Boiling Point (5 page)

She should just let it go. That would be the sane thing to do. But damnit, she couldn’t. And what the hell did he mean by ‘next time’? Did he think there’d be a next time she’d let him not put his tongue in her ear? What the hell?

Fauna slowed to a stop. Cooper stopped beside her, and she looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

“Next time?” she asked, continuing the thought aloud.

“Next time, what?”

“You said, next time. Do you actually think there will be a next time for sucking on my ear?”

“Technically, your earlobe. While your ears are dainty, I’d never try to put a whole one in my mouth.”

Fauna waved her hand dismissively. “You know what I mean.”

“You seemed to be into it.” He shrugged. “It’s my only defense.”

“I bet you think we’ll get back to the bed and breakfast, and I’ll let you share my bed.”

Cooper cocked a hip and folded his arms across his chest. She loved when he did that.

No, I don’t
, she argued with herself.

“If I share your bed, I’ll make sure you sleep really, really well,” he promised.

“Area rug,” she choked out. “You sleep on the area rug.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure.”

“Even if I promise not to lay a hand on you?” he asked.

Would he? Knowing him and his maddeningly unpredictable ways, he might just do that then she’d spend the night wishing he
would
touch her, only he wouldn’t. Or he would touch her and she’d spend all night wishing he’d never stop. Every one of her cells pleaded with her to let him sleep in her bed.

“Nothing good happens after midnight, buddy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It’s already after midnight.”

“Exactly. The human brain doesn’t think clearly when it’s tired. If you stayed in my bed, there would be a lot of regrets the next morning.”

“You said ‘if’. Sounds to me like it’s at least up for discussion.” His tone turned smug and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“It’s not.”

Cooper took a step closer. “Gonna ask again. Are you sure?”

He reached out and wrapped one of her curls around his finger. He crooked it and gently tugged. As though she were chained, she took a stumbling step toward him, catching herself against his chest. So warm, so soothing and comforting.

Fauna looked at him, horrified that he could manipulate her body’s longings with such ease. The nearby parking lot light had to illuminate her face. Could he see what wanting him did to her? How bad it was to be drawn to him against her will?

Her eyes pleaded with him.

“What is it, beautiful Fauna?” he murmured.

She shook her head almost as an afterthought, an extension of the doubts she had tumbling through her mind. “This…we…could be a really bad idea.”

“Every relationship is a risk,” he rationalized softly.

“I just met you. There’s no relationship.”

“Yeah, there is. There’s chemistry, admiration, respect, common experience at Harper Security. Those are more foundation blocks than most relationships start off with.”

“We work together,” she said, searching for another barrier to put up. A barrier she didn’t really feel anymore.

“You want to be with me as much as I want to be with you, Fauna. It’s why you got your back up over that kiss. It’s okay. If you want to take your time, then we’ll do that. As long as I know you aren’t permanently shutting me out, I can wait.”

“Bad timing.”

“You said that already,” he whispered, pulling her closer by the single curl.

She moved easily against him, sliding her arms around his neck. “There are things you don’t really know about me yet.”

“The faery thing? Your brother explained it to me. Besides, part of the fun in getting to know you, is getting to know you.” He smiled, his teeth gleaming dimly in the limited light. “There are things you don’t know about me, too. We all have quirks.”

“What kind of quirks?”

Cooper kissed the tip of her nose. “Guess you’ll have to give me a chance, so you can find out for yourself.”

“You still can’t sleep in the bed with me.”

“Why not?”

Fauna caught her bottom lip, then released it when she committed to the confession she figured he already knew anyway. “Because if you’re in bed with me, I’m not going to want to sleep.”

Cooper chuckled, rubbing his nose against hers. “Me either. You in person is infinitely better than the you in my dreams.”

Warmth swelled in her chest, and she briefly faded from view. “You dream about me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re the perfect woman.”

“The perfect woman would recognize that making out with a subordinate coworker while on the job and just after finding an intruder on the project site, is a bad idea.
She
wouldn’t have gotten distracted.”

Cooper sighed. “He’s long gone.”

“And you aren’t the least bit worried about it,” she said. The spell seemed to break and Fauna reluctantly moved away from him. “Let’s get back to the room and figure out the next step. One thing’s for sure, we have to fall in line with Harper Standard Practice and work during the night hours.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Because there are people in the building all day long, and it’s less likely the lab will be broken into then. At night, when the lab is vulnerable and dark, intruders take the chance. But if we’re there, securing the premises and keeping an eye on things, there’s less of a chance the thief will be successful. We’ve been working night hours security setup for a while now,” she answered, falling comfortably into the role of boss.

“Not that. Why do you back away the minute things get personal.”

Fauna looked away, dug into her jacket pocket for the car keys. She pulled them out and headed to the car, expecting Cooper to follow her. “Letting personal things distract us from a professional requirement is never a good idea. I’ve already broken that rule once tonight.”

“And us?” he asked.

Fauna stopped. What would her twin do? She looked at Cooper’s handsome face, his gleaming brown eyes with reddish highlights which she could see even in the low light. She studied the tenseness of his shoulders and the slight cock of his head as he looked back at her. He was everything she wanted even if his unpredictability scared her. She wanted him. Her sister would have told her to go for it.

Fauna, though, hedged on caution. She couldn’t let pleasure disrupt business. She had never been the kind of woman who could have sex with someone and not get emotionally entangled. It’s why she’d stayed out of relationships for the past year and a half. She wanted to be more like her twin, Flora. Flora, if she were single, would sleep with whomever she wanted and not think twice about it.

While Fauna couldn’t rack up the man-points, she did really want this one. She just couldn’t let him be a distraction.

“Us,” she said, thoughtfully. She gathered her courage. “There won’t be an us while we’re on this job. We can entertain the idea after we’re done here. In the meantime, you can sleep in my bed. Whatever happens there, is purely extracurricular and not for any other purpose than to relieve tension. That’s the offer.”

Cooper’s brows rose with surprise. He nodded slowly, watchfully.

“You accept those terms?”

He nodded again. Not convincingly.

“You accept them and don’t associate any of what happens as a detriment to your position at Harper Security?”

“Yes,” he said finally, softly.

“Good.”

Her hands shook as she pushed the door unlock button on the key fob. She swallowed several times hoping that the next time she spoke it would sound lighthearted.

“It’s one thirty. Let’s get back to the bed and breakfast. We’ll figure out a plan of action on the lab, a time to go in and visit it to get the layout, and set up the lab for our stay tomorrow night. Then around two thirty, we’ll get in bed naked, have sex, and be asleep by two forty-five.”

She slammed the car door behind her. She turned on the ignition and waited, while Cooper shifted his weight from foot to foot outside the passenger side. A couple of minutes later, he opened his door and sank into the seat beside her.

* * * *

Cooper gripped the sink in the tiny cubby-sized bathroom. He stared down his reflection, watching the muscle tick in his jaw and the red burning brightly in his eyes. His hands tightened on the porcelain until it grew hot to the touch. The faucet fixture began to hiss as hot porcelain heated metal components. If he didn’t let go now, the pipes would blow.

She might as well have put my cock in a vise
, he thought.
I’m not a light switch. I can’t just turn off and on at a whim
. It’s two thirty. Time to get naked and have sex for fifteen minutes.

Who was she kidding? Fifteen minutes? Did she really expect him to hop on, move around a little, and finish up like some dead-fish no-thought bar score? Fuck that!

The sink hissing grew louder, sounding reminiscent of a pressure cooker. Ironic. That’s how he felt. She turned him on, made him hotter than he’d been for anyone in a long time, and cooled his ardor just as quickly by making him angry. It was a fucking paradox. He was hot, just not like that. He was
pissed
, for damn sure.

If she thought he’d have his fill in a mere fifteen minutes, she had another think coming.

Cooper released the sink edges, and snorted. It wasn’t control over the situation, she had. On the contrary, she’d just issued him a challenge he had no intention of backing down from.

“Fifteen minutes,” he scoffed to his reflection. “We’ll see if fifteen minutes is enough for
her
.”

Cooper washed his hands, using cool water to temper his hot skin. It boiled as it touched him and he kept the water running until his skin finally felt normal. When he opened the door to the bedroom, there was a lump under the covers. If he’d only had human eyes, she would have been invisible. With the eyes of an elemental, she glowed golden-orange in the darkness.

“We only have ten minutes now,” she said, sounding disappointed and put out. “Plus, I’ve gone invisible again. We might have to postpone this until tomorrow night.”

“Not a chance, hot stuff. I can work with darkness just as easily as light. You gave me the go-ahead. I’m going ahead.”

“Geez. So romantic.”

“You didn’t want romance, remember? Pure sex was your stipulation, not mine,” he said.

Cooper stripped as he walked to the side of the bed.

“I’m here. You just can’t see me. You’re on the other side of the bed,” she told him.

“I know where you are and last time I checked, two bodies fucking took up the same mattress space.”

Fauna gasped. He’d have cringed at the harsh words under normal circumstances. Hell, under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have said them. He wanted this lady and he wanted her to feel the same way about him. Her “sex only” policy felt like personal rejection. He didn’t like it.

Cooper fully intended to make her eat her words.