penis dressed for the party in sunshine yellow, bouncing as it came closer—
Only it wasn’t that image that made her slam her eyes shut, but the fact that the man in the vivid image had been one hot, hard Cooper Scott.
Bad. Bad, bad Breanne. She picked up a neck massager—uh-huh, right, she just bet that was used only as a neck massager—and then the scented body oils. The label said edible. Chocolate.
Her favorite.
No! No chocolate body oil in her near future, no way, no how. She needed to get a grip here, a serious grip. No parts of Cooper were going to be a chocolate-flavored dessert. It was not only fattening as hell, but incredibly wrong. Her life was in ruins, and she needed to remember that. She was on a mission to get the hell out of this place and back to civilization, where she could get to a Starbucks in three minutes or less, where she could hail a cab, where her cell phone worked.
She headed toward the shower, but on second thought stopped to drag the day couch from the far wall, pushing it against the bathroom door, protecting herself from any interruptions or boogeymen or voyeurs—never mind that she herself had been a voyeur only yesterday.
From the long, narrow windows on either side of the shower she could see only a sea of white. No depth perception, no landmarks visible, nothing but white, white, white.
Unbelievably, the snow was still falling. She turned the shower to scalding, stripped, and stepped in, and in spite of herself let out a little whimper of pleasure. My God, the showerheads were worth their weight in gold, aimed at all the good spots, hitting her already sensitized and aching flesh. For a moment she simply stood there absorbing the sensations. The soap smelled like—Cooper. Just the scent had her quivering, and by the time she rubbed it over her body she was aroused all over again.
Or still.
Ignoring it the best she could, she concentrated on her mission—getting out of Dodge. Fast.
She turned off the shower, and for lack of another choice, grabbed the lush, thick complimentary terry cloth bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Only when it was on did she drag the couch away and open the door a crack. She had her chin up and was ready to battle wits.
Except she was alone.
Well, not completely. Lariana was making the bed. She wore black again, a snugger-than-snug, low-scooped black blouse, a pair of tight, cropped pants with a tiny white half apron tied in a perfect bow low on her spine, topped off with spike heels that sank into the thick carpeting of the bedroom as she tugged the sheets taut.
Breanne admired the strength and stamina it must take to work in those heels, and thought longingly of the suitcases she’d lost, filled to the brim with her favorite fashions. Hugging the white robe to her still-damp body, she thought of her choices—her jeans and sweater and ruined boots, or Cooper’s sweats.
Ugh.
Lariana stopped nipping and tucking and faced Breanne with a holier-than-thou expression that was amusing, given that Breanne knew exactly how the maid had spent her evening.
Panting Patrick’s name and giving in to his lusty demands.
“Sleep okay?” Lariana asked innocently, with only the slightest trace of sarcasm. They both knew Breanne hadn’t started out in this bedroom.
“Gee, great,” she said, just as innocently. “And you?”
Lariana’s own superior smile didn’t so much as falter. “Fabulosa.”
Yeah, she just bet. “So how often do you get stuck sleeping here?”
“Whenever there’s a bad storm.”
“Edward, too?”
Lariana began fluffing pillows. “Except him.”
“Really? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know—I’m not in charge of the man. He’s in charge of me.”
Breanne sat on the bed, so Lariana had no choice but to stop making it and look at her. “Someone came into my room last night.”
“Yes. Apparently Cooper.”
Breanne glanced at the scene of the “crime,” the huge, luxurious mattress around her. She still couldn’t get over what she’d allowed to happen. How stupid she’d been to think that sheet would possibly keep Cooper on his side of the bed.
But to be fair, it hadn’t been him alone violating the imposed border. When she’d come all the way awake, she’d been on his side. Humiliating, really, that in sleep she’d been so desperate. “Not Cooper.”
Lariana’s perfectly waxed brow shot up. “No?”
“No. I fell asleep in that room you gave me and woke up to someone standing over the bed. After a near coronary, I came
