Sinful Paradise (Kimani Hotties)

by Christopher, Ann

  Oh, yeah, he thought as his head went a little fuzzier, taking the edge off his taut nerves. Judah stocked the good stuff. One of the benefits of being a rock god, Cooper supposed.

  From down the hall came the distant sounds of a woman’s breathy cries of passion and a man’s low rumbling answer, noises that made Cooper want to smother himself with a pillow.

  Instead he crossed back to the liquor tray and refilled his glass, but he could still hear them. He could still. Freaking. Hear. Them.

  Not that he wasn’t happy for Marcus and Claudia. The two of them had clearly hit it off and made a good pair, with sparks flying off their skin every time they looked at each other. He’d noticed it earlier and had a grand old time needling Marcus about her.

  So the two of them, at least, were enjoying a pleasant end to bonfire night.

  Whoopee for them. That didn’t mean he wanted to hear them make each other come until the sun came up.

  He, on the other hand, had not had a good night, nor had he had a good day, nor a good night’s sleep in the two months since Gloria gave him the kiss-off. He had not enjoyed a meal, a glass of wine, a TV show or another woman’s body since that terrible day. Oh, he’d backed off and given Gloria the space she requested, and for that he should be awarded another Eagle badge, if not a Nobel Prize. He was quite the gentleman, all right.

  He was also a hollowed-out shell of his former self and a mere paper cut away from a complete breakdown.

  Gloria.

  Gloria...Gloria...Gloria.

  He hadn’t seen her. Which of course meant that she was all he could see.

  How was she doing? Had she gotten back together with— Shit. He couldn’t even allow himself to think the man’s name; it hurt way too much.

  Most important, did Gloria ever think of Cooper?

  Could she possibly miss him?

  Probably not. He knew that. They barely knew each other.

  But still...

  He thought about her.

  No. It was worse than that.

  She was under his skin...inside his brain...flowing through his blood.

  Which was why he needed another drink.

  And the reason his need for her was so acute tonight, he thought, refilling his glass and sloshing a little over the sides—damn, he hated to waste good bourbon like that; with no napkin in sight, he wiped it up with the edge of his sleeve—was that Judah had forced him to think about her at the bonfire. Judah had needled and badgered him until he’d admitted it aloud, in front of everyone: he considered Gloria his woman.

  She wasn’t ready for it, which was probably why she was essentially running in the opposite direction.

  But she was his. Would officially be his one day soon if he had anything to say about it. The certainty was there inside him, buried deep, like the cells in his marrow.

  His.

  So what did this fixation on a woman he hadn’t seen in sixty-three days say about him? That he was out of touch with reality? A stalker? Insane?

  All of those, probably.

  After he’d admitted his feelings for her at the bonfire, Judah had reminded him that life was short and encouraged him to—what was the phrase?—climb down off the mountain and get his woman. He’d even given Cooper a good-luck charm to help him on his way: a jade dragon pendant that was now hanging around Cooper’s neck. Cooper rubbed the dragon between his thumb and forefinger. The thing did make him feel a little better, to tell the truth, and he’d take any and all infusions of courage he could get.

  God, he missed her.

  He’d be back in New York in the next couple of days, at which point he’d figure out his grand strategy for getting Gloria to give him a chance. That was if he could survive another couple of days with this oppressive loneliness dragging him down. At some point he’d started to feel as though he was living his life in a swimming pool, battling the water’s resistance and his lungs’ lack of air to accomplish even the smallest tasks.

  A few days seemed like a long time from now.

  Too long.

  Flopping back onto the bed spread-eagled, he stared at the rough-hewn beams across the ceiling and tried to decide what he should do.

  He could wait until he got back to New York in a few days, or he could send her flowers, or he could...he could...

  Call her. Right now.

  Brilliant idea. Quite possibly the best he’d ever had.

  Bolting back up again, he grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand, punched the number and listened, his heart cartwheeling through his chest.

  Ringing. Her phone was ringing...ringing...

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hey, Doc, hi. It’s me,” he began, grinning idiotically. “Cooper—”

  “You’ve reached Gloria Adams—”

  Voice mail. His heart fell through his chest wall, crashing and burning into a pile of ash.

  “I’m not available right now, so please leave a message. Thanks!”

  Beep.

  He hesitated. What now? Leave a message? No message?

  Message, for sure. No guts, no glory, right?

  “Gloria, hi. It’s Cooper. And it’s, ah—” He checked his watch. “It’s one in the morning. I’m in, ah, Jackson Hole. Wyoming. Business trip. I guess that makes it pretty late in the city. What’s the time difference? Three hours? Sorry about that. You’re probably sleeping. Unless you’re screening my call.” He paused. “I choose to believe that you’re there and you’re alone, because I don’t want my head to, you know, explode. So are you there?”

  He waited, hoping she’d have mercy and spare him from the indignity of leaving what was turning out to be a rambling message, but there was only silence.

  Right.

  Well, get to the point, lover boy.

  “So, the thing is,” he continued, sitting on the edge of the bed, “I can’t stop thinking about you. I. Cannot. Stop. Thinking. About. You. And I know I’m not, I don’t know, Prince Harry or someone fantastic like that, but I’m not a bad-looking guy, and I’ve got all my teeth and a good job and a great family, and I’m a...a... What’s the term? Oh, yeah, I’m a monogamist, and I’d never cheat on you, in case you’re worried about that.”

  Sighing, he fell back and resumed his spread-eagle position on the bed.

  “It’d be pretty hard for me to cheat on you,” he said on a shaky laugh. “I don’t think I’ve noticed another woman since I laid eyes on you. Your face is all I can see.”

  Silence.

  Sudden exhaustion washed over him, exacerbating his yearning for her. He let his eyes roll closed and his thoughts drift. His voice turned hoarse.

  “I remember everything about you, Gloria. I remember your big brown eyes and the way you smile and the way you have that one dimple that’s a little bit deeper than the one on the other side. You smell like flowers and coconuts. I remember that real well. You have this tough, take-no-prisoners shell, and you’re smart, and you’re so determined to keep me away, and I get that. I really do. You’re coming off of a toxic relationship, and you’re thinking maybe I’m toxic, too, and I guess you’re smart to be suspicious.”

  He broke off, swallowing hard because his mouth had gone dry and he wasn’t at all sure he was saying this right.

  “But the thing is, Gloria, I can’t control when I met you. If I could’ve met you two years ago or five years ago, don’t you think I would’ve taken that option? I can’t help what happened to you before. I can only tell you how I feel, you know? I can only tell you what I’ll do and what I won’t do. And then I can show you so you’ll know for sure.”

  His throat felt raw now. Hot. Tight.

  And he was so tired. As though he had nothing left, because he was pouring everything—all his energy, everything he was—into the phone and this
one chance to get the woman he needed.

  “And here’s what I know for sure, Doc. I will treasure you. Treasure. You know how I know that? Because I can’t breathe without—”

  Beeeeeep.

  Well, wasn’t that just great, he thought, rolling over onto his side and covering his eyes with his arm, the phone still clutched in his hand. The machine had cut him off.

  Typical.

  He drifted off to sleep and startled himself awake a few hours later.

  His head felt as if it’d been fed through a meat grinder.

  “Ah, shit,” he said, sitting up and squinting against the bright sunlight flooding the room. His eyes didn’t want to be open, but closed was no better because they felt as though they’d been filled with broken glass, and every tiny movement seemed to scrape his corneas. He raised a hand to his forehead to see if that would stop the pounding, and that was when he noticed that he was holding something small and hard.

  Lowering his hand, he stared blankly at his cell phone as disjointed details from last night swirled back to him. The bonfire...the bourbon...the overwhelming desire to speak to Gloria...

  He stilled, frozen behind a wall of rising horror, the phone gripped in his hand.

  He hadn’t...he hadn’t drunk-dialed Gloria, had he?

  Yeah.

  He was pretty sure he had.

  “Fuuuuuuuck,” he said, chucking the phone across the room.

  Chapter 8

  “Morning, Liz.” Cooper strode through the reception area outside his office at Davies & Sons in Manhattan two days later, waving to his receptionist as he went. “Miss me?”

  “Cried into my pillow every night.” Liz yawned and didn’t bother looking away from her computer screen as her fingers danced over the keyboard. “Did you bring me something from the Wild West? I need a souvenir for holding down the fort in your absence.”

  “Of course,” he said, tossing her a bag of huckleberry hard candies for the jar she kept on her desk. “Huckleberries are big in Wyoming for some reason.”

  “Thank youuuu,” she sang, nabbing them with a neat one-handed catch before resuming typing.

  “What’d I miss?” He paused to peruse the stack of mail she’d left for him to see, switching his briefcase to his free hand. He checked his watch and decided he had time for a couple of quick calls before he went into the weekly meeting with Marcus and their cousins Tony and Sandro, the other owners of Davies & Sons. “Any fires to put out before my nine-thirty?”

  “No fires.” Liz stopped typing and looked up at him, an amused gleam in her eye. “But you do have a visitor.”

  Cooper had taken a couple more steps toward his office, but now he frowned over his shoulder at her. “Did I forget something?”

  “Nope.” Liz was looking at him and grinning now, and that made him nervous. “She said she didn’t have an appointment but that she hoped you could squeeze her in.”

  “Well, who is it?” he asked impatiently, checking his watch again. “I don’t really have time for twenty questions.”

  “A Gloria Adams.” Liz’s honey sweetness was laced with mischief, as though she suspected she was dropping a bomb into the middle of his life. “Do you know her?”

  “Wait, what?” he asked faintly, his brain emptying of all rational thought.

  “Glo-ri-a Ad-ams.” Liz was downright gleeful now as she slid her chair back and stood. “I’ll get rid of her, though. I know how busy you are.”

  “Like hell you will,” he muttered, thrusting his briefcase at her as he headed for his office. “And can you buzz Marc and tell him I’ll be late? Thanks.”

  Liz’s low chuckle was the last thing he heard as he slipped into his office.

  Gloria, who’d been over at the windows behind his desk admiring the view, spun to face him. Their gazes connected, and he felt instantly lighter, almost euphoric. The morning sun hit her eyes just right, making them sparkle with light, an effect that was magnified when one corner of her mouth turned up as she dimpled at him. Another tiny part of him fell helplessly—irrevocably—under her control. It was just gone; he wasn’t getting it back. And it occurred to him that if she’d come by to announce, say, that she was getting a restraining order to keep him from ever contacting her again, he probably wouldn’t survive.

  “Hi,” he managed, clicking the door shut behind him.

  “Hi.”

  He waited, giving her a beat or two to explain why she was there. During their past encounters, he’d had a tendency to come on too strong, and he needed to keep a lid on that. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her away again before she even gave him a chance.

  “You look amazing,” he blurted. It was true, even if he hadn’t meant to toss it out there like that. There was something subtly different about her, as though she held her head a little higher or glowed with more vitality or something. She wore a blue dress that hit her in all the right places, and heels, which meant she was probably on her way to the hospital. And she’d done something to her hair, because it framed her face and she had bangs now, making her more arresting than ever. And here he was, watching her the way a leopard watches a baby gazelle frolic through the grass, all but slobbering. Did he have moves or what? “I mean...it’s great to see you.”

  She stared at him, her expression unreadable.

  Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit. There he went again, coming on too strong. Why not just throw her over his shoulder, haul her back to his cave and be done with it? Why couldn’t he play it cool where this one woman was concerned? Why did he have to act like the world’s biggest idiot?

  “That’s funny,” she said. “I was just thinking that you look amazing. And it’s great to see you.”

  He blinked, trying to get his head around that. When he couldn’t, he decided it was best to just ask her outright.

  “Is this a trick?”

  “I tell you it’s great to see you, and you ask if it’s a trick?”

  “I’m surprised to see you. Especially after I, ah...”

  “Drunk-dialed me the other night?”

  “I did, in fact, drunk-dial you the other night, yes.”

  She moved toward him, her gaze searching. “You said a lot of things. Do you remember?”

  As if he could forget the way he’d stripped his soul bare and put it on a silver platter for her to see.

  “Yep,” he said, running a hand over his nape.

  Something in her expression seemed to dim, as though she’d never really expected him to have strong feelings about her anyway, and this confirmed it.

  “So you regret it, then,” she said quietly. “You didn’t mean it.”

  Well, there it was: the perfect opportunity to disown what he’d said. If he wanted to.

  Only he didn’t want to.

  He moved toward her. “I don’t regret anything. I meant it. I mean it.”

  Though she didn’t quite smile, the light came back on in her face. “So I thought I’d update you on my life a little bit.”

  The segue caught him off guard. Did this mean they were...? What did this mean?

  “Update?”

  “Yes. I’ve been working. Well, I’m always working, so that’s not new, but I’ve been cutting back on the rhinoplasties and breast augmentations and face-lifts and working with a foundation that helps children born with cleft palates. I love it. It’s amazing. It’s what I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

  “That’s fantastic, Gloria.”

  She beamed at him. “I knew you’d be happy for me. And I’ve been spending a lot of time with Talia while she goes through her treatments. She’s doing great.”

  “I know. Tony keeps us posted. She’s all he talks about.”

  “They want to get married in Bora-Bora in a few months. I’ve been helping with
the planning.”

  “I know.” That was all well and good, but what did it have to do with him and Gloria? Still, he played along. “I’ve got my white linen on standby.”

  She paused. He waited, on high alert for the only thing that mattered.

  “I haven’t seen Aaron.”

  His heart made like a balloon, swelling in his chest until there was no room for breath.

  “Well, I’ve run into him a few times at the hospital. And he’s tried to—”

  “He wants you back,” he said dully, knowing nothing in life—not his life, anyway—could ever be that easy. And as someone who had pretty much lost his mind over this woman, he knew how the other guy must feel. “He’s desperate to get you back.”

  She shrugged that away. “That’s his problem. I’m not mad at him. I’m not anything about him, except that now I see him for what he is.” She took another step closer. “He had his chance already, and he blew it, so I don’t care what he wants. Only what I want matters.”

  That balloon inside him expanded again, making him light-headed.

  “And what’s that?” he asked.

  A pretty flush crept over her face. “I want to spend a little time with you. Get to know you better.” He cocked his head, wanting to make sure he’d heard right. “I think you’ve got potential, Eagle Scout. I want to find out for sure.”

  This wasn’t a declaration of undying love, but it was still one of the best things he’d ever heard.

  “Come here,” he said, weak with relief as he reached for her.

  They came together in front of his desk. The second he touched her, all his ideas about not overwhelming her went right out his floor-to-ceiling windows. Holding her face between his hands, he burrowed his fingers into the heavy satin of her hair, feeling for the warmth of her scalp underneath. There was only time for two words before he angled her head back and kissed her.

  “Thank you.”

  Their mouths fit together, tentative at first, a slow, testing slide of lips so they could get the feel of each other and get past the electric sensation of being in each other’s arms.