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He was insufferable, boorish.
Dangerously close to irresistible.
She set her jaw and tried to look fierce. ‘It means you’re on probation. That’s your one and only Get Out of Jail Free card.’
As he groaned with relief, drew her in and pressed an almost chaste kiss to her brow, she didn’t know if he realised, but in her heart she knew it was true. She owed it to her baby to give him one more chance. She owed it to herself and the baby to stick to that and not give in again.
CHAPTER TEN
ONE month and one day after the costume party, Sophie stood looking over the meerkats’ replica desert home at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo. No winding caves or upper storeys. These cute cousins to the mongoose lived on ground-floor quarters.
Just like her.
But she didn’t regret giving in to Cooper’s request that she move downstairs. It would be arrogance on her part to say she did. And, to be fair, after their talk-and-make-up that morning he’d been on his best behaviour. So much so, she’d begun to wonder whether miracles did happen and destiny had in fact shone its light on them both.
But it was early days yet. Surely a leopard didn’t change its spots? A man of Cooper’s determined and uncompromising character didn’t turn over a new leaf overnight. Each day when they said goodnight, and she curled up in her bed alone, she told herself, Wait a little longer and the bombshells will start falling again.
Every day she waited for the former Cooper to return. Every day she waited for the sparring to begin again. And every day that passed without a sighting, she found herself believing and caring a little more.
Whistling, Cooper returned with two bottled waters. He set one upon the waist-high fence and, smiling at a meerkat’s pointed little face and alert upright posture, unscrewed the other bottle and handed it over.
Sipping on her water, Sophie wondered again at Cooper’s newfound restraint with regard to trying to seduce her. Was this self-discipline part of a calculated game to have her crumple beneath the incessant craving and beg him to take her in his arms?
If that were indeed the case, all she could say was … it was working. Whenever he smiled that certain sexy way, or strode around in front of her in nothing more than a towel and foam upon his face, she had to call her body to heel. Unfortunately it never listened.
After removing his baseball cap, Cooper swiped the bottle’s condensation over his brow. The winter sky was a perfect dome of saturated blue, and the temperature had been delectable—though it was dropping now the afternoon was fading.
After quenching her thirst, she recapped her bottle, and Cooper turned for her to slot it into the khaki knapsack slung over his back. ‘We should visit the kangaroo park next,’ she said. The last stop on today’s busy agenda.
She adored the clean, open atmosphere of Taronga Park. More so, she loved that endangered species like the Asian elephant and Nepal’s Red Panda were being cared for here.
He checked the time. ‘Then we’d better get a move on. They’ll be closing soon.’
They meandered down a gently winding bitumen slope, Cooper keeping a half-step ahead—Sophie suspected in case she stumbled or tripped.
He snapped a digital pic of a massive croc grinning around a mouthful of jagged teeth. Showing her the shot, he asked, ‘Any update from the infamous Mr Myers this week?’
Cooper was aware that, as it had turned out, the principal hadn’t wanted to see her regarding anything personal, but rather had needed to discuss a parent’s complaint over a student’s assignment mark. Perhaps it was nerves, but Sophie had imagined a curious glint shining from behind Mr Myers’s large old-fashioned frames as he’d spoken to her from his orderly desk that day almost a month ago.
‘I must have been mistaken,’ she said, stopping to read a direction chart to make sure they were on the right path. ‘Myers still doesn’t seem to know anything about the pregnancy.’
‘But he’ll need to soon.’
Irrespective of how well things had been going between them, her hackles quivered. They’d been through this. ‘I don’t want to hide it. I just don’t feel a need to blurt it to the world.’
Her body. Her privacy. Her prerogative.
And there was another reason for not jumping in and telling everyone at work—the first twelve weeks of pregnancy were known for incidents of miscarriage. But she had entered her second trimester, thank heaven, and was discovering a whole new interesting side to her fluctuating hormone journey.
Cooper seemed to read her mind.
‘What were you looking up on the net last night? You shut the page when I came into the study.’
Sophie quashed a jab of embarrassment and twisted her mouth. ‘Hmm … sorry.’ She shrugged. ‘Can’t remember.’
He laughed—a deep, rich, scrumptious sound. ‘You look as guilty now as you did then.’ He gave her the evil eye. ‘You weren’t tinkering with the naughty sites, were you?’
She dug deep for an answer. ‘Not exactly.’ Then, more firmly, ‘No.’
They collected a bag of dry food pellets and entered a reserve full of kangaroos and wallabies but, almost at closing time, devoid of humans. The minty smell of eucalypt was close to overpowering.
Opening a pellet bag, Cooper walked around her. ‘I see you’re trying your best to intrigue me.’
He followed as she trod carefully up to a grazing wallaby. Sophie crouched, and glowed inside when the sweet little face nuzzled into her hand. Their eyelashes were so long—she ran a palm down its back—and their fur so incredibly soft.
Cooper nudged again. ‘Anything you want to share, Sophie? I’m all ears.’
The wallaby’s wet nose wriggled against the pocket of her palm, full of pellets. She shrugged again. ‘Just information about being pregnant.’
They stood back as a six-foot emu, Australia’s flightless national bird, trotted by.
‘I feel as though I’m pulling teeth.’ Cooper stuffed his empty wrap into his back pocket. ‘Will you tell me what you were researching, or do I get worried?’
She shook the rest of her bag’s contents onto the ground, and two more wallabies edged over on their long tails and hind legs.
He wanted to know.
She inhaled deeply.
Okay. She would tell him.
‘Fluctuating hormones.’ She knew she ought to zip her lip now, but a force greater than common sense seemed to spur her on. ‘Some women experience a phenomenon where their sex drive increases in the second trimester. Husbands sometimes complain they can’t keep up.’
She stole a glance at Cooper.
His lopsided grin said, I can keep up.
Avoiding his eyes, she moved towards the smooth dimpled bark of a giant gum tree. ‘It also says that this phenomenon might be linked to women’s basic need for reassurance during this time.’
That’s quite enough, Sophie.
After dusting his hands on his chambray button-down shirt, Cooper joined her.
Pressed against the trunk, hands fanned behind her at the pit of her back, she still couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. Not even when he stood close enough for that mesmerising innate heat to seep though her clothing, burrow through her skin, and find that secret place deep inside. The force was so tangible she pictured red and blue flames leaping to life.
They’d made love for an endless night and half a day. Had seen each other dressed in nothing but desire. Yet her cheeks burned with the blatant implication of her own words. Did she want to take them back?
Sophie’s shoulders sagged. Foolish or not, she wanted the safety of his strong sinewy arms around her. The urge for contact had become so overpowering lately that twice this week vivid dreams had woken her …
Cooper’s hard-muscled body above her.
Adoring lips nipping hers.
Hot male scent convincing her more and more.
His sable voice wove out to soothe her. ‘If you can’t say it, Sophie, I will.’
She closed her eyes and shivered as his warm breath stirred her hair and hot fingers threaded back the curls fallen over her face. He cupped her hip and scooped till he’d prised her away from the wood.
‘We want each other,’ he told her. ‘We’re not kids. Nothing is bad or wrong with feeling strong physical attraction towards a person you care about.’
Sophie’s heartbeat skipped, then she smiled. He cared about her? As much as she’d come to care for him?
Cooper murmured against her crown. ‘Here’s something else to think about. What if we make love two or three more times and the sparks fizzle and die? Shouldn’t we find out whether our physical attraction is long-term or just a flash in the pan?’
Sophie grinned. Oh, he was smooth. She had a big feeling her sparks for him would never fizzle.
Which sounded romantic, but in reality wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If this trial failed—if she still believed he wanted to marry the chicken who had incubated his egg rather than the person he respected, valued and, yes, maybe even loved—she didn’t want to be hung up on a lost cause all the lonely years of her life.
He brushed aside more stubborn curls on her brow. When he dotted a soft kiss on her hairline, her core squeezed with the unmistakable sweet pang of longing. Concentrating on the rapid rhythm of her heartbeat, she breathed in and out, then, forcing herself over caution’s edge, walked her fingers up his shirtfront.
Thing was, he did have a valid point. Didn’t he? Maybe they really ought to check out whether their compatibility in the bedroom was not only as real and wonderful as she remembered, but also whether it would last beyond a night … a week … a month …
His hand framed her face as his thumb worked a light, relaxing circle at her temple. ‘We need to check those waters out thoroughly.’ His mouth caressed the spot. ‘Very thoroughly.’ He groaned and held her closer. ‘Very, very thoroughly.’
Her mouth drifted over and skimmed his. ‘Cooper?’
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
Sweetheart.
She smiled. ‘I get the picture.’
Smiling back, he tasted her parted lips.
Her arms gradually linked around his neck, and he gathered her in for a passionate and meaningful no-holds-barred kiss.
A thunderbolt of searing heat fell through her middle and down her legs, before gushing back up in a fanfare of tingling bright lights. Hanging on tight, she invited him in fully, revelling in the fire that burned and leapt inside her. Time converged in on itself, a twirling, giddy spin that left her breathless, weak and needing more.
Needing it all.
When the kiss ended, Cooper’s breathing was laboured, his voice thick. He nipped her bottom lip. ‘We need to go home or the kangaroos are going to sell tickets.’
She floated up from her dreamy haze to see an audience of marsupials arced around them, eyes bright, apparently most eager to witness the next stage.
He found her gaze. ‘I might not believe in black cats and lucky charms, but I do believe our night together wasn’t a mistake. This isn’t a mistake. I want you, Sophie.’
He stole another penetrating kiss that melted the last of her resistance before reluctantly drawing away.
His smile was soft. ‘Let’s go home.’
With the afternoon’s cool shadows growing longer, and their arms looped around each other’s belts as they left the reserve, Sophie so wanted to take heart in Cooper’s confidence. But that annoying part of her which wasn’t affected by raging hormones niggled and whispered all the way home.
Whether or not she’d been a party to it, ultimately Cooper had got his own way. As of tonight, his bed was her bed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘DROP the bathrobe—but only if you’re naked underneath.’
Freshly emerged from a steamy shower after their big day at the zoo, Sophie enjoyed a delicious shiver at the authoritative tone evident in that deep, masculine voice. Sexual awareness climbed as, poised in the en suite bathroom’s doorway, she allowed time for her eyes to adjust from the brighter light to the bedroom’s corner lamp glow.
The commanding silhouette towering before her gradually acquired features. As Cooper’s hooded gaze became clearer, so too did his hungry smile.
The plateau of his chest was dusted with the wiry hair she adored driving her fingers through; the toned ridges of his stomach looked as hard as her whispered memories said they would be. Hair began again below his concave navel, arrowing down in a silky trail that left her heart beating so fiercely she could barely catch her breath.
He pushed out a put-upon sigh and rushed a hand through his damp, dark hair. ‘Guess I have to do my own dirty work and come over there.’
Cooper moved towards her with the athletic grace of a predator savouring the thought of its next, highly anticipated meal. His rolling muscles were a masterpiece in polished steel motion. His Levi’s were her favourites—well-worn, low-slung and unzipped. With each languid step the soft blue denim shifted on his hips, drawing her attention to what Sophie knew full well lay beneath.
Light-headedness tingled across her brain as the distance separating them narrowed and his scent reached out to fill her lungs. Finally anchoring his weight mere inches away, Cooper cuffed strong fingers into the collar of her heavy towelling robe and urged her up onto tiptoe at the same instant his mouth came crashing down.
Impatient, greedy … she happily submitted to the drugging magic of his kiss. The force was greater than any current catching her ankles and sweeping her out to sea. She was drawn in by the urgency, set free by the heady heights of passion. Some good reason had stopped her pursuing this intense longing these past weeks, but for the life of her now she couldn’t think what.
Stretching, she moved to embrace him, but found her robe’s shoulders had been dragged down, effectively confining her arms to her sides. Smiling against his lips, she burrowed close as his large hands continued to pull the towelling till her heavy breasts spilled out.
As his thumbs kneaded her arms, her nipples rubbed against his chest, releasing a scorching blast of want that struck and then consumed her feminine core. Legs turned to rubber, she clung to his forearms, willing this night to last at least until eternity.
As their kiss evolved into starved snatches, he urged her to follow as he backed up. His tongue was tickling a responsive patch on her neck when she imagined his legs hit the mattress, and something resembling conscious thought clawed its way up from the depths of wild abandon.
Still, it took the hot shell of his hand slipping under the robe for her to remember the all-important questions she’d decided, while showering, she needed to ask.
‘Cooper,’ she murmured, eyes closed, neck arced back, ‘we need to stop for a moment.’
He manoeuvred her around till she sat on the bed’s edge, then pressed her back against the dusky pink coverlet. His gaze trained on her swollen tender breasts, he released the tie at her waist. The hot plates of his palms ironed across her abdomen as he spread the robe apart.
In shadow, she saw a pulse jump at the side of his throat and one dark brow lift in shameless appreciation. ‘Yep. You’re naked under there, all right.’
His knees nudged hers apart, widening her thighs to a vee before a two-fingered touch slid a lazy path between her centre. As a powerful tremor gripped her, her hips automatically arched to meet his stroke.
Cooper’s smile changed.
The side of his hand breezed down then up one quivering inner thigh. ‘I’ve missed you.’
A knee on the bed, he lowered over her.
A flash went off in her mind. She remembered her preparation plan and rolled away.
Chuckling, he effortlessly rolled her back. ‘Sophie, all the fun’s happening here.’
