by Andrews, Amy
She had to go.
She had to go home. She had to go to Coop. Whether it worked out or it didn’t, she didn’t want to live her life without having given it her best shot.
She had to try and win Coop.
She stood and spun, her chair pushing back at a crazy angle, not thinking about her next move, just possessed with the sudden urgent need to flee. She didn’t know the hows but she did know the whys. She loved Coop. And nothing else mattered at this moment.
Anouska looked up from where she’d been chatting as Lacey’s seat toppled over and crashed on the floor. Everyone did. Anouska’s gaze, calm and assessing, locked with hers, wild and frantic. Lacey could only hope that her boss would see and understand her desperation.
“Go,” Anouska said.
Lacey’s breath tumbled out on a noisy whoosh as she sent Anouska a wobbly smile. Then she picked up her bag and left without looking back. Melbourne had been great, but her heart didn’t belong here.
It belonged with Coop.
* * *
Lacey had to buy a business class ticket to get on the next available flight to Brisbane. It was hideously expensive but she didn’t hesitate as she hurried to her temporary digs, packed her bag and went straight to the airport.
Four hours later she was touching down in Brisbane. Just looking out the window to see the sun shining on the runway lifted her spirits. When she stepped out on the stairs to walk across the tarmac and the pleasant winter heat warmed her shoulders, her spirits lifted a little higher.
Whatever happened with Coop, this was where she belonged. Sometimes it took leaving to find out where you fit. Going to college had taught her that and she should have listened and learned from that experience, should have known there truly was no place like home.
Lacey got a taxi from the airport to her old dorm where she was welcomed with open arms by her ex-roomie. She wanted to change into something with a little wow factor and dump her bag before heading to see Coop at work. She knew he found her attractive and she had absolutely no qualms about exploiting that to her advantage.
All was fair in love and war, and Lacey was declaring love.
Stripping out of her winter clothes she quickly threw on a pair of denim cut-off shorts with frayed edges that managed to cover all the crucial bits, just. Why she thought she was ever going to wear them in Melbourne she had no idea but Lacey was pleased she’d packed them because they were perfect for her purposes today.
She was going to Coop’s garage, so channelling Daisy Duke was a must and the shorts were a start.
She didn’t have a cute little button-up gingham shirt she could tie in a knot at her navel, but she did have a tight T-shirt that sat snuggly against her breasts and a pair of strappy heels, and she slipped them on to complete the picture. She pulled her hair down and fluffed it and poked her big gold hoop earrings into place.
Lacey was satisfied with the overall affect as she inspected herself in the vanity mirror. If Coop rejected her she’d be devastated—even the thought froze her heart—but it wouldn’t be because she didn’t look damn good.
She ordered another cab on her phone app then added some lip gloss to her mouth, smacking her lips together and pouting at the mirror for effect and to allay the hard ball of nerves tightening in her gut. Everything rested on this next meeting and she wanted to throw up she was so nervous.
Would he be surprised to see her? Happy? He’d never been that happy about her being at his work the few times she’d been there in the past.
Maybe she should at least forewarn him? Coop wasn’t really a guy who liked surprises. And she didn’t really want to get off on the wrong foot. Maybe she should let him know she was in town?
Hint that it was because of him?
A devilish idea rose in her as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Maybe she should remind him of what he’d been missing?
Aware the cab was going to be here any second, Lacey quickly shed her shirt and bra and grabbed her phone for a sexy selfie. It was cool in the tiled bathroom and her nipples responded accordingly as she held the phone out and up high, snapping a picture of her face and breasts.
Her hands shook as she attached the picture to a text and her fingers trembled as they flew over the keypad, deleting several attempts at something sexy and pithy. She settled on Coming for you xxx. Then she hit send before she could change her mind.
A horn tooted while she was slipping back into her clothes.
The taxi.
This was it. She’d be at Coop’s in fifteen minutes. “Good luck,” she told her fully dressed reflection then vacated the dorm.
* * *
Coop stared at the text of a half-naked Lacey for a full minute when it pinged onto his phone. He was standing in a garage in a filthy work shirt, an oily mix of sweat and grease in every body groove, with six other guys all joking around as they worked under hoods or beneath cars, and he had a hard-on the size of Australia.
What the fuck?
He hadn’t heard the chime to indicate her text landing on his phone over the loud rock music pumping all around them, but he’d felt the vibration through his pocket. He’d opened it eagerly, like he always did, greedy for any connection with her, including the depressingly asexual. Seeing her pictures of rainy Melbourne through windows had left him hungry for more. Not even the weirdly posed mannequin shots had filled the hunger.
But this one? This one filled it and, embarrassingly large erection or not, he couldn’t stop looking at it. He remembered what those naked breasts looked like in real life, what they felt like, what they tasted like.
He remembered how he couldn’t get enough of them.
“Coop!” Gav bellowed over the music. “Can you get me some light under here? It’s so bloody dirty I can’t make out what’s what.”
Startled out of the southerly direction of his thoughts, Coop quickly shoved his phone back in his pocket and cleared his throat as he strode over to Gav. He passed down a light source as Gav rolled out from under the car on a board and grabbed it.
“Thanks,” Gav grunted, as he rolled back under again.
But Coop didn’t hear him. He was too busy wondering what the hell Lacey meant by ‘coming for you’. Was she coming home? And if so, when? Did she mean in a week when her trial period was up, or sooner? Or did that phrase mean something else entirely different? Something a whole hell of a lot dirtier?
Was she literally coming for him? With her shirt off like that? Was she … touching herself? And would she send him pictures of that too?
A thought that was really not helping the state of his cock.
He looked at his watch. Four o’clock. He couldn’t wait for everyone to get the hell out in an hour so he could look at the picture some more. Because he sure as shit wasn’t doing it with all the guys around.
He’d look. That was all. He wouldn’t touch. Her or himself. And he sure as hell wouldn’t reply. He’d just pretend he hadn’t gotten that one.
Something hard cracked against Coop’s ankle and he looked down as Gav said, “Coop!” with complete exasperation as he lay on his back staring up at him.
“What?” Coop growled. Rubbing an ankle that had copped a belt from a wrench.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve just said,” he accused. “What the fuck is up with you lately? You’re either working all the hours God gave you or you’re staring into space like a freaking teenage girl.”
Coop wasn’t about to tell Gav what was up. Psychologically or physically. But clearly he needed to get his shit together. “What did you want?” Coop asked, ignoring his 2IC’s question.
But Gav’s attention had wandered elsewhere. Something over by the doors had snagged it. “Is that Lacey?” he frowned.
Chapter Fourteen
‡
Lacey?
Her I’m coming for you whispered into Coop’s ear as the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he slowly glanced her way. In his peripheral vision, as his head swivelled, Coop cou
ld see a couple of the guys who’d been joking around had stopped doing what they were doing and were also looking—gaping—at the open garage doors.
And there she was in the tightest T-shirt and the tiniest pair of shorts he’d ever seen, her heels doing amazing things for her calves. She looked like a dark-haired Jessica Simpson doing Daisy Duke and he was pretty sure every guy here was hoping she’d come to wash some cars in that get-up.
His erection went from hard to granite.
But more than that, his heart filled up with the enormity of his feelings for her. If he’d ever doubted in the last few weeks that he loved her it had been completely dispelled right in this moment. Absence had definitely made the heart grow fonder and his feelings for her flushed deep and sure through his system.
He loved her so much it hurt.
“Lacey?”
“Hey,” she said with a bold little smile, but he could see she was nervous as she took in all the guys who’d suddenly downed tools.
One of them closest to the workbench cut the music abruptly and there was silence except for the mad crash of Coop’s heart in his chest.
“Okay,” he said, looking around at his transfixed workers, wiping his hands on the clean rag from his back pocket. “Show’s over. Go home. I’ll clean up. You all get an early mark.”
None of them moved and Coop’s irritation bloomed. He wanted to blind every one of them for just looking at her. She looked so freaking hot and he wanted to sweep her up and take her away from them so only he could look at her.
“I said enough,” Coop snapped in the voice he rarely used, but everyone knew it meant the boss was pissed. “Anyone still left here in thirty seconds need not come back tomorrow.”
They moved. Reluctantly, but they did, shuffling off in the direction of the change rooms out the back, looking behind them curiously at both Coop and Lacey.
All apart from Gav who rolled up onto his feet and grinned at Lacey as he sauntered towards her. “How you doing, Lace? I hear you’ve moved to—”
“You too, Gav,” Coop interrupted, his tone steely.
Gav winked at Lacey before turning slightly to face Coop, a grin on his face. “Or what? You going to sack me too?”
Coop dropped his head from side to side, stretching out tense neck muscles. “You gonna make me?”
Gav threw back his head and laughed, before also heading for the change rooms. “See you round, Lace,” he said, nodding politely.
And then there was just him and her. And it took all Coop’s willpower to stay exactly where he was. He shoved his hands in his pockets aware of his still very much erect cock.
“What are you doing here, Lacey?”
Her mouth was glossy and he watched it as she said, “I told you. I’m coming for you.”
Coop’s pulse picked up a little more. He didn’t know what that meant, but by the way she was looking at him and the way she was dressed he hoped it was something dirty. God knew if she’d come all the way from Melbourne just to ravish him there was no way he’d be able to resist.
He’d missed her too damn much.
The remote door opener for the garage doors was in his pocket; he clicked it and the doors started to close. Whatever was about to happen between them he didn’t want it broadcast to the busy roadway that ran in front of the garage.
“What does that mean?” he asked as she took two steps closer to give the doors clearance. His gaze fell to her legs and the way the denim sat snug high on her thighs.
“It means I got these today.” She held up the zip-lock bag of labels he’d sent her three days ago. She took another two steps closer. “They’re very beautiful. Thank you.”
Coop shrugged. “I just saw them online and … I thought of you.”
She nodded. “I cried when I saw them.”
He frowned. He hadn’t sent her them to make her cry. “You did?”
“Yes. I was just so … touched.” Her heels clicked on the concrete floor as she covered another two steps. “And then I went to your website and I saw the mini up there and she looks so gorgeous and I saw that header, labour of love, and I cried some more.”
“Lacey.” He didn’t know what to say to that. It hadn’t been his intention. But the car had been a labour of love for him. An old car in drastic need of love and attention done for the woman he loved. “I didn’t mean for it to make you cry.”
“I know.”
Another two steps put her in touching distance and Coop doubted the wisdom of being so near. He could see the outline of her bra beneath the thinness of her T-shirt fabric and if she knew how much he wanted to tear the damn thing off her she’d take a step back.
“But it did,” she said. “And do you know why?”
“Because you’re missing your car? And probably home too. You’re missing Jumbuck Springs.”
“Yes,” she admitted, the sudden huskiness in her voice scraping along nerve endings deep in his belly. “I am. But I’m missing you more.”
She stepped closer again and slid her hands onto his chest and Coop swallowed. She was missing him? “Lacey …” her hands felt good on him. They felt right. She smelled good, so good it was intoxicating, so good he could barely think straight.
“Have you missed me, too?” she whispered, her gaze fixed on his mouth.
Oh God. He’d missed her so damn much he’d barely been able to think about anything else. Work had been his salvation, giving him something else to concentrate on, and he’d grabbed it with both hands. Gav had been right about that—he’d been working punishing hours.
But he’d missed her because he loved her. They were coming from two entirely different places. He knew for his own sanity he should say no but her perfume was filling his head, blurring his senses. Her mouth was so near and he wanted to kiss her so damn bad.
“Yes.”
* * *
“Oh thank God,” Lacey muttered, almost sagging against him in relief. For a moment there she was sure he was going to say no, and she didn’t think she was brave enough to keep going in the face of a rejection. She snuggled in close to him, pleased that her heels brought their mouths closer, and pressed her lips to his.
His groan was almost instantaneous as his mouth opened and his tongue stroked along hers. His hands slid into her hair and cradled her face. Lacey clung to his shoulders as the kiss careened out of control, sucking up every last urgent morsel of it, her nipples tingling, a hot ache throbbing between her legs.
He dragged his mouth away, air chugging in and out of his lungs. “My office,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him into a tiny room, with car parts on the chair and the top of the filing cabinet and the cluttered desk. It smelled like engine oil and petrol. He crowded her back against the door, closing it with the weight of their combined bodies, as he put a hand to either side of her head and trapped her there.
“God,” he groaned as he kissed her mouth then trailed his lips to her neck, nuzzling there. “I’ve dreamed about doing this. Every damn night.”
Lacey’s eyes rolled back in her head as goosebumps prickled her flesh, sweeping down her arms and tightening her nipples. A hot hand found the hem of her T-shirt and pushed under; she gasped as her belly clenched then went into free fall.
“It’s a helluva long way to come for a booty call,” he muttered, pressing hot kisses to the pulse beating frantically in her neck, “but I just don’t care. I need you so bad right now I can barely stop myself from ripping your clothes off.”
Lacey’s insides clenched deliciously at the proposition even as her brain rejected his words. A booty call? Is that what he thought this was? She stilled as his tongue lapped at the hollow in the base of her throat.
“No Coop,” she said, pushing against his arms. “Wait.”
He lifted his head, his normally crystal blue eyes were cloudy with confusion and a healthy dose of lust. “What?” he panted.
“I’m not here for this,” she said. “Or not just for this anyway.”
&nbs
p; He straightened a little, his hand slipped out from under her shirt. “You’re not?”
“No.”
“Then … why?”
If it hadn’t been so serious it might have been comical. A clearly lust-affected Coop trying to drag his brain back from the passion that had been spiralling between them.
“I came to tell you I love you.”
Her statement took a second or two to set in. Lacey watched his face as it slowly dawned. From confusion to clarity to wariness as he dropped his hands to his sides and took a step back. “You do?”
Lacey didn’t know if his withdrawing from her was a good or a bad thing. But she wasn’t backing out now. “Yes. I think I’ve probably been in love with you since that first night, but I only realised today when I opened that packet and saw those labels.”
“Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair, smudging some grease along his forehead.
Oh? That didn’t sound very good.
“Look, I know you think that I’m too young and flighty, and God knows I’ve done everything to prove those two things over and over. For so long after Mum died and I moved to Brisbane I was desperately looking for love, but it was so damn elusive and I was so worried I didn’t know how to love anymore, that grief had tripped some switch or something. But I was wrong. Because I do know what it feels like to love, I was just afraid to really let myself go there. But I’m not afraid anymore. If you don’t love me back then it will be heartbreaking and awful, but I’m not going to stop loving you, Coop. Not now I know how.”
“Lacey—”
“No.” She shook her head, deliberately interrupting him. He looked like he was going to tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about, or rehash all the reasons why he’d fought a physical relationship with her, but she didn’t want to hear any of that.
If he didn’t love her that was one thing. But if he didn’t think it was wise to love her that was another thing entirely.
“I know I’m a lot younger than you, Coop, and you think I should be playing with boys my own age and I haven’t seen a whole lot of the world and I’m crazy to pass up on the opportunity to work with Anouska. And I know my brothers will find it hard to wrap their heads around. But I don’t care about any of those things. I’m not a child. I’m an adult. A woman. And I’m not going to let anyone tell me what to do or where to live or who to love. Or not love. I love you, Coop, I love you so much I want to weep and yell it from the rooftops all at once and I want to be with you and if you don’t then that’s fine. Well, it’s shitty, but it’s fine … I guess I’ll get over it one day but—”
