4. Cooper
CHAPTER FOUR
cooper
Well, fuck me if that isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Two minutes since she slammed the door and he’s still rooted to the spot, picturing the round curve of her perfectly grabbable ass. He wonders if she even knows what it means in his world to take a cowboy’s hat— that you want to take him for a ride . And damn if that doesn’t sound like a wonderful proposition. Too wonderful. He’s hard as a rock and though half of him wants to charge after her and call her bluff, the other half—the sane half—is exactly what she said. Too much of a gentleman to invade her privacy like that.
So instead of barging into her room, he takes another minute to collect himself before walking stiffly into the living area. He’ll make it into her bedroom soon enough, he has no doubt. There’s too much fire between them to last five days in the same suite without combusting. But he sure as hell won’t be the one to break first. So tonight, he’ll have to make do with the couch.
It’s comfortable enough, but no cushion in the world is soft enough to stop his fidgeting. Every time he closes his eyes, all he sees is her bare skin in the moonlight before she disappeared behind the door, nothing but a slim white strip of fabric to block his view, and the challenge in her eyes as she settled her hat on his head. To say his balls are blue by the time he falls asleep is the understatement of the century. He may as well be a Smurf.
I’ll play your game, Samantha Peters , he thinks just before consciousness slips away. But I sure as shit don’t plan on playing fair.
The next morning, Cooper wakes with the dawn. A lifetime of rising alongside the sun is hard to overcome. It’s ground into him. Innate at this point. But it works in his favor. He sits for an hour drinking coffee and secretly plotting while pastel colors dance over the sea. By the time he hears a rustle on the other side of the bedroom door, he knows exactly what to do.
Before Sam emerges from the room, Cooper strips off his shirt, pants, and socks, until nothing remains but his boxer briefs. Then he walks through the sliding glass door and onto the small deck suspended over the water. After pausing just long enough to stretch his arms over his head to awaken his tired muscles, he dives headfirst over the side. The water swallows him like a warm embrace, almost on the wrong side of refreshing compared to the frigid Nebraskan rivers and lakes he’s used to. He drifts there for a moment, completely at peace as the world slips away. There’s no current trying to drag him downstream, no weeds trying to pull him into murky depths. He can see all the way to the sandy bottom as the ocean holds him close, rocking him side to side with the gently flowing tide. It’s so different from home—so marvelously different he wants to soak in every second. Who knows when or if he’ll ever be in a place like this again?
No matter how much he wishes his motives for joining the show were purely about the ranch, it was about this moment right here too. He can’t lie. The chance to travel was just as much of a draw. Since the day he was born, he’s known exactly where he’d be for the rest of his life and exactly what he’d be doing. It’s an odd way to live. Growing up, he’d listen enviously to his friends speak of their lives like uncharted maps, no set destination, no chosen path. But as an only child, his destiny was the ranch whether he wanted it or not. Oh, he’d rebelled, of course. Ran away from home at sixteen. Joined the rodeo after high school. Went to college and threatened to never come back. Then his mom got sick. She’d needed him. So he came home, simple as that. He worked beside his father. He learned the business of the ranch, not just the hard labor. And he loves it. He really does. The horses. The cows. Sunsets over the open fields. Stars as far as the eye can see. It can be backbreaking, but also exhilarating. And when it boils down to it, the ranch is home. It’s deeper than a legacy. It’s in his blood. Yet no matter how hard he tries, beneath the weight of the responsibility hides an itch he’s desperate to scratch—to see the world, to be free.
Trish had been Eve with the apple when she made her offer to do the show, and he’d been Adam, unable to stop himself from taking a bite. They’d gone from Los Angeles to London to Paris to Rome to the Okavango Delta—places he thought he’d never see outside of his dreams—and selfishly he still wants more.
Maybe my father was right after all.
The thought makes his chest burn.
Or is that just his lungs from lack of air?
All at once, Cooper surges to the surface. He flicks the water from his hair and focuses back on the bungalow to escape the nagging doubts. Movement catches his eye as Sam pads across the living room. She peeks casually at the empty couch, then looks around curiously. She’s the exact distraction he needs.
It’s go time.
Cooper swims back to the edge of the deck. Forgoing the ladder, he places his palms on the wood and hauls himself out of the ocean in one smooth motion, perfectly aware of how his muscles flex and strain. He doesn’t look up as he tucks his feet underneath him and pushes to standing. The sun shines overhead. Droplets glisten over his mostly naked frame. Water courses down his bare chest. He brings his hand up to smooth his hair out of his face. With his bicep flexed beside his head, he finally looks up to meet the eyes he knows are on him.
Sam stares at him, her mouth agape, practically drooling. His lips curl into a grin. She immediately snaps her jaw shut and scowls. He crosses the distance and slides the door open.
“Good morning,” he chirps.
“You planned that,” she accuses flatly.
“Planned what?” He lifts his brow, the picture of innocence. “The water’s great. You should try it.”
“Don’t you have a bathing suit?”
He shrugs. “Figured this works just as well.”
“Sure you did.”
Her gaze rakes down his chest hard enough he can practically feel the passionate scratch of nails. She pauses on a location distinctly south of his belly button where his wet boxer briefs cling to him almost indecently. A hungry look flashes in her eyes. She gulps. And he wants to gloat, but instead the intensity of her stare makes him twitch…down there. Suddenly, he’s not as in control of the situation as he thought. But Sam either doesn’t notice or is too flustered to seize the advantage because she just snaps her gaze up as a warm blush fills her cheeks.
“I don’t have time to swim anyway.”
“Why not?” He frowns. “There’s nothing on our itinerary for the day. I checked this morning.”
“I told Emily to leave my laptop and phone with the front desk when she left. I need to grab them and get to work.”
“Work?” He pauses and pointedly stares back out at the glistening ocean before arching his brow. “In a place like this?”
“My boss probably wants to fire me for disappearing on him like this, so yes, work, if I want to still be employed by the time these five days are up.” She sighs and rubs her forehead, so much more flustered than the woman he saw the night before, all confidence and defiance.
Cooper crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe, his curiosity piqued by the change in her demeanor. “And what do you do for work? Emily never said.”
“I’m an analyst at an investment banking firm,” she replies distractedly, obviously still running through some sort of list in her mind.
Cooper whistles. “Fancy.”
He means to sound teasing, but it must come off differently because she snaps her head up with the wrong kind of fire in her eyes. “Yeah, well, we can’t all shovel cow shit for a living.”
“Ooh, Cuj. That one hurt.” He presses his palm to his chest as if wounded, unable to fight the grin that widens his lips. He can’t help it—he likes her bite.
But her expression immediately softens. “Sorry, that was an asshole thing to say. I’m just stressed.”
“Who wouldn’t be stressed, waking up in a place like this?” He casually takes in the private suite that probably costs three grand a night. “I mean, really? This is the best the network could afford?”
She snorts.
“Besides,” he continues. “I do shovel cow shit for a living, among other things.”
He’s been elbow deep up a cow’s asshole more times than he can count, not that he’s going to tell that to her. Ranching definitely isn’t glamorous. But it has its moments, like waking up before dawn during the first frost of the season to watch the entire sweep of plains glitter like diamonds with the rising sun, or witnessing a newborn calf rise on shaking legs to suckle from its mother for the first time. She lives her life in a cubicle. He lives his outdoors, no walls to cage him in. And when he goes on vacation in a place like this, even if it doesn’t happen very often, he can appreciate it instead of waking up anxious to bury his face in a screen.
Yes, Cooper knows exactly what city folk like her think about his line of work, and it doesn’t bother him one bit. He wouldn’t trade places with them for all the money in the world.
Which is why he just shrugs and finishes his thought with a simple, “I take no offense to the truth about honest work.”
“You’re too nice.” She winces. “I really hate that I said that, and I’m sorry. I don’t actually think that way. My mom owns a flower shop and my dad is a police chief, and from what I’ve seen of the world, they deserve to make millions a lot more than every jerk in my office, including me.”
“Want to make it up to me?” he asks suddenly, not really sure why, except he can’t bear to think of her wasting her time in a place like this buried in a computer.
She’s immediately suspicious. “How?”
“Have breakfast with me.”
“Breakfast?”
“We can go to the restaurant in the main building since you’re headed there anyway. You have to eat, don’t you? I’m starving.”
Her lips twist into a wry grin. “Well, an early-morning swim will do that to a guy.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“Is my underwear a requirement?”
He holds up his hands apologetically. “House rules.”
“That’s too bad.” She sighs and stares longingly outside before turning those overly round doe eyes on him. The innocence in her expression instantly fades, replaced by wicked delight. “I’m not wearing any.”
The words are a sucker punch straight to the groin. They land with a physical weight that leaves him exhaling sharply in pain. Sam simply grins and spins on her heels before marching back into her bedroom with an offhanded, “I’ll be ready in five.”
Fucking hell. Cooper shakes his head and water droplets go flying in every direction. Does she always have to have the last word?
His balls might not survive it.
His heart definitely won’t.
Because he likes it. Likes the fire in her eyes. Likes the silent dare. Likes the confidence. Likes the challenge.
He’s not sure who the first woman in the room had been—worried, and stressed out, and panicked about what her boss might think. But the second version of Samantha Peters—the sultry, biting ball-breaker—he likes her too damn much. And if all he has to do to bring that woman out is piss the first one off a little, well, he’s definitely the right man for the job.
He’s never been afraid of a little hard work.