Get a Clue

Chapter 8

Out of breath, Breanne burrowed in closer to a warm, strong Cooper as his arms came around her. "I was asleep-" she began.

"Me, too." He said this in a voice she hadn't heard from him before, rough and husky and… sweet. "But this is better. Much better. What are you wearing?"

"No, you don't understand-" Her words choked off when he slid his hands down and cupped her butt, squeezing, kneading. "I got too hot. I locked the door to strip-"

"Mmm," came from deep in his chest as he pressed his face to her throat. "I like the stripping part."

"And then I thought I was dreaming. Maybe I was dreaming-"

"About me?" he asked hopefully, opening his mouth on her neck, sucking on a patch of skin.

"Oh, my God." She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his head back. "You're not listening!"

"Sure I am. You stripped."

"Is every single penis-carrying human the same?"

"Yeah." He went back to work on her neck.

Her eyes crossed with lust. "I'm having a crisis here!"

"Sorry," he said with dubious regret. "Go on."

"It's just that I don't know how he got in-"

"Wait." He tightened his grip on her and pulled back to see her face. "This isn't about you coming here for a slumber party, is it?"

"No!"

"Damn." He sighed, but sounding extremely alert now, he gave her one of those long, studying looks that did something funny to her belly. "Finish."

Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized he was once again shirtless, but as he was still holding her, that was only a bonus. "I saw a face leaning over me-" Just saying it brought it back. "Leering-" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I didn't know what to do, so I-"

"Jumped me." He held onto her when she might have wriggled free, but truthfully, she didn't want to get away.

Even awkwardly sprawled over the top of him, she could feel the easy strength in his body, the delicious heat, and then there was the disconcerting fact that he smelled better than the most expensive chocolate, better than coffee on a freezing morning, better than anything she'd ever smelled, which was really damn unfair.

The room had seemed pitch-black when she'd first entered in her blind panic, but her eyes had slowly adjusted. He had candles in a tray on the dresser, too, though there was only one left burning, just a small flicker of light in the huge room.

He brushed her hair from her face. "Did you really see a face, or did you have a dream about a face?"

"I really saw a face." At least she thought so. "When I opened my eyes, someone was leaning over me."

His sharp gaze swiveled to the door, which she'd left wide open. "Wait here."

"What?" She scrambled to her knees when he set her aside and rose out of the bed, wearing… nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"Oh, my God," she said, staring, mouth open.

Perfectly at home in his own skin, he walked to his bag on a chair and took out a pair of sweats.

The man had the best ass she'd ever seen. She was still staring when he pulled on the sweats, and oh, baby, how they fit. Low on the hips, snug to his fabulous physique… if she hadn't been so afraid, she might have pretended to be. "You can't go! What if it gets you?"

He glanced back at her, and even in the dark, with the grim mood hovering over them, she caught his vague and brief amusement. "Don't worry, Princess. I can handle myself."

"But…"

Without bothering to tie the sweats, he moved to the door, ready to defend her world.

"Cooper? I'm sorry I called you a jerk earlier. You're not."

A brief smile touched his lips. "Yeah, I am." He nodded toward her. "Stay."

Right. Stay. Normally just the word would awaken every ornery, defensive bone she had, but she wasn't going anywhere. Not when she'd slid beneath his blankets and yanked them up to her chin, absorbing the incredible body heat he'd left behind; not when she'd been struck dumb and mute by the incredible protective gesture he'd just given her, whether he'd meant to or not.

Not when God knew what was out there, waiting.

At that thought, she clutched his blankets closer, frozen to the spot. What had she sent him into? If something happened to him, she'd never forgive herself. She should go after him, she should… do as he said and stay because he seemed more than capable of taking care of himself, and, in fact, more than a little dangerous in his own right.

Just the way he'd left the room, without drama or a need to show off, proved that.

She'd grown up with testosterone all around her, but typically her relationships with her brothers had been about torture. That is, their torture of her. The few times she'd needed any sort of rescuing or protecting, she'd done it on her own.

The men she'd been with had been more of the same. In the time she and Dean had been together, she'd rescued him quite a few times-from his boss, from other women, from his family.

He'd not returned the favor even once.

Which brought her back to her past decisions, and how she'd always made the wrong ones.

But no more.

It didn't matter how attracted she was to Cooper. When he got back- if he got back-she'd thank him, and then go back to sleep.

Temptation averted.

If only she could avert her tendency to screw up just as easily.

In another part of the house entirely, a shadow flattened against the wall as Cooper moved down the hallway.

Sweat beading.

Heart drumming.

Too close, way too close. If he'd so much as turned his head-

But he hadn't. No one had. No one saw.

No one ever did.

In the suite, Breanne waited. And waited. Going more and more crazy as the minutes ticked by.

Any time now, she thought. Any time now, Cooper would saunter back in, casually edgy, astonishingly sexy, laughing at her because he'd seen nothing. Yeah, any minute now.

And when he did, she was going to grab him and never let go-screw going to sleep. She was going to thank him, even though she didn't expect him to understand. She was going to-.

"Hi, honey, I'm home." Cooper swaggered back into the room, a vision in his sweat bottoms and nothing else, bringing life back into the place with just his presence.

"What did you find?" she demanded.

"Nothing." He crossed the room until his knees bumped the mattress. The candlelight danced over his sinewy chest, over that flat, rippled belly she wanted to touch, over his powerful thighs… and the intriguing bulge between them that kept captivating her gaze and holding it against her will.

"Nothing but a dark house," he said softly, in a voice that suggested he knew where her thoughts had just gone and liked it.

She forced her gaze up. "You went into my room?"

"I went down to the great room. Didn't see a thing." He frowned. "Not even your stuff. You weren't sleeping down there dressed like that," he realized.

She looked down at herself. The gossamer-thin silk clung to her breasts, just barely covering her nipples. Snatching the covers back up to her chin, she avoided his smirk that said it was too late-he'd already gotten an eyeful. "Lariana made me move upstairs to a bedroom," she murmured.

"And then you changed."

"I told you, I… got hot."

A fleeting smile touched his mouth at that. "Babe, you're always hot."

She was always hot?

"Which bedroom?" he asked.

She was always hot? "Uh, back to that hot comment. I thought I was a pain in your ass."

"Yeah, well, you can be both. You can be a hot pain-in-my-ass, how's that? Which bedroom, Princess?"

"Coming up the stairs, it was the first door on the right."

"Okay, hang tight."

"Wait!" No way was she getting left behind again. She leapt out of bed, but a look at the way his gaze heated and she nearly dove back beneath the covers. She crossed her arms over her breasts. "Do you have a shirt I can wear?"

"No."

'Yes, you do. You have a big bag-"

"Do I look stupid enough to cover you up twice in one night?"

With an exasperated sigh, she tugged the sheet free of the bed. "Men are dogs," she muttered, wrapping herself up.

"Wuff, wuff," he said. "Come on, let's go find your boogey-man."

That slowed her steps, reminding her why they were doing this. Someone had been in her bedroom, someone had wanted to scare her or worse, and all she had for protection was a sheet and this man. She sneaked a sideways glance at his tall, leanly muscled form. That odd sense of awareness he had shimmering around him, coupled with the intensity he could get between the flashes of ridiculous guy humor, made her admit that low as her opinion of men was at the moment, if she had to depend on one even temporarily, she hadn't done too shabbily.

However, she'd long ago learned that the more good-looking a man was, the fewer his actual life skills. "You're not a pencil pusher," she guessed.

He looked startled. "Pencil pusher?"

"Accountant."

He let out a low laugh. "No. I'm not an anything pusher."

"What do you do?"

"Nothing at the moment."

Not exactly comforting. "But you think you can keep us safe if it comes right down to it?"

He gave her a funny look. "I think I can manage."

Glancing uneasily toward the door, she nodded, having no choice but to trust him. "'Kay, then." Her voice wavered only slightly. "Let's go."

"Hey." Stepping close until their thighs bumped, he reached out and slowly, purposely, stroked a finger over her hairline, across her temple, ostensibly to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. She didn't buy that, though, not with the way he was looking at her, as if maybe he was starving and she was a twelve-course meal, as if maybe he could gobble her up in one sitting.

Odd how that made her knees wobble, as did the way his own breathing wasn't any more steady than hers. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Comforting you." His fingers stroked their way over her throat, then further down, taking the sheet with them, to her shoulder. "Is it working?"

She slapped his hand away. "I'm fine."

"Sure?" he asked in that voice that melted her brain cells at an alarming rate. "Because I have a lot more comfort in me."

Damn her wobbly knees anyway. She locked them into place, along with her jaw. No more men! "Positive," she said through her teeth, afraid to let her mouth stay open for too long because God-knew-what would pop out of it, probably something like "Take me now, please."

"You can wait here, you know," he said.

"I'm going with you."

He studied her for a long moment, and she got the impression he saw far more than she wanted him to. "Suit yourself, then," he said.

"Oh, I will. I always do."

Wasn't that just the problem.