The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Cooper twisted again, putting her on her back on that couch and coming over her, taking her breast in his mouth. Emma was moving without conscious thought, her hands on him, her eyes meeting his, expecting to see the lust dim them. But his gaze remained completely focused on her.

Her body raged for him to be inside her, a new, electric feeling, because Emma never wanted sex. But with Cooper, everything had tilted. She was surely imagining things, because she felt as if he was looking past her body, as if he were looking directly into her. He could see her.

She wrapped her hand around his cock and began to move. Cooper braced himself and looked down at her. His breathing was uneven, his hair a mess. He surveyed her body, unabashedly looking at every inch of her, one hand trailing behind his gaze. “You’re beautiful, Emma,” he said with genuine appreciation. “I know that’s not news to you,” he said, his fingers splaying across her breast. “But you should hear it all the same. You are beautiful inside and out.”

That remark made her heart flutter. Emma smiled with pleasure. “You’re beautiful, too,” she said, and swept her hands up his chest, across his pecs. “You’re kryptonite.”

“What?” he said, his gaze on her body again, taking in every curve, every exposed patch of her skin.

“Kryptonite,” she whispered. Her arms went around his neck, and she pressed her breasts against his chest. She opened her legs to him, one of them hooking around his back. She pressed against him warm and wet, and felt herself unravel completely, caught up in her torrential desire. He slid the tip of his erection into her, and she could feel his heart beating in his chest, the steady rhythm of it on her breast. He skimmed lower, over her breasts, his hand floating down her side and across her belly, then down again, between their bodies, stroking her as he slowly pushed deeper inside her.

Emma sighed with longing and arched her neck, shifting beneath him, opening wider to his body and his hand. Cooper began to move in her, sliding in and out. Emma was falling away, the cracks in her foundation splitting open, letting Cooper seep into her and burn her with an intensity she’d never felt, as if his heat was branding her. She moved against him, her body rising to meet his, urging him to move harder and faster. Her hands gripped at him, clutching him, holding on to him with the strength of a drowning woman.

He was so hard, so hot, moving in her with unstoppable force. And Emma kept pressing back, kept digging her fingers into his hips, drawing him deeper inside her, wanting all of this, everything he had. She was panting, nearing her climax. Just before she came, Cooper took her chin in his hand and said, “Let me see you.”

That was it, the thing that tipped her over the edge. Emma cried out, arched her back, and a moment later, waves of pleasure crashed over Cooper, spilling hot and thick inside her.

He collapsed beside her, completely spent, his breathing as ravaged as hers. A few moments passed before she awkwardly, but meaningfully, twined her fingers in his hair, then drew a long line down his spine.

“You better not,” he said.

“Better not what?” she murmured, and kissed his shoulder.

Cooper lifted himself up, his eyes the color of a storm. She could fall into those eyes and stay there, bobbing around without a care in the world.

“You better not take anything from me. Because this,” he said, stroking her cheek, “is not that.”

Emma smiled. She opened her mouth to speak . . .

But the sound of a car on the drive startled them both into action.





EIGHTEEN

They scrambled around the living room, both gathering up boots and jackets and clothes as they dashed upstairs. Emma could hear the slam of car doors, could hear Libby and Madeline’s voices on the drive as she and Cooper slipped into her room.

She heard the front door open as she pushed Cooper inside her room, then quietly, slowly, shut her door so that the hinges wouldn’t squeak. She turned around and put her back to it, then covered her mouth with both hands as laughter erupted. She slid down to her bottom, doubled over with the laughter she wouldn’t allow to escape.

Cooper joined her there, his back against the wall, a grin on his face. His chest was still damp with the sweat of their lovemaking, and his hair looked as if a rake had been dragged through it.

“Emma!” one of the women shouted. “Are you here?”

Emma buried her face in Cooper’s shoulder to stifle her laugh.

There was the sound of plodding footsteps on the stairs, the movement of feet down the hall toward her room.

“Is she up there?” Libby shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

Emma and Cooper stilled as Madeline stopped just outside the door.

“I don’t think so!” Madeline called back, so close that it made Cooper jump. Emma put her hand over his mouth, her finger to her lips, warning him to be quiet.

A moment later, Madeline walked away. “She’s not here,” she called down to Libby. “Maybe they went down to the bunkhouse.” Her steps faded away as she jogged downstairs again.