Cooper's Fall (10 page)

She hadn’t had enough of him, she assured herself. Just a few more days, and maybe she could have sated the need that tore at her.

“It doesn’t go away, baby.” She jerked at the sound of his voice, as though he could read her mind. “I’ve jacked off until my balls are blue and it doesn’t help. Nothing’s going to help until I have you again.”

He turned her around, his hand curved beneath her hair along the back of her neck, holding her in place while his lips covered hers.

She was supposed to fight this? Fight the pleasure that built until it felt like a fire was searing her? Tearing through her mind and melding her to him?

She was supposed to be angry at him, wasn’t she? That was what she had told herself for three days. That he hadn’t trusted her. Hadn’t asked her about her private business but had instead had her investigated.

She should be furious, not holding on to him, her hands digging into his hair, desperate for more of him. She needed his kiss, his touch. When his fingers tore at the buttons of her dress, pulling them from their moorings, opening the material as he tore his lips from hers to rove over the tops of the swollen mounds of her breasts, her breath caught.

Yes. She needed this.

“I missed you, Sair,” he groaned, lifting her until he had her on the small center island, pushing between her thighs as he pulled the shoulders of her dress over her arms, along with the straps of her bra.

His lips zeroed in on her nipples, covered them, pulled at the little rings piercing them until she felt shudders of need racing just beneath her flesh. The things he could do to her. The ways he touched her. It was unlike anything she had told herself it could be. It was potent, addictive. It was the height of pleasure.

“Damn. You make me crazy.” He pulled back, jerked the edges of her dress together and stared down at her, his gaze sensual, drowsy. “Get dressed.”

“I
am
dressed.” She stared back at him in confusion.

“Jeans.” His hand moved over her ass. “You wear a dress to that bar and I’ll end up fucking you before I get you off the dance floor. Go. I’ll wait.”

Sarah’s lips twitched at that command in his tone. “You’re bossy, Ethan.”

“I’m horny, too, so watch out. Add the two and you could get more of an education in fucking me than you’re ready for right now.”

Her lips parted and she smiled. He obviously liked her smile because his eyes narrowed, the amber highlights darkened. “I don’t know, Ethan,” she drawled. “I’ve always been a very fast learner. Maybe you’ll be the one falling behind in the lessons, rather than me.”

Oh, he was falling all right, and Cooper knew it. Falling nothing—he had already fallen, hard and fast, for that cute little dimple, those pale blue eyes and long loose curls. Her intriguing smile and her ability to keep him intrigued. Damned if any other woman had ever done that.

“Bet me.” He grinned back at her. Because this was sex talk, not love talk. Love talk would come later. As soon as he figured out exactly what it was he was supposed to say in love talk. But he was damned good at improvising.

She finally shook her head. “We need to talk before we do anything else.” She sighed. “You didn’t trust me, Ethan.”

She stared up at him, that vulnerability, the hurt in her eyes tightening his chest.

“It wasn’t a lack of trust, Sair,” he promised her, letting his fingers run through the soft silk of her curls. “It was the pain in your eyes when I saw those scars. It was the knowledge that someone had hurt you and I wanted to kill them for it. But I didn’t want you to see that reaction. I didn’t want you to see me if the sons of bitches who did that to you were still alive.”

They weren’t. Even the young boy who had tricked Sair out of her father’s home had died a less than easy death only a few years later. Her father’s enemies had died in prison, along with her father. Anyone who would hurt Sarah was gone from this earth. And that left no one for Cooper to exact vengeance upon.

She dipped her head, moving away from him as she fixed her dress.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I may want more from you than you want to give,” she told him, turning back to him. “I deceived both of us, I think, to get into your bed.”

“So deceive me again, Sair. Just get your ass in a pair of jeans and get back down here.” He had to clench his hands and his teeth to keep from grabbing her. “For God’s sake, baby, have pity on me here. I’m hard as a rock and starved for that pretty little body of yours. Let’s get out of here and do what we have to do.”

“Why?” Her hands went on her hips and a frown brewed at her brow. “Why does it matter if we go to the store? Or to the bar? How does it change anything other than your stamp of ownership over my head?”

He nodded decisively. “You’re getting the picture there, cupcake.
My stamp of ownership. Branding you in a way.” He liked the sound of that enough to smile in anticipation. “And that’s doing it the easy way. We could do it the hard way. I could just follow you the next time you go to the store and start knocking damned heads together when I catch those bozos sniffing after you. I’d have fun with that, but I bet you wouldn’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re being very autocratic.”

“It’s one of my more advanced degrees,” he snorted. “Now get dressed. You have five seconds to get your tail upstairs before I start undressing.” He lowered his lashes, flicking his gaze over her. “And tomorrow I start batting heads together.”

He was serious.

Sarah stared back at him, amazed, perhaps a little outraged, and a whole lot aroused.

“We’re going to have to discuss your habit of ordering me around,” she told him, backing out of the kitchen.

“Five. Four.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re being hideously arrogant.”

“Three.” He waited a heartbeat. “Two.” He lowered his arms, his hands about his belt, as sweet little Sarah turned tail and ran.

And damn him if that wasn’t the prettiest little tail.

He grinned at the sound of her running up the stairs. Grinned at the thought of the evening ahead. Then he whistled soundlessly at the thought of the night ahead.

By morning, Sarah and everyone else in this damned town would know exactly whom she belonged to.

They were being followed.

Cooper sat relaxed in his pickup, Sair pulled close to his side as he drove through town. And the little minx laughed at him because
he made sure he drove through town, around the town circle, and then to the grocery store on the other side of the small town before he stopped.

“Hey, everyone needs a clear view,” he told her with a laugh as he helped her out of the truck, keeping her carefully in front of him as the black sedan drove past, too damned slow.

He hustled her into the store and gave her the list for the bar. It was a list he and Jake had pulled out of their asses to make up an excuse to take her shopping. Items like celery, pepper, salt—bullshit items they had plenty of.

“Let me make sure Jake didn’t forget anything.” He pulled his cell phone out, hit Jake’s number. Counted rings. When Jake answered, he closed the phone in a signal to Jake that there was trouble and smiled to Sair. “He must be busy.”

Jake would be getting real busy right about now. He’d be calling every damned bouncer the bar hired, twelve total, and tonight every damned one of them would be on shift. Three would be at that store before Cooper and Sair left.

He was a damned paranoid man. The men who worked for him were just as paranoid. Loners. Soldiers without a war to fight because their bodies refused to do what they had to do now. They were his family. And now, they were Sarah’s family.

He wandered through the store with her, his arm over her shoulders, or at her waist. He glared at the men who looked at her, and the few who stopped and talked were treated to a possessive Cooper. Something they had evidently never seen, because he caught the smirks.

Assholes.

He whispered dirty jokes in her ear to watch her blush, and stopped and talked to a few of the women that he knew would
make good friends for his Sair. Women who were all safely married, happily married, and would of course tell her how great and wonderful monogamy could be.

He had a plan. Cooper always had a plan. But first, he was going to take care of the damned yahoos out in that dark sedan.

He was taking Sair through checkout when Casey, Iron, and Turk entered the store. Three ex-Rangers, soldiers who looked just as damned mean as they actually were.

“Hey, boss, Jake said don’t forget to get change.” Turk’s voice was a deadly growl as he moved to the register. Dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, unruly black hair falling to his collar, Turk’s steely, cold blue eyes glanced at the store owner, Mark, before turning back to Cooper.

“Jake didn’t call you,” Sarah murmured.

“Jake has a weird sense of humor, sugar,” Cooper drawled as he pulled a hundred from his billfold. “Can you give me change, Mark?”

“I can, Cooper.” Mark was no man’s fool. The few times these three men had run with Cooper, there had always been trouble.

Like the time that damned motorcycle gang had tried to hold up his bar two years ago. Cooper, Turk, Iron, and Casey had walked in and cleared the place without a single broken window. There had been some broken bones, a few concussions, but these four men hadn’t been the ones suffering them.

Mark packed the rolls of quarters in a plastic bag and handed them to Cooper. “You take care, Coop.” He nodded before smiling at Sarah. “And you too, Sarah. Keep this boy on the straight and narrow.”

She wasn’t Miss Sarah anymore. She was Sarah, Cooper’s woman. Damn, Cooper could almost feel his chest swelling with pride.

“Hey, boss, did you see that new Harley that drove through town earlier?” Casey eased in beside Sarah, Iron was in front of them, and Turk pulled up the rear. “She was a beauty with all that chrome.”

Cooper kept up with the conversation, and the sedan. It eased out of the parking lot, windows tinted but he could still glimpse three males inside. The two in the front seat wore dark glasses.

As they reached the truck, Cooper shot Iron a hard look. The other man nodded his head. He’d checked the truck and it was clean.

“Come on, darlin’.” He helped Sarah into the seat via the driver’s side before moving in beside her.

“You headin’ to the bar?” Turk grumbled. His brown eyes were flat and hard, his scarred face resembling a junkyard dog that had won too many fights at too high a price.

“Heading that way, Turk.”

Turk nodded. “See you there.”

The other three men lifted their hands before loping to their motorcycles. Harleys. Bad-boy motorcycles. Cooper liked his truck.

He started the truck and eased out of the parking lot. Turk and Casey were at the lead, Iron riding behind.

Sarah was too damned quiet. The ride from the store to the bar was hell. Because as he pulled into the parking lot, he knew what the hell had to be done.

She wanted trust. Shit. He didn’t like this part.

“Black sedan followed us to the store,” he finally said softly.

“I know.” She threaded her fingers together and took a hard, deep breath. “I’ll have to leave tonight, Ethan.” There were tears in her voice. “When I’m gone, they’ll be gone as well.”

“Like hell.” He gripped her neck, pulled her face around until he could stare into her startled eyes. “You’re not running, Sair. Not anymore. My town, my bar, my fucking woman. And by God, it stays that way.”

Before she could protest, before the first tear could fall, his lips covered hers. The kiss shot fire through his veins, tightened every cell of his body and left him burning for more.