“Show you?” He grinned and started to unzip his jeans.
She smacked his hand. “I mean, show me you can change. Show me you can release control and let me be my own person. Show me you can trust me. Show me you can tolerate my job and all the men I’m required to hang out with and schmooze. Show me, and I’ll reconsider.”
Damn, that was a tall order, considering how he craved every aspect of his life to be in perfect control. Yet, he’d never been one to back down from any challenge, and Izzy was worth it. Yeah, he could do this or he’d fucking die trying.
He clicked his heels together and saluted her. “You’re on. I’ll be the perfect gentlemen who trusts you implicitly.”
“We’ll see.” He heard the skepticism in her voice, but rather than taking offense, he grinned all the more.
“How about we kiss on it to seal the deal?”
Izzy’s good sense, or what was left of it in Cooper’s presence, floated out the window like an unleashed bundle of balloons into the stormy Seattle sky. His smile was an odd combination of wolfish and hopeful.
She leaned forward and looked up at him. His uncertain grin shifted to predatory, while her body hummed with giddy anticipation. She should just jump the man’s bones and get it over with.
Like that would satisfy her longing for him. Yeah, right.
It’d only whet her appetite for more. She knew that as sure as she knew her parents hadn’t had a hit song in twenty years, but that hadn’t stopped them from wanting one either.
“Izzy,” Cooper whispered, his deep voice a husky growl.
She leaned back and grabbed the edge of the counter to stop her knees from buckling. Sliding to the floor in a pile of overheated female mush wasn’t the way to end this evening.
Neither was jumping in bed with this hot man who pushes every one of your buttons like he’s been fully trained on how to drive your body crazy.
Besides, no one said anything about bed. Just one little kiss. That was all.
He advanced on her, ready to claim what she knew was his, even if she didn’t want him to know it.
“Riley’s upstairs,” she pointed out, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“I want you back, and I’ll prove it,” he murmured as he cupped her face in his big, rough hands. She stared into eyes as deep and blue as a wind-tossed sea, while waves of desire rolled over her, cresting like twenty-foot waves.
She opened her mouth to point out that he’d never really had her. Their on-again, off-again relationship had spanned little more than a month. The first two hours they’d met she’d gone down on him, and he’d gone down on her. Then they’d gone their separate ways. When they’d gotten back together days later, she’d insisted they take it slow, rather than jumping right back into the deep end.
Izzy didn’t trust easily, and while she’d never been a prude, her instincts told her that sex with Cooper would be more than sex. It’d be downright dangerous to the most vulnerable part of her—her heart. And she guarded that heart as jealously as she guarded her sisters, and Cooper hadn’t earned her trust. In fact, he’d turned it inside out with his caveman behavior.
Sex with Cooper Black would ruin her for any other man. Did she dare chance it?
If Cooper didn’t want to keep his own nephew around, why would he keep her around once he got what he wanted?
Despite it all, she was going to kiss him.
His distinctly male scent of soap and man filled her nostrils. She reached up and laced her fingers behind his neck. He pressed his hips against hers, his hands splayed on the counter on either side of her body. His erection pressed against her crotch, and she fought to catch her breath.
“Oh, God, Izzy,” he rasped against her neck. “I need you.”
This big, strong man needed her?
Well, dammit, she needed him, too. Or his body, at the least. God, she was a weak woman when it came to this particular sexy hockey player.
Cooper’s lips touched hers, and her eyes fluttered shut. He was gentle, careful, as if he were afraid he’d break her, or even worse, that she’d run. She didn’t push him, just enjoyed the moment, enjoyed his warm, moist lips covering hers, as his tongue traced a circle around her mouth. He tasted so good. So very, very good. And so very, very right.
His strong hands cupped her butt, and he lifted her onto the counter. He settled his hips between her thighs with a groan and rubbed his erection against her. She buried her fingers in his shaggy, overly long hair, savoring how it felt sliding through her fingers.
He licked at the seam of her lips, enticing her to open for him. She didn’t need a second invitation. She let him inside and twined her tongue with his in that age-old dance. Wrapping her long legs around his waist, she lost herself in the taste, smell, and feel of him.
Cooper affected her like no other man she’d ever been with, and she hadn’t actually been with him—yet. At least not completely. But she wanted to be. And against every bit of better judgment she possessed, she wanted it to be tonight. She didn’t want to wait.
She had to be the most fickle woman on earth. She’d ended it. Now she wanted to start it again.
Well, okay, so maybe with a little help from Cooper.
His warm hands slid under her T-shirt and caressed her bare back. He dragged his mouth from hers and kissed a trail down her neck, pausing for a nip here and there. Izzy tilted her head back to give him better access. Her body was shameless in its response to him. She fisted his shirt in her hands, ready to rip it off him at a moment’s notice.
Cooper pushed her shirt upward until her lacy bra was visible. He cupped her breasts in each of his big hands and squeezed them. His face softened as he stared at them reverently. He bent his head as he slipped her bra cups below her nipples. Taking one in his mouth, he gently sucked and swirled his tongue around her sensitive nub, while his thumb rubbed the other nipple.
“Cooper,” she hissed. “You’re killing me.”