Book 24 Temptation After Dark #4
Jared hangs back, so Cooper waits to see if his brother wants to talk.
“This is the most fucked-up thing ever,” Jared says after Lizzie had gone inside.
“Ever.”
“What if she never comes back? What the hell are we going to do?”
“You need legal advice and a private investigator to try to find her,” Cooper says.
Jared looks up at him. “You’re right. I’ll call Dan Torrington in the morning, and I’ve got a guy in New York that I can put on finding her.”
“Do what you do, Jared. Handle it like a business challenge.”
“I will. Thanks for the advice, little brother.”
Jared will never know what it means to Cooper to be treated like a peer by the older brother he worships.
Since he’s on a roll, Cooper decides to say the other thing that’s on his mind.
“I know it’s really hard to keep your emotions out of this, especially considering what you guys have been through lately.
But try to be kind to Lizzie. You can’t just love that big heart of hers when she’s doing things you approve of. You have to love it all the time.”
“I know,” Jared says with a deep sigh. “I love her more than anything. But how do I sit by and let her do something that I know is going to devastate her?”
“She knows that as well as you do, and she’s doing it anyway. Follow her lead.”
“I will, and thanks, Coop.”
Cooper watches his brother walk away and waits until he’s inside before he goes upstairs to knock on Gigi’s door.
She opens the door wearing boy shorts and a crop top that leaves her flat abdomen bare.
Holy smoke show.
Maybe Jared had been right when he said she’s too much woman for him.
“Cooper? Is everything all right?”
He shakes his head.
“What’s wrong?”
Cooper isn’t sure what comes over him, or if he’s even welcome to put an arm around her to draw her in tight against his instantly aroused body. He has no idea if she wants him to kiss her until he does it, and she responds by curling her arms around his neck and opening her mouth to his tongue.
In his extensive history of kissing, he’s never had one go from zero to two hundred the way this one does, in a flash of heat and desire so hot, it’s a wonder they didn’t burn the place down.
She smiles, and he goes stupid in the head. God, she’s gorgeous in a completely natural way. Her face is free of makeup, her lashes long and lush, her lips damp and swollen from their kisses.
“Whatcha staring at?”
“The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
His body aches from the long day, and by the time he’s settled next to her on the sofa, he’s broken into a cold sweat. “Broken ribs suck, in case you ever wondered.”
“Can you take anything?”
“I have painkillers at the house, but I didn’t take them because I wanted to be able to have a beer or two at my brother’s wedding.”
“That was stupid.”
“I know that now.”
“I have some Motrin. Would that help?”
“Might take the edge off.”
“I’ll get it.”
He stops her from getting up. “I didn’t want to stop kissing you.”
“I didn’t want you to stop.”
The sultry look she gives him makes him instantly hard. He isn’t going to survive this woman.
Isn’t Cooper James full of surprises? As Gigi goes into the bathroom off her bedroom to find the medication, she relives the way he looked at her when she answered the door and how he’d smoothly put his arm around her and kissed her.
He hadn’t asked permission the way so many guys did.
While she appreciates courtesy from men, asking permission first tends to remove the spontaneity from a romantic moment.
Before he came to her door, she’d been mildly interested in him.
After kissing him, she’s much more intrigued.
Not that she has the time to be intrigued by any man on Gansett Island, especially since she’ll be returning to LA in about ten days.
But that doesn’t mean she can’t have some fun with handsome, sexy Cooper, who kisses like a man who’s had a lot of practice, which makes her wonder what else he’s good at.
“Jared is really upset. He’s trying not to be, but he can’t help it.”
“I don’t blame him. You know they’re going to get attached to the baby in no time.”
“That’s what he’s afraid of.”
“I feel for the mom, too. If she doesn’t have what it takes, at least she left the baby with someone who’d care for her rather than harming her.”
“There is that,” Cooper says.
“A girl I knew in high school had a baby in the bathroom and didn’t tell anyone. By the time they found it, the baby had died.”
“Ah, that’s so sad. Why didn’t she tell someone?”
“I guess she was embarrassed and freaking out about people knowing she’d had a baby.”
“Did she get in trouble?”
“I think so. She left school and didn’t come back.”
“That gives me a different perspective on what Jessie did. Like you said, at least she left her with someone responsible. And she had no idea what they’re dealing with right now.”
“Whatever happens next, that baby is lucky to have someone like Lizzie looking out for her. She’ll make sure the baby is safe and well cared for.”
“Yes, she will. But enough about them. Talk to me about you.”
What guy ever says that? They’re usually too busy talking about themselves to ask about her. “What about me?”
“Anything you want to tell me. How was the shooting this week?”
“Long. But I think we got some good stuff. The showrunner is happy. If she’s happy, we’re happy.
” When was the last time she’d held hands with a guy who didn’t immediately try to make it into more?
She can’t recall. They always want more—as much as they can get as fast as they can get it.
“Jordan is having a dinner party tomorrow night. She said I can bring a plus-one if I want to.”
“Oh, yeah? You got anyone in mind?”
“Not really.”
He makes a hurt face that has her laughing. “Ouch.”
“You want to go?”
“I’d love to go, as long as Jared and Lizzie don’t need me for anything.”
Cooper’s concern for his brother and sister-in-law also sets him apart from other men she’s dated, who almost always cared more about themselves and scoring with her than they did about anything else.
She hasn’t known him long, but she already knows he puts his family first, even if that means missing a chance to be with her.
Perhaps it makes her weird, but she likes that about him.
“It’s sweet that you’re so worried about them. ”
“Jared has been really good to me. Like really, really good. And Lizzie is just the best person you’ll ever meet. I hate to see them upset like they were earlier.”
“It’s an upsetting situation.”
When he’s in bed at the main house, exhausted from the long day and hurting from his injuries, he thinks about Gigi’s revelation that she’d grown up in foster care.
He’s read a lot about her in the press over the years, but he’s never seen that part of her story.
He resists the temptation to go online to find out more.
He wants her to tell him about her life—her real life, not the one that plays out in public.
Kissing her had been amazing, but he’d known it would be.
And now he has an afternoon at the beach with her to look forward to. He can’t wait to spend more time with her, to get to know her, to kiss her and maybe…
No, he can’t let his mind go there. Not yet, anyway.
In Providence, Mac and Maddie McCarthy are in the neonatal intensive care unit, visiting Evelyn and Emma. Mac still can’t believe that they were born on a helicopter during his sister’s wedding. Leave it to Maddie to make every other chaotic birth look tame by comparison.
“What are you thinking?” his wife asks from the wheelchair he’d pushed from the OB unit to the NICU.
She’s still wobbly after giving birth to the twins, and her nurse insisted on the wheelchair.
The girls’ lungs aren’t quite ready for life outside the womb, but the doctors expect them to be there for only about a week—two at the most. They’ve been told the extra time in the NICU is perfectly normal for twins born almost a month early.
“A helicopter, Madeline,” he says for the tenth time. “Honestly.”
She laughs as she shrugs. “I’d say I’m sorry, but it’ll make for one heck of a story for the girls to tell someday.”
“I know it wasn’t how we planned, but you’re awfully good at making beautiful babies.”
“They are rather beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Along with their sister, Hailey, they’re the most beautiful baby girls I’ve ever seen.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what a squad the three of them will be someday.”
“Don’t put those ideas in my head. I’m going to need to be tranquilized for the teenage years.”
“Thankfully, we don’t need to think about that tonight,” she says, yawning.
“Let’s get you back to your room and tucked into bed.”
They’re going crabbing. Gigi hadn’t signed on for that when she agreed to be Jordan’s sidekick on the show. Then again, she hadn’t signed on for a summer on Gansett Island either, but here she is. The things she does for her best friend. But crabbing? That might be going too far.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Jordan asks as she scans her Instagram account.
“I’m not grumpy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“My disposition is going to stay just like this until I’m back in LA where I belong.”
“So that’s a no with Cooper?”
“I like Cooper.”
“But?”
“No buts. I like him. He’s fun and cute and funny.”
“Then why not take him for a spin?”
Gigi shrugs. “What’s the point? I’m leaving soon, and he’s putting down roots here, starting a business.”
“The point is to have some good sex to make everything look better, even crabbing.”
“Nothing can make crabbing look better. What does that even mean, anyway?”
“We’re going to catch crabs.”
“So much I could say to that, including I don’t want to catch crabs.”
Jordan snorts at her double meaning. “I hear it’s fun.”
“How in the world can catching crabs be fun?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
When they arrive at the marina, Big Mac McCarthy greets them with a warm smile and a firm handshake. “Welcome to our humble marina,” he says. “We’re honored you chose us to be on your show.”