Book 24 Temptation After Dark #7
“I’ll look forward to that, Ned.” Cooper hands over a twenty as he notes the cars lining the road outside Mason’s house, where Jordan has resided for most of the summer. Gigi said they’d never officially decided to live together. It had just sort of happened. “Thanks for the ride.”
Cooper walks into the yard and finds Gigi talking to Jordan and Nikki.
All three women are stunning, but he sees only Gigi.
She stands out like the rarest of diamonds.
She dazzles him, making his heart beat funny and his hands feel sweaty.
That’s never happened with anyone else. When she looks up and sees him there, the smile that stretches across her face makes him feel like a conquering hero returning from battle to find his love waiting for him.
His love.
Wow, man. Way to get ahead of yourself.
Gigi comes to greet him. When she asks how he’s feeling, he says he’s better because she smiled at him. Gigi introduces him to Jordan and Nikki. They put him on notice that Gigi is important to them. He’s glad to know she has people looking out for her.
“Darling, introduce me to your deliciously handsome friend,” a gorgeous older woman says as she approaches them, drink in hand. She has short silver hair, bright blue eyes and wears a red floral blouse with white pants.
“Evelyn Hopper, grandmother extraordinaire to Jordan and Nikki—”
“And you,” the woman says.
“And me,” Gigi says with a soft smile that changes her entire demeanor. Interesting. “Meet Cooper James.”
She takes hold of his hand and gives it an affectionate squeeze. “It’s lovely to meet you, young man. I had the great pleasure of meeting your brother and sister-in-law recently. They’re good people.”
“Yes, they are. It’s great to meet you, too, Mrs. Hopper.”
“Call me Evelyn. Mrs. Hopper makes me feel old.”
“I’ll do that, Evelyn.”
“So you and our lovely Gigi have been spending time together. What are your intentions toward our girl?”
Cooper nearly swallows his tongue. Intentions?
“Evelyn! Stop it!” To Cooper, Gigi says, “Don’t answer that.”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable question, Gabrielle.”
Gigi groans at Evelyn’s use of her real name.
“Gabrielle, huh?” Cooper asks, raising a brow.
“Don’t call me that if you expect me to answer.”
“Ah, good to know.”
“Back to my perfectly reasonable question,” Evelyn says. “About your intentions, young man?”
“I, uh, I like Gigi very much and enjoy spending time with her.”
“She’s very special to us. We wouldn’t want to see her hurt in any way.”
“I understand.” Cooper swallows hard. “Ma’am.”
“Excellent, now let’s have some fun.” Evelyn walks away to greet an older couple who have just arrived.
“That was mortifying,” Gigi says. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. They love you. I get it.”
Seeing Jordan and Mason smiling, Cooper asks if Jordan told Mason her news.
“He’s thrilled. They both are. He immediately popped the question, and she said yes.”
“Good for them. And what about you?”
She whips her head around to look directly at him. “What about me?”
“How are you feeling about it?”
“I’m happy for my friend.”
“But?”
“No buts, so quit shrinking me. I’m fine. If she’s happy, I’m happy. Trust me, no one deserves it more than she does after the hell of the last few years with Zane the asshole.”
“Everyone deserves to be happy. Even you.”
“I’m happy. Excuse me for a minute.”
She walks away, leaving Cooper to wonder if he said the wrong thing, which is another thing he rarely worries about when it comes to women. While most men complain that they don’t speak the same language as women, Cooper didn’t usually have that problem. He gets them. They get him.
But Gigi, she’s different. She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve or give away her every thought or emotion the way most women do. She keeps her feelings buried deep, and the more he gets to know her, the more he wants to know the secret to cracking the code to her well-guarded heart.
Gigi goes inside to use the bathroom, locking the door to give herself a minute alone. What the hell is a twenty-four-year-old man-child who looks like him doing with all that insight? He rattles her. A smart woman who doesn’t like being seen by anyone would take a step back from a man like him.
Nikki and Jordan come in after her, asking what’s wrong. Jordan eyes her shrewdly. If anyone can see through Gigi’s shit, Jordan can. “Something is bothering you. We both saw it earlier, and when you walked away from Cooper just now, we worried he said something to upset you.”
“He didn’t. He’s lovely.”
When the girls ask Gigi if she has feelings for Cooper, she adamantly denies any such thing.
“I get what you guys are trying to do, and I love you for it. I really do. But Cooper and I will never be anything more than a fun maybe-fling at the end of a nice summer on Gansett before I go back to my real life in LA. Please don’t go looking for something that isn’t there.
Now, you need to get back to your guests, Jord. ”
Gigi pushes past them and nearly runs into Cooper, who’s standing outside the door. Oh, fuck. How much of that did he hear?
“Does it really take three of you to use the facilities?” he asks with a small smile.
She can’t help but note the sadness in his eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “You know how girls are.”
“Listen,” she says hesitantly when they’re seated at the long teak table Jordan bought for the yard earlier in the summer. “I don’t know what you heard in there.”
He rests his hand on top of hers. “We’ll talk about that later.”
His heart aches for her. Why in the world would a beautiful, smart, funny woman like her decide love isn’t for her? While his heart aches, his mind races, picking over the things she’s shared about her past and wondering if the answers can be found in her chaotic childhood.
After the party, Gigi and Cooper go swimming. He thinks she’s incredible for too many reasons to list. “You’re also brave, strong, resilient, sexy as all hell and a great friend to the people you care about.”
“The list of people I care about is small.”
“I know that, too, which makes me want to find a way into your inner circle.”
She recoils somewhat from that statement. “That’s not going to happen, Cooper. I like you. I do, but this can never be more than whatever it is right now.”
“Why not?”
“You already heard why not earlier. That’s not who I am. You pay attention, which is an admirable quality in any guy, especially someone as young as you are. But please, please don’t fall for me. Don’t ruin a fun thing by trying to make it something it’ll never be.”
As he kisses her again, he’s fully aware that he could be setting himself up for something he’s studiously avoided since the painful breakup with his high school girlfriend, Teagan—heartbreak.
The kiss spirals quickly out of control as her arms tighten around his neck and her tongue rubs up against his.
She isn’t kissing him like a woman who doesn’t want him.
She kisses him like she wants more, and he’s happy to give it to her.
His fingers dig into her ass as he tugs her in tight against his erection.
Gigi withdraws slowly from the kiss. “If I do this with you, I need to know you understand what it is—and what it isn’t.”
“I get it.”
“I’d never want to hurt you.”
“I appreciate that. Same goes.”
“So.”
“So.”
“Want to go upstairs?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have condoms?”
“In the house.”
“Why don’t you go get them?”
Cooper can’t believe this is actually going to happen.
He’s going to have sex with Gigi Gibson.
In the time they’ve spent together, he’s discovered there’s so much more to her than the hysterically funny, sexy woman she portrays on the show.
She carries a well of hurt a mile deep, and all he seems to want out of life since he met her is to make her happy and soothe her pain.
Gigi hopes she isn’t making a huge mistake by inviting Cooper into her bed.
He’s a great guy, but his intensity concerns her.
He looks at her as if he can see all the way through her to the junk she keeps buried deep inside and off-limits to everyone.
She doesn’t want him or anyone seeing that crap, which means she needs to be extra careful around him.
She meant what she told him before. This can never be more than a late-summer fling. Now, if only she can convince herself of that before it’s too late.
He comes right to her, puts his arms around her and picks up where they left off in the pool with hot, sexy kisses that make her head spin.
After they make love, Cooper says, “Wow, that was amazing.”
“It can’t happen again.”
Stunned, he asks, “Why not?”
“Because. It just can’t.”
“Gigi.”
She wriggles free of his arms and is up and off him so quickly, he has no time to prepare for the loss. The bathroom door closes with a loud slam.
Cooper runs his hands through his hair and sits up slowly and painfully to find his shorts. He has put them back on and is sitting on the edge of her bed when she emerges from the bathroom ten minutes later, wearing a robe tied tight around her waist. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Save that bullshit for someone who doesn’t see right through it.”
Her eyes flash with outrage. “Don’t act like you know me so well, because you don’t. So we fucked. So what? That doesn’t suddenly give you rights.”
Cooper is surprisingly hurt by her harsh words. “I’m not looking for rights. I’m just wondering what happened in the last half hour besides the fucking.”
“Nothing happened. Nothing’s going to happen. I told you that from the beginning, so please don’t act like I’m changing the rules on you or something. Nothing has changed. You should go now.”
Cooper sits frozen in place, staring at her for a full minute before he finds the wherewithal to stand. “I don’t know what you’re so afraid of, Gigi, but it doesn’t need to be me. I’d never hurt you.”
“I know that.”