Cooper's Fall (12 page)

He sucked her nipples, flicked the little rings then tucked them back around the hard peaks. The pressure around them was heated, agonizing with pleasure.

“I love your body. So sweet and curved. Sexy as hell.”

His lips moved down her stomach, kissing, licking. Sarah felt herself dissolving, losing all thoughts of everything but Ethan’s touch. His lips, his tongue.

“Ethan! Oh yes. Yes, lick me there. Right there.” Her hips arched, her fingers tangled in his hair, holding his head to her as his tongue stroked around her clit. He kissed it, licked around it again. Never truly touching it. Only coming close. So close.

Her legs fell farther apart, need burning inside her. She could feel her juices falling from her, heating her further, preparing her for him. Just for him. She needed him.

“Please. Please. Oh, Ethan. It’s so good.”

“I love your pussy,” he growled. “Sweet, sweet, Sair. Sweet all the hell over.”

He sucked her clit into his mouth then and gave her what she needed. Rapture blazed through her. Ecstasy blazed before her eyes in rainbow hues of exploding melting color.

And he didn’t wait. He didn’t give her time to come down from the high. He rose over her, clasping her face in his hands as his cock pressed into her pussy.

“Look at me, Sair.”

She struggled to open her eyes as her legs lifted to clasp his hips.

“Baby,” he groaned, touching his forehead to hers, staring down at her as he eased inside her. Slow and easy. “I love you, Sair.”

She stilled, blinked. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.

“What?” Her voice trembled, hope surged through her.

“I love you, Sair. My sweet little Sair. My heart. I love you.”

He pushed in deeper, stealing her breath. Her arms wrapped around his neck as pleasure turned to something brighter, hotter.

“I love you, Ethan Cooper,” she cried out, arching as he took more of her. “Oh God, I love you.”

He plunged deep. The hard, forceful stroke took her breath, gave her what she needed, a pleasure so rich, so destructive, nothing existed but them. No Sarah. No Ethan. Just
together.

He pumped inside her, holding her to him, his lips covered hers, his kiss filled her. His groans met her cries, and when ecstasy exploded between them, she felt the sweet, blistering intensity. He filled her as she surrounded him. His release spurted inside her, mixing with hers as it flowed around them.

Sweat-dampened and sated, they collapsed in each other’s arms.

“My woman.” He pulled her against him, tipped her head up, and almost glared down at her. “You won’t leave me, Sair. Do you hear me?”

She had run for so long, did she know anything else?

“Trust me, Sair.” His thumb brushed her lips, his voice crooned, seductive, commanding. “Trust me to protect what belongs to me.”

Did she have any other choice?

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Trust me, Sair.”

“I trust you.” With her life, but more important, with her heart.

He dragged the comforter over them.

“Damn. Maybe I can fucking sleep now.” He sighed. “You’ve kept me awake, Sair, missing you.”

“I missed you, Ethan,” she whispered, relaxing against him. “I missed you.”

And she hadn’t slept.

She slept now. Deep, dreamless. Held in his arms, where he protected her, even from the nightmares.

Cooper stared at the bank of monitors over the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, the fingers of one hand stroking at the stubble over his jaw.

He’d forgotten to shave that morning and hadn’t realized it until he saw the red abrasions on Sarah’s sensitive skin. Now there wasn’t going to be time to shave.

He watched the two men who eased up to the bar, their faces deliberately turned away so as not to allow the camera to get a clear shot. There was a third man behind them: a larger man, a ball cap pulled down over his brow.

Interesting.

They were talking to Jake as he poured drinks. Cooper watched as Jake shook his head at the two in front then moved down the bar to serve several other customers.

One of the men looked up at the camera from beneath his lashes and Cooper’s eyes narrowed. There was something about that look that he recognized. It wasn’t the man, he didn’t know the man, but the look itself. A sense of familiarity he couldn’t place.

Grimacing, he turned and moved quickly to the bed.

“Sair.” He leaned over his sleeping lover, kissed her cheek, felt her arms lift lazily and twine around his neck.

“Hm. Come back to bed,” she mumbled, trying to burrow back under the covers.

“Sair, we have trouble, baby.”

Her eyes opened immediately. Her arms slid from around his neck and she rolled out of the bed. Her response was too quick, too ingrained. Cooper felt his chest tighten at the knowledge that she had been forced to run too many times in her young life.

Wild, loose ringlets fell around her as she moved through the room, searching for her clothes now.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she hurriedly put on her bra and panties.

She was picking up her jeans as he pulled his T-shirt back on and glanced back to the monitors. At that moment, a red light lit up and a low buzz filled the room.

“What’s that?” Sair jerked on her blouse despite the alarm that filled her face.

“That’s trouble.” Cooper felt his body go on alert. He shoved his socked feet into his boots and strode to the closet at the side of the room.

There, he jerked out the automatic military-issue rifle, snapped the clip in efficiently, and shoved two extra ammo clips into the band of his jeans.

The door behind the bar had just been breached, and Jake or
one of his bouncers hadn’t opened it willingly. He moved back to the monitors.

“Do you recognize them?” He pointed to the men moving through the short hall that led to the stairs.

Sair moved to the monitors, pulling on her sandals as she stared at the three men who kept their faces deliberately turned away from the cameras.

She shook her head. “The big guy in the back looks familiar, but I can’t see his face for his ball cap.”

Cooper heard the fear in her voice, felt it.

“How do we get out of here?” she whispered.

Cooper stared at the three men. Jake was in the lead, his expression furious as he glanced at the hidden cameras as they passed.

But he wasn’t giving any signals. Nothing to indicate an attack. Cooper watched his face carefully as he led the men to the stairs. Nothing. Not a flicker of an eyelash, not a tightening of his lips.

“Come here.” He gripped her arm and led her across the room. Slapping the side of his hand against the paneling, he stood back as the door eased open to reveal a narrow set of stairs leading down.

Coming up those stairs was Casey, Iron, and Turk. They were heavily armed, expressions set.

He pulled Sarah back as they filed into the room, the same moment a heavy knock sounded at the door.

“Jake didn’t say a word, didn’t even indicate trouble,” Turk growled almost soundlessly. “We didn’t know shit till we looked up and he was gone from the bar.”

“Hey Coop, I need to talk to you.” Jake knocked again as Cooper’s eyes narrowed.

“Ethan?” Distressed, frightened, Sarah stared back at him. “We
can’t leave Jake out there with them.” Her hand touched her chest, rubbing against it as though it ached. Cooper felt almost a killing rage.

“Get in here.” He pushed her to the small landing behind the paneling.

“No.” Gripping his arm, fear brightening her eyes, she tried to tug him in after her. “Not without you. I won’t leave you here.”

“Dammit, Sair.”

“No. I won’t protect myself while you stand in front of a bullet for me. I won’t do it.”

“Sarita.”

Sarah froze at the sound of the voice, the name called through the door.

“Have your friend open the door for us, Sarita. I promise, there is no danger. Come, sweetheart. Let Pa-pa see your pretty face.”

Her gaze swung to the door as she felt emotions—fear, hope, longing—pouring through her. She shook her head, feeling the tears that built behind her eyes at that voice.

It wasn’t Pa-pa. It couldn’t be. He was dead. Uncle Martin had cried when he learned the news that Pa-pa was dead.

“No.” She shook her head and stared back up at Ethan in terror now. “It’s a trick. He’s dead. Uncle Martin knew he was dead. It’s not him.”

“Coop, it’s cool, man. They’re not armed,” Jake called out. “Let’s get this shit over with so I can go back to work, okay?”

“You get ready to run!” Ethan shoved his finger at her as he pushed her to the one called Casey. “Casey, if anything happens to her . . .”

“I’m dead meat and turned to sausage.” Casey nodded his shaggy head as he gripped her arm and pulled her back to the landing.

Sarah felt her chest erupting with pain, with fear. Her hands gripped Ethan’s arm, fear cascading through her as she felt herself shuddering, torn apart from the inside out.

“Sarita, little one. Pa-pa wants only to see his little angel. Would you deny me this?” the voice called from the other side of the door.

Sarah felt the tears that fell from her eyes. It sounded so much like Pa-pa. Her breathing hitched, the pain spearing through her heart like a double-edged sword.

“No. He’s dead,” she whispered, staring up at her lover, beseeching. “We have to leave, Ethan. Please.”

He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “I love you. Stay with Casey and let’s see what we have here.”

“No.” She reached out as he pulled back from her, fighting to follow him as Casey’s arm snagged around her waist and pulled her back.

“Don’t get him killed, girl,” Casey snapped quietly. “Let him do what he has to. Cooper doesn’t run. None of us do. We stand and fight, or we’re better off dead.”

No. No. She couldn’t do this. She knew what her father’s enemies were like, the cruelties, the absolute lack of mercy. She could feel the scars on her flesh like a fresh brand now, searing her with the memory of how they used a child to force her pa-pa to do as they wanted. Until he had secretly gone to the authorities, turned himself in, and made a deal that destroyed him as well as the other crime families that had struck against him.

Her pa-pa had saved her. But she had suffered for his crimes. A part of her hated what he had been before he died, but another part of her ached for the father she had known. Loving. Strong. So kind.

At least, to those he loved. To those he didn’t love, he had been a monster, not unlike those who had kidnapped her.

“Don’t distract him, girl,” Casey snarled at her ear as he pushed her behind him and Ethan, while Turk and Iron placed themselves at the door.

Ethan moved to the side while Turk and Iron flattened themselves against the wall on each side of the door.

“Ethan. Man. The bar is going to hell without me,” Jake called out.

Ethan frowned. Every damned thing Jake was saying was a clear sign that their visitors were unarmed and unthreatening.