A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother

Nine


From the moment Portia woke up in Cooper’s bed, it took her less than thirty seconds to get from Damn, that was amazing! to Holy crap, I slept with Cooper! to What the hell is wrong with me?

Cooper was her brother-in-law!

Okay. Not really. Not anymore.

But he had been once and surely that put him off-limits forever. Surely there was some sort of societal rule about not sleeping with former brother-in-laws. Jeez, even Shakespeare had covered it. Hamlet made it pretty damn clear. It was like number three on his lists of big don’ts, right after not strangling your wife—Othello—and not murdering your houseguests—Macbeth. Marrying, flirting with or sleeping with your former brother-in-law was bad news.

Or did that only count if he was an evil bastard who had poisoned your husband and tried to kill your son?

Ugh. This was so not helpful.

When had her life gotten so confused?

For that matter, where was Cooper now?

She sat bolt upright in bed and looked around the hotel. He was gone.

Then, she cocked her head to the side and listened carefully, just in case he was in the shower. But nope, there wasn’t a peep from that direction. No running water. No off-key signing. No soft, moving-around-the-bathroom noises. He wasn’t here.

Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

She looked around the room, sucking in panicky gulps of air. It was good, right? This would give her time to think. To plan. To get her act together.

She scrambled from the bed and yanked on the clothes she grabbed off the floor until she was decent enough to duck out into the hall. The rest she merely tucked under her arm. She found her room key on the floor a few feet from the door. The swath of hallway from his door to hers may have been the shortest walk of shame ever, but she was keenly aware of every step and she didn’t stop shaking until she was standing in the shower, hot water washing over her skin. Washing away Cooper’s touch.

She stilled for a second then stepped out of the stream of water, shaken all over again. Was that really what she wanted? To wash away his touch?

Shakespearean life lessons aside, it wasn’t as though what she’d done was actually wrong. It was just complicated.

And wonderful. Because no man had ever made her feel the things Cooper had made her feel.

She finished rinsing off and dried herself quickly before putting on the first item of clothing she pulled out of her bag—a simple gray dress. She didn’t bother to look for the tights or cardigan to go with it. Instead, she tugged her comb through the long strands of her hair, her mind automatically going back to Cooper and the amazing things he’d done to her body.


Which wasn’t to say that sex with Dalton hadn’t been good. It had been. But with Dalton, she’d had trouble really letting go. She’d always been so aware of everyone’s expectations. Even when she was in bed with him, she’d been conscious of the fact that they were supposed to be the perfect couple. She’d never felt free to just be herself. A problem she simply hadn’t had with Cooper. Somehow, for the hours she’d been in his arms, she’d let herself forget that he was her former brother-in-law, that there were countless reasons they couldn’t have a relationship and that she was supposed to be the nice girl. The boring girl. The girl who never had crazy, reckless sex with a man who was off-limits.

The question was, which of these two people did she want to be?

Before she could ponder that any further, there was a tap on the door.

She felt unprepared to face Cooper, but she couldn’t hide in her room forever. But when she opened the door, she didn’t have a chance to voice any of the things she wasn’t even sure she wanted to say. Cooper immediately took her into his arms and kissed her. His mouth moved over hers with the same surety and passion he’d displayed the night before. Heat poured through her veins, searing away her doubts. After a long moment, he pulled away from her, tucking a strand of damp hair behind her ear.

“I brought croissants.”

“What?” she asked stupidly.

“Croissants. Pastries.” He raised a hand to show off a white paper bag and gave it a little shake. “Breakfast?”

She looked from him to the bag and back again, all her doubts rushing back to her. “I can’t do this,” she blurted out.

“You don’t do breakfast?”

“No. I mean, yes. Of course I eat breakfast. I mean, this—” She gestured to the two of them. “I’ve never done this before. The one-night stand thing.” Suddenly she couldn’t even look at him anymore. Her panic mingled with her embarrassment and the cocktail made her feel almost light-headed. “I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life. I only had a few serious boyfriends before Dalton and next to nothing since then. I never in my life did anything like this and I’m just—”

Before she could get anything else out, she felt his hands on her shoulders. He gently turned her to face him. “You’re thinking about this way too much.”

“I am?”

“Yes. Why make this complicated? We’re attracted to each other. We get along. There’s no reason why we can’t just do this for the next few weeks, enjoying each other in and out of bed.”

A knot of tension loosened in her chest. “Right,” she said softly. “Just enjoy it.”

“Yeah.” His lips twisted into a half smile. “This isn’t rocket science. You said yourself I’m not known for my long attention span when it comes to relationships. Neither of us wants something long-term. Neither of us is expecting forever here, so let’s just have fun.”

That gave her pause. “Neither of us is expecting forever?” she repeated.

But he must have taken her words as a statement rather than a question. “Exactly. I’m just not a forever kind of guy.”

“And you don’t think I’m a forever person, either?”

“Come on, you bought into the fantasy once. You know better than most that happily ever afters aren’t real. That forever never lasts.”

For a moment she was shocked into silence. How was she supposed to respond to that? What could she say? She couldn’t argue with him. She couldn’t deny the truth to his words. Her own marriage—the one that was supposed to be so perfect—hadn’t been forever. Far from it.

Of course there was only one response she could give—the one he so obviously expected. She forced a smile. “Of course you’re right. The idea of love, of forever. That’s just—” The word silliness had been on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t force it out. She couldn’t make herself say aloud something so antithetical to her ideals. Instead, she waved her hand dismissively. “I mean, if I couldn’t make it with Dalton, then I’m not going to make it with anyone, right?”

Even as she said the words, they curdled in her stomach. She didn’t want to believe that. Maybe it didn’t make any sense at all, maybe she had no evidence in her life to prove that love could last, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to believe.

She looked up to see Cooper watching her, his expression pensive. There was something a little...well, almost hurt in his gaze.

Ugh. She’d been an idiot. What kind of fool brought up her ex with the guy she’d just slept with?

She smiled again, and this time it felt a smidge more natural. “See? This is what I mean. I have no idea what I’m doing here. Bringing up my ex? Isn’t that a total rookie mistake? Shouldn’t I know better? Isn’t that completely against the rules?”

His expression softened. “There aren’t actually any rules.”

“There aren’t?” she asked, frowning. Sure she had dated a little since Dalton, but not much. And she hadn’t been with another man. For all she knew, there were all kinds of rules she didn’t know about. “Are you sure? Because I’m totally new at this.”

“Yeah. I’m sure. Look, I enjoy your company. We have fun together. The sex is great. It would be great if we could just enjoy this. But if that’s too weird for you, I understand. No pressure.”

She thought about it. Let the idea of this no-pressure, just-temporary, just-fun relationship roll around in her mind. She had never had a relationship like that in her life. There had always been pressure of one kind or another. The pressure to be with the right guy. The pressure to twist herself into the perfect wife.

But in all these years, had any of those things made her happy? Ever?

It made her a little bit sad to think about giving up her dream of having forever with someone. But in a way, hadn’t she already done that? When she’d started looking into adopting a child—all on her own, without a husband—hadn’t she known that was going to drastically reduce her chances of finding Mr. Right? Sure, there were still men who fell in love with single moms, but she had to be shrinking her dating pool. Besides, if she was diving headfirst into the mothering thing, she was going to be too busy to date for a very long time.

So maybe for now, an easy, no-pressure affair was just what she needed. Maybe she really had been going about this wrong all these years. Maybe Cooper had the right idea after all. The idea was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.

“What about Bear Creek Lodge?” she asked.

“What about it? Unless you think you can’t work with me now that we’re sleeping together, I don’t see that anything about the project has changed. There’s no reason this needs to be complicated.”

Laughter bubbled up in her chest. “You’re my boss and my former brother-in-law. It doesn’t get any more complicated than that.”

“You say the word and I’ll back off,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “If it’s too weird, we don’t even have to work together on the Beck’s Lodge project.”

She tilted her head and thought about it for a moment, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that she didn’t want him to back off. Never in her entire life had she felt this desirable. She loved the way he made her feel. She didn’t want to stop feeling that way. She didn’t want to stop sleeping with him. But despite what she’d said about not being a forever kind of person, she still needed boundaries.


“If we’re going to do this—” she began, but then broke off when his face split into a grin. “I said if. If we’re going to do this, then we need to have a few rules.”

He shrugged, sauntering across the room to wrap his arms around her from behind. “I thought we agreed there were no rules.”

He trailed a delicious path of kisses along the curve of her neck, making her mind spin. His hand slipped up to her breast. He cupped her flesh, giving her nipple a tweak. That simple gesture, so compelling, so masterful, reminded her of how completely at his mercy she’d been the previous night.

“Oh, there needs to be at least a few guidelines.” Her mind was whirling as excitement suddenly buzzed along her veins. “For starters, I need my own room.”

“Sure.”

The line of kisses on her neck got wetter, firmer, nipping playfully at her tender skin.

“Even if you’re here only on the weekends, I still need my own space.”

“Only on the weekends?” He stilled, lifting his head.

She turned to look at him. “Well, sure. You have to go back to Denver, right?”

“Back to Denver?” He was looking at her with a puzzled frown.

“Of course. You can’t stay here. Not when you have Flight+Risk to run. If you’re going to keep your board happy, you have to continue to do your job. You can’t drop everything to babysit me.”

“No. Of course not. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He didn’t sound the least bit concerned.

Of course that might have been because he was intent on nudging the hem of her skirt up so he could cup her bottom. A moment later, the dress was gone entirely, along with whatever other rules she’d intended to list. She was sure she’d had more in mind. Things designed to create personal and emotional space between them. But as his hands pushed her panties down her legs and his fingers found the very core of her, she couldn’t think of a single one.