Elijah (The Cooper Brothers Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  Claudia snorted, and I cleared my throat, not sure Tino’s wife would be happy about us knowing she was having such problems.

  “It’s fine Tino,” I replied. “I’m just taking photographs and measurements today, now that the builders have finished.”

  “No problemo. You do whatever you need to do. I go ‘ome now to my beautiful wife, I ‘ave cream for ‘er.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding my head.

  “Eli, the gardener, He is ‘ere too. He ‘ave key and will lock door after you, okay?”

  “Yes, that’s fine. Elijah and I know each other actually.” I frowned wondering why on earth I’d felt the need to tell Tino that snippet of information.

  “Really? ‘Ow you know him?”

  “I -.” I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off by the sound of heavy boots on the concrete floor.

  “She’s my wife,” Elijah said, standing next to Tino and staring directly at me. “At least she was, until she ran away five years ago.”

  “Oh sheet,” Tino gasped. “We ‘ave bloody big trouble.”

  Elijah

  aged 28

  And there she was, my beautiful ex-wife. The woman I had loved with all my heart, who had turned into a fucking banshee after getting the wrong end of the stick - the shitty end, which she hit me with, repeatedly.

  “Oh sheet. We ‘ave bloody big trouble,” Tino said, as I informed him that Amy was my ex-wife.

  “It’s fine, Tino,” I replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’re all adults. There’ll be no trouble.”

  I watched Amy carefully, trying to regulate my breathing and stop the tremor in my hands. I hadn’t seen her for five years, and the fact that she looked as beautiful as ever, fucking floored me. Part of me wanted her to look broken and still devastated over the loss of our marriage, but she didn’t. Her head was held high, her shoulders were back, and there was a fierceness in her eyes. Amy Cooper, or should I say Brown, looked amazing and I couldn’t help but remember when she’d been mine.

  “I’m very professional,” Amy announced, narrowing her eyes at me.

  “You saying I’m not?” I asked, turning my attention back to the present.

  “No. Did I say that? Did I Claudia?” she asked, turning to the woman at her side.

  “Do you want me to answer, or is that a rhetorical question again?” Claudia asked, looking confused.

  Amy tutted. “Yes, I’d like an answer, please.”

  “Oh okay. No, you didn’t say that.”

  Claudia grinned at me and there was a little twinkle in her eye that told me she loved to play with Amy. Anyone who wanted to jangle those particular bells was okay in my book. The more pissed off she got the better. There was nothing I liked more than seeing the woman who walked out on me getting all riled up and frustrated.

  “I ‘ave to go,” Tino said, tentatively moving towards the door. “Please no fighting. Okay?”

  I nodded as Amy sighed with exasperation.

  “Like I said, I’m extremely professional.” Amy offered me a fake smile before turning to Tino. “Go home to your wife, Tino. We’re good here.”

  Tino blew us a kiss and was out of the huge front door and zooming down the driveway in his Jeep, within seconds.

  “So, looks like we’re going to be working together,” I said, as we heard the last sounds of Tino’s engine.

  “I wouldn’t say together,” Amy replied, unzipping her bag and producing a laser distance measurer, pad, and pen. “You keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours.”

  “Going to be hard Amy, it’s a big house but not that big that you can get lost in it. Plus, every bloody room looks out onto the garden, so…” I grinned at her letting my insinuation sink in.

  “I won’t be watching you, if that’s what you’re saying. I have plenty of work to do. Once the contractors are here, I’ll be even more tied up.”

  “Well let’s hope this project is successful for both of us.”

  “I’m sure it will be.”

  “So, how’s the family?” I asked, genuinely interested.

  “Fine, thank you. Mum and Dad have moved…actually you know what, Elijah,” she said with a shake of her head, “let’s just stick to talking about the house. It’ll work much better for both of us.”

  With a flick of her hair, she walked over to the staircase and I couldn’t help but watch the sway of her hips in the tight skirt she was wearing. Fuck, she was still hot and still knew how to use her assets. When we’d first met at school, Amy had been a little shy at first, but as soon as we started going out her confidence increased massively. She wasn’t cocky or anything like that, she simply started to believe me when I told her she was gorgeous. As for when we started having sex, well her sexiness went off the charts and a little swing was introduced to her hips and arse. Her tops got a little lower and her hair a lot more sexed up. But it was all for me, only ever for me. She never once looked at another boy or man in all the years we were together. Now here she was swaying those hips again and I hadn’t failed to notice the hint of white lace under her tight shirt. Yeah, she could certainly afford to fasten one more button without looking like an old maid.

  “Claudia, can you take the mood board out for the lounge, please?” she said over her shoulder, hanging her bag over the newel post of the bannister. “We’ll start measuring up in there.”

  “Strange,” I said, watching Claudia as she walked towards the lounge. “I’ll be working outside the lounge.”

  “And?” Amy asked, swinging around to face me.

  I shrugged. “Nothing, just pointing out I’ll be working hard outside the lounge window. It’ll be just like old times, you’ll be able to watch me work through the window.”

  Amy’s back stiffened as she threw me a glare.

  “This will be nothing like old times,” she snapped. “Because this time I won’t be falling for your lies.”

  With that she stormed off in the same direction as Claudia, and the fact that I thought she was really hot when she was angry left me feeling a little bit strange.

  Elijah

  aged 17

  It was bloody roasting hot and I was desperate for a drink, but I wasn’t stopping until I finished mowing the lawn for Mr Brown, Amy’s dad. He’d suffered an unexpected heart attack a few months before, at just forty-three years of age and was still feeling the effects of it, so anything I could do to help I did.

  Amy and I had been going out for almost eight months and I was pretty much part of the family, more so in the last three months since Mr Brown had been ill. I’d kind of become the odd job man of the house, doing the garden, mending the fence, that sort of thing. Amy was constantly telling me not to worry about things, but I liked helping out. I liked her – okay, I loved her – and I wanted her and her family to be happy, well as happy as they could be while they were still worried about Mr Brown’s health. If the fact that I did a few odd jobs did that, well, I was happy too.

  As I finished my second to last run up the lawn with the mower, I looked up to see Amy watching me through her bedroom window. Shit she looked beautiful today, possibly because I’d fucked her this morning when her parents had taken Matty, her brother, to buy new school shoes. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and looked a little messy, as though she’d been running her hands through it – in fact, it looked like it did when I ran my hands through it. What the hell had she been doing?

  “Open the window,” I shouted, miming the action of her pushing down the handle.

  “What?” she asked as she leaned out, giving me a glimpse of her cleavage under her red checked shirt.

  “Why does your hair look all sexed up?” I licked my lips as I felt movement in my shorts.

  Amy grinned and leaned her elbow on the window sill, resting her chin in her hand. “No reason.”

  “You little liar. You’ve been touching yourself, haven’t you?”

  When she only answered with a giggle, I decided the damn lawn could wait. I needed
to quench my thirst.

  “What time is everyone back?” I asked, bending down to unplug the mower from the extension cable. After lunch they’d all gone off to see Mrs Brown’s parents and thank fuck for that.

  “They could be ages yet,” Amy called down. “Grandad likes to watch the football results with Dad and Matty.”

  I glanced at my watch. We had at least two hours in that case. I ran to the house, kicked off my grass laden trainers at the door, and raced up the stairs as quickly as I could with a raging boner.

  When I got to Amy’s room, I saw she was in the shirt and nothing else. Her long legs, tanned from the recent heatwave, were bare and looked as smooth as silk and I couldn’t wait to get them wrapped around me.

  “I didn’t touch myself,” Amy said, her fingertips plucking at the top button of her shirt. “I was going to, seeing you out there with your shirt off looking all tanned and buff and sexy as hell got me all horny.”

  “Fuuuck,” I groaned, pacing towards her. “You make me so bloody hard.”

  I stopped in front of Amy and took her hand, placing it on my dick, letting her feel what she did to me.

  “Want to feel what you do to me?” she said, lifting her shirt and widening her legs.

  “Where’s your knickers?”

  Amy shrugged. “Didn’t put any on.”

  I swallowed hard and put my hand between her legs. Yep, she wanted me as much as I wanted her. I couldn’t get enough of this girl and every day with her just made me realise how deeply I’d fallen for her.

  “Take your top off,” I whispered, as I put two fingers inside her.

  With a little moan, Amy started to unbutton her shirt and by the third button I could see she wasn’t wearing a bra either. Her beautiful, round tits were aching to be touched if her hard nipples were anything to go by. So, as soon as the red checked fabric fell to the floor, by mouth was on her, slowly sucking on her nipples and then pulling my mouth away with a pop.

  As my fingers worked her, I moved my mouth to hers and kissed her deeply, my spare hand messing up her sex hair even more.

  “Elijah,” she gasped as my thumb rubbed against her clit. “Oh God.”

  “I love you,” I whispered into her ear, “so fucking much.”

  Amy breathed in and moved on to her tiptoes as her orgasm started to take hold.

  “I…oh…love you…shit…too.”

  As Amy came apart in my arms, I knew I’d never love anyone like I loved her. This wasn’t just a teenage first love, she had my fucking heart forever.

  Amy

  aged 28

  As I wrote down the measurement of the huge French windows that overlooked the area that was to be a terrace, I could see Elijah from the corner of my eye. He was doing the same thing I was; measuring and taking photographs. He’d been taking lots of measurements – I knew because I’d barely been able to stop taking secretive glances. It was like poking at a loose tooth, it damn well hurt, but you couldn’t stop doing it as you relished a little in the pain. That’s what Elijah was; a pain that I relished.

  Seeing his truck had sent my heart into over drive, but seeing him and being in the same airspace had almost knocked me off my feet. I thought I was going to pass out as a deep, cloying heat suffocated my body and my mind. Concentrating on being bitchy was the only way I was able to stop myself from collapsing in a heap on the floor.

  His gorgeous, brown eyes and long lashes still took my breath away, as with every blink they fluttered against his tanned cheeks. His face had gone from boyish and beautiful to handsome and manly, his chiselled jaw now covered in stubble and his hair no longer messy and slightly outgrown but cropped close to his head. Everything about him had improved over the five years since I’d last seen him, and he’d been almost flawless then. Even the tattoos on his arms were better – there were more of them for a start and without trying to stare too much, I could see the once monotone pictures were now full of colour. But it wasn’t simply his looks that had been perfect, he’d been an amazing husband. Yes, we had our rows like any couple, but we loved each other, and he’d cherished and respected me – well, until that night at least.

  Blowing out a breath, I got back to the job in hand - designing the interior for five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a lounge, a family and a dining room, all of which was going to take me some time. That being said, I knew Elijah’s task was even bigger than mine. Tino had told me that he and Sophie wanted two terraces that would both catch the sun at different times of the day, a garden where the kids could play and kick a ball around, one with plants and flowers where he and Sophie could relax, an herb garden, and somewhere for his llamas; all in all, a major amount of work. Add the fact that the land surrounding the house was currently mud, weeds, and rubble- it was going to take him and the guys who worked for him some time.

  My remit was to provide homely yet modern and stylish rooms that were contrasting to the exterior of the house with its cream, stuccoed walls, low pitched, red tiled roof and arched windows. If it had been up to Tino, there’d be Rubenesque art, marble pillars, and gilt-edged furniture, Sophie however, had a different idea. She’d given Tino carte blanche with the style of the house and the gardens, but she was insisting she made the decisions on the interior, which I was glad about – I loved modern and stylish- renaissance, not so much.

  “He’s going to be busy,” Claudia said, nodding toward Elijah who was writing something in a notepad.

  “Good.” I noted the width of the window and gave him a cursory glance. “It means I won’t have to speak to him too much.”

  “Got to be honest,” Claudia said, taking a photograph of the window. “He seems okay. Not half as monstrous as you made out.”

  “God, he’s bloody entranced you with those bloody long eyelashes, hasn’t he?”

  Claudia closed her eyes and tilted her head to the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, eyeing her up and down.

  “Just checking if imagining a penis does anything for me,” she replied, her eyes still closed. “But no, sorry.” She opened her eyes and shrugged. “I’m still gay. He didn’t manage to entrance me.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I snapped. “And you know it.”

  “Oh really?” she asked in mock surprise. “I thought you meant I found him so attractive I’d be vacuous enough to ignore his monstrous personality. Is that not what you meant?”

  She gave me a false smile and snapped another photograph. Sometimes I wondered why I kept her on, she was so bloody sarcastic and seemed to find great joy in winding me up. Problem was she was a damn good assistant and barely needed any direction.

  “I take people as I find them,” Claudia said from behind the camera. “And I found him to be perfectly pleasant. However, I realise I wasn’t married to him and you were.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  I didn’t elaborate because truth be told, it was still too painful to think about. Everything around our short-lived marriage made my chest ache. Actually, that was a lie, everything around the last three hours of our marriage made my chest ache.

  “We done in here?” Claudia asked.

  I looked down at my notes and measurements, tapping my pen against my chin. I had everything I needed and already had an idea of which fabrics I might use for curtains and throw cushions.

  “Yep, all done,” I replied, looking at my watch. “Shall we grab a coffee before we start on the dining room?”

  “Did you bring any?”

  I nodded. “In my bag, in the hall. There’s a jar of coffee and some insulated paper cups.”

  “Did you bring milk?” Claudia frowned as she handed me the camera.

  “Yep. I even brought some small packets of sugar.”

  She grinned and left me in the middle of the room, looking through the pictures she’d taken to see if I needed to take any others. Taking a few more, I then made my way to the gorgeous, state of the art kitchen, which had already been installed by the house builder.

&nb
sp; When I got there, Claudia was just pouring water into three cups.

  “Who’s the other drink for?” I asked, pulling out one of the stools at the huge kitchen island.

  Claudia looked at me in such a way I knew I’d asked a stupid question.

  “I’ll rephrase that,” I sighed. “Is that for Elijah?”

  She nodded and went back to what she’d been doing. “It didn’t feel right not offering him one.”

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t got a flask of tea in his truck. He usually does.” I paused as memories squeezed at my heart. “Well, he always used to.”

  Claudia stopped stirring and looked over her shoulder at me. “You don’t have to hate him you know. It’s not mandatory when you divorce someone.”

  I sat up straighter and placed a hand against my stomach. “In this case it is.”

  “Okay, but maybe hold off the hostilities for a little while. You’re going to be working close to him for the next couple of months at least and that’s a long time to be angry every day. It’ll only make your days long and give you a constant headache.”

  “Yeah, well as I said before, hopefully he’ll be too busy.”

  “You obviously loved him once, Amy, so I understand how hard this must be for you.”

  As she passed me my cup of coffee, Claudia actually looked sympathetic, not something I was used to from her. She was normally extremely unsympathetic and hugely sarcastic.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Was it hard for me? I had no idea, we’d been apart for five years. Did it still hurt what had happened – of course it did. I’d thought we were going to grow old together. But would it be hard for me seeing Elijah every day, it pained me to say it, but no it wouldn’t.

  As soon as I’d seen his truck, I’d felt an anger brew inside me from the pit of my stomach to the top of my head, but I’d also felt a tingle of excitement. I was going to see him after five years. The first time since I’d found him in bed with fucking Lauren Proctor.