Page 27 of This Time Around
I could pull her toward me and hold her.I should push her away to keep us both from getting into a mess that would only make our lives messier.
“I’m glad you had fun.Glad I could be there for you while you were doing it, too.”
I offered her the keys and she reached out, touching them like she didn’t want to touch me, but at the last moment, she held onto them a bit too long before taking them from me.
“You’re a good man, Cooper Hawke.”Her lips lifted into a soft, sleepy grin.
And damn, she was even more beautiful with a hint of happiness on her.
“Thank you,” I choked out.She was looking at me in a way I liked a whole hell of a lot.I’d seen that look on women’s faces lots after becoming famous.The look that said they were thinking of making a move, but nervous to do so.
Rebecca wouldn’t look at me like that.I had to be imagining it.
“You need help getting upstairs?”I asked when she kept looking at me, her bottom lip sliding between her teeth.
“No.”She stepped toward me, hesitating as she moved, and I braced myself for whatever she was about to do, but I didn’t move away.
I was paralyzed by her beauty moving toward me, her hand reaching out for my arm, that indecision flaring in her dark brown eyes.
“Rebecca—” I said.She had to stop, she had no clue what she was doing to me.Heat was swirling in my spine and one particular area in my jeans was growing uncomfortable.
She didn’t stop moving, and as her hand reached my bicep, my muscles tightened.She rolled to her toes, leaned up.
“Rebecca,” I whispered again.She was moving straight for my mouth.
The good man she claimed I was would move back, wouldn’t want those lips to fall to mine.I wasn’t a good man.I wanted to touch her back, press my lips to hers, slide my tongue inside her mouth and place my hands on her hips and yank her against me.
There was no way she truly wanted to kiss me.
She didn’t.At the last second, she moved to the side and her lips brushed over the corner of my mouth, landing on my cheek.
The faint scent of flowery perfume hit me at the same time her lips made contact with my skin and still, I forced my body to lock, to not reach for her.
Instead, I inhaled her, reveled in the brush of her silky hair over my arm, the weight of her body pressing against mine even if she was barely touching me.My eyes closed and I breathed in the scent and feel of her, taking from her whatever she’d give me like I’d vowed to do.
She pulled back, not looking at me, and fell back to her heels.“Goodnight, Cooper.”
I cleared my throat in order to speak.She’d barely touched me and I was on fire, hard all over,everywhere.
“Goodnight, Rebecca.”
She headed up the stairs, still not looking at me, not even looking back when I told her I’d lock up.
I waited until she reached the top of the stairs, until I heard a door close behind her, and I waited longer until water in the upstairs bathroom turned on.
Then I locked the front door, moved to the back, and I got the hell out of her house before I went after her.
“Hey Pepper.”I crouched down and ruffled the top of my favorite baby goat.
I grinned down at the cute little gray animal and lifted him into my arms.I’d watched this kid be born.Watching it happen had been one of the grossest and slimiest, but coolest things I’d ever seen in my life.
I’d tossed and turned all night long.Instead of continuing to do it once it hit four-thirty, I’d gotten up and showered and decided if I couldn’t sleep, I could get my ass moving to make things easier for Rebecca once she rolled out of bed.
My guess was with all the wine she drank last night, getting up at her typical five-thirty wasn’t going to be easy for her, if even possible.I wasn’t wrong because it was well after seven and I hadn’t heard or seen her yet.
I didn’t mind.
She deserved a morning off, and I’d quickly realized that work on a farm never quit and you certainly didn’t get weekends and holidays off.
