23. Lachlan
23
LACHLAN
I WOKE TO the soft sighs of someone in a deep, satisfied slumber late Sunday morning. It was a foreign sound to my ears, one I hadn’t woken up to in a long time. I turned my head on the pillow and focused on Cooper.
Damn. What is it about this guy I can’t seem to shake?
From the moment I laid eyes on him I’d felt the need to go to him, and every moment since it felt as though we’d been drawn to one another.
Not that he knew that.
As far as he was aware, our connection had started over an innocent cup of coffee. I had no idea how he’d react if he knew there was much more to our acquaintance than he was aware of—like a mask and a nighttime visit from a stranger.
So I had to wonder how wise it was for me to allow this relationship to continue.
There was a word I rarely used— relationship . But as Cooper stretched beneath the sheets and tangled his legs with mine, I realized that was exactly what was happening here—one hell of a complicated relationship.
My life didn’t leave room for long-lasting ties, not with the secrets I’d vowed to uphold. But somewhere between stepping in to save Cooper’s life, and right now as he curled into my side, the need to be close to someone outside of my brothers had taken over.
That the someone happened to be a journalist wasn’t conducive to my way of life, though. King would never stand for it. Cooper’s presence here was temporary—it had even said so on the NDA he signed, so any other thoughts I was having right then just needed to shut the fuck up.
I couldn’t keep him. So there was no point in hoping I could.
“Good morning.” Cooper’s sleepy voice broke through my annoying logic, as he shifted on the mattress beside me and ran a lazy hand across my chest. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Not about to tell him I’d been too busy thinking about all the reasons we shouldn’t be together to sleep, I opted for the easy way out. I rolled him over to his back and distracted him, and myself, with the one thing I knew would work.
“I slept,” I whispered across his kiss-swollen lips. “But then I woke up and realized it’d been too fucking long since I’ve had a taste of you.”
Cooper took hold of my ass and gave it a squeeze. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”
I knew I should go. That I should climb out of his arms and out of this bed before I got in even deeper with him. But when Cooper nipped at my lower lip and wrapped his legs around mine, I had the perfect excuse to stay.
I took his lips in a lazy kiss. It was unhurried, sweet—perfection, really, the kind of kiss you could easily lose yourself inside of. But that was the last thing I should be doing right now.
I reached for his wandering hands and brought them up to pin them by his pillow, and as I raised my head and took in the flush on his cheeks, my cock stood up and took notice.
A smug grin tugged at the corner of Cooper’s mouth. “Well, that answers one question.”
“Of course you woke up with questions.”
“Of course I did.”
“And what question might that be?”
“If you regret what we did last night.”
For a second I thought about lying. About telling him it was a mistake and it could never happen again. But that was hardly believable when my dick was already reacquainting itself with his.
Plus, I didn’t want to lie to him—any more than I already had, at least.
I was so fucked.
“Does this feel like I regretted it?” My hands tightened at his wrists as I rubbed myself over the top of his lithe body.
“I guess I have my answer.” Cooper bit down on his lower lip. “You like pinning me down like this, huh?”
The observation caught me off guard, but was so innately Cooper that it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Even when he was hard and horny, he had questions .
This time, though, his question was a little too close for comfort. I couldn’t give myself away by having the same moves as my alter ego.
I released Cooper’s wrists and shifted off him.
“Hey.” He rolled onto his side. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
I already knew that . Every time I’d restrained him as myself or the masked stranger, he’d gotten off on it. But I was treading a thin line here.
“Oh, I know, but if I keep you under me, we’re not going to leave this bed anytime soon.”
“And that would be bad because…”
“Because at some point you might want to eat.”
“Eh.” Cooper shrugged. “Who needs food?”
At that exact moment, his stomach growled.
“Okay, ignore that,” he said, laughing.
“Seriously? We can order something up here?—”
“Nope.” Cooper shook his head and scooted back into my side. “I don’t want or need food right now, I just want to enjoy this moment of normalcy for a few more minutes.”
My chest tightened as I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into my side. The fact he thought being in a stranger’s penthouse—where he was cut off from the outside world in every way—was normal made me…sad.
That was no way to live, and yet here he was risking his life, his happiness, all to avenge his friend. That said a lot about who he was, and I respected the hell out of him. It showed the same kind of loyalty I would’ve any of my fellow Kings.
Cooper laid his head on my shoulder, resting his hand over the top of my chest, and as we settled into one another he said, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Helping me. Bringing me here. It’s pretty obvious you weren’t meant to.”
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t safe at your place. But you’re?—”
“Safe here.” He said it so matter-of-factly that I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the penthouse or my arms, but somewhere inside I hoped he meant the latter.
Something about Cooper brought out a protective side of me I’d never felt before. I wasn’t sure if it was the circumstances in which we’d met or the fact he was so out of his element here in the city, chasing down people like Mick, whom he should never have to know exist. But it made me want to keep him locked away until any and all danger had passed.
“Yes. You’re safe here.”
“And that’s why I want to take a moment to enjoy it.”
I couldn’t fault him for that. I also didn’t hate the way he was cuddling me. I was so used to sleeping alone that I’d almost forgotten what it was like not to.
“You’re quiet,” Cooper whispered. “You fall back asleep?”
“Nope. Wide awake.”
“So just quiet by nature. That part of the job?”
“It can be.”
Cooper chuckled. “Always so evasive.”
“And you’re always so curious.”
“That’s why I ended up a journalist.” He raised his head, his blue eyes meeting mine, and for a second I forgot to breathe. Damn, he was fucking beautiful. “Even as a kid I had a hundred and one questions. Seemed like the natural conclusion.”
“That or interrogation.” Cooper’s eyes widened. “Uh, not that I would know.” I winked, doing my best to dodge the questions now swirling in his eyes.
“Uh huh.”
“It’s true.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I believe you. But I think you know someone who does.”
“Do you now?”
“Yep. I think you know a lot of people with a lot of different…skills.”
I refused to lie to him any more than I already had, so instead, I stayed silent.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“That I know a lot of people? Yes.”
He rolled his eyes. “Lachlan.”
“What? I do.”
“But you won’t tell me who they are.”
“I mean, I could,” I said. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
Cooper froze, and I realized that probably wasn’t the best joke in his current situation.
“I’m just kidding,” I reassured him. “I can’t tell you because it’s not only my secret to tell.”
“I can respect that,” he said, settling back down, his head on my chest. “Must be hard, though.”
“What’s that?” I said, running a hand over the back of his hair.
“Living with so many secrets. Must be hard to be with someone, not being able to open up.”
“I’m with you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but that’s different. We were kind of pushed together.”
“You don’t think we would’ve ended up here if you’d called me for a date instead of help?”
For the first time since we’d started talking, Cooper hesitated, choosing instead to draw shapes across my chest.
“Cooper?”
When he still didn’t respond, I took his chin in hand and angled his face so I could look him in the eye.
“You don’t think you would’ve ended up in my bed if we’d gone on a normal date?”
“Well, technically, this isn’t your bed.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But it’s also a convenient way to give a non-answer.”
“Says the king of non-answers.”
“So I know what I’m talking about.”
“Right.” Cooper sighed. “It’s not that I didn’t think or want to end up here. I just wasn’t sure…”
“Wasn’t sure about what?”
“If you really wanted it or if it was just in my head.”
I drew his hand down to my still-hard dick. “Does that feel like it’s in your head?”
“No.” He chuckled and wrapped his fingers around me. “I just figured someone as confident and…sexy as you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me, that’s all. That what happened in the coffee shop was a fluke. Or that, I don’t know, you were taken.”
“It wasn’t a fluke, and define taken , because right now I’m pretty fucking taken by a curious journalist with big blue eyes and a penchant for getting himself into tricky situations.”
“Well, lucky for him , he’s found someone to look out for him.” Cooper gave me a gentle squeeze. “Someone to watch over him.”
Hearing him say it made that drive even stronger. I pulled him up over me, capturing his lips with mine.
“I’ll watch you for as long as you need me to.” And probably long after…
“Are you sure?” Cooper ran his hands through my hair. “The need is pretty strong.”
“You see me running?”
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine you running from anything.”
I had a flash of the two of us back in that alley, and my telling him to run. It was crazy, but at times I could swear he was talking to his masked stranger instead of me. But there was no way he would’ve put those two pieces of the puzzle together without saying something.
“There are things that scare me.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, no you don’t.” I nipped at his lower lip. It was time to put an end to this before he dug a little too deep. “No more questions. It’s food time.”
“Fine… Oh.” Cooper jerked up, his eyes sparkling. “Are we going down to the restaurant? The one that made that fancy chicken?”
“If you want to.” I’d barely gotten the words out before he was out of bed and racing over to the bathroom door. “I take it that works for you?”
Cooper slid to a stop and glanced back. “Are you kidding? That was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
“Should I be offended?”
Cooper bit his lip. “Okay, the second best thing. Are you coming?”
I wasn’t yet, but I would be. I threw back the sheet, and moments later we were under the warm spray of the shower.
We took our time lathering each other up, food once again on the backburner when faced with one another’s naked bodies, and after we’d satiated that particular hunger, another one reared its head—Cooper’s stomach.
“I’M SORRY.” HE laughed at his rumbling stomach as we stepped out of the penthouse and into the elevator.
“Don’t be.” I pushed the button for the restaurant’s floor and winked at him. “We made it wait a little longer than it probably wanted to.”
As the doors slid shut, I was tempted to pull Cooper into my arms and take his lips in a hard, possessive kiss, but I was all too aware of the camera in the corner.
“After you,” I said when we reached our floor.
A bright smile lit Cooper’s face as he exited, and then my phone began to vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket, about to hit ignore until I saw who it was.
“Your boss?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve got to take this, but you should go ahead. Order anything you like and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Cooper looked to my phone, his eyes narrowing. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with King’s timing either.
“No worries. Do you want me to order you anything?”
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
Cooper’s smile fell a little, so I took hold of his arm and pulled him back to me.
“I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Okay.”
“I promise.” I brushed a thumb across his lips. Apparently I was a guy who made promises now.
“I’ll save you a seat.”
I winked at him and as I began to walk away, said, “You better.”