The Rebel (The Millionaire Malones Book 3) Read online

  Chapter Nine

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  They should … what the hell?

  Maggie automatically checked the room to see that Evan hadn’t woken and wandered into the living room at the exact same time Cooper had suggested they should have sex.

  Sex. Her and Cooper. Oh no. The slow flame of that thought had been flickering in her and now, with his words, he’d thrown gasoline on that fire. Whoosh. Damn her body and how it reacted to that look in his eyes, his dark and intent gaze, the husk in his voice. Damn how tall he was and damn his chest. Damn his cock and how strong and hard she knew it could be. And damn it all that he’d seen through her disguise and guessed how she felt.

  Maggie gripped a throw pillow and clenched her thighs together to quell the throbbing.

  ‘What did you say?’ Maggie aimed for calm confidence but the sound that came out of her mouth was kind of shrieky.

  ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t that what you were going to say?’ Cooper looked confused.

  ‘Was I going to suggest we have sex? Er, no.’

  Cooper ran a hand through his hair and then scrubbed it over his jaw, which was bristling with growth. Clearly, he was doubly confused. ‘Well … I’ve just shot my load, haven’t I? What were you going to say?’

  ‘I … I was going to whip your ass because … that kiss earlier today? In the kitchen? That was just showing off and you need to stop it.’

  ‘Showing off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cooper watched her for a moment. ‘You didn’t react like you wanted me to stop.’

  ‘Well, I did.’

  ‘You didn’t like it?’

  That throbbing in her thighs had been replaced with a twisting in her stomach, giant knots turning in on themselves, tighter and tighter, squeezing the air from her lungs. ‘No. Well, yes … okay, I liked it. But that’s not the point. This—you and me—it has nowhere to go and a kiss like that needs somewhere to go.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And that somewhere is sex.’

  ‘C’mon, Cooper.’ Maggie looked away from him, hoping the wine buzz would hit any second to take the edge off what was skittering and tingling through her body.

  ‘Six years, Maggie.’ He reached for her hand and pulled her to standing, then lifted a finger and teased it down a single curl, which spilled over her shoulders and down on to the curve of her breast. ‘I can see it in your eyes. You need to have sex. And I’m a man and I’m here.’

  She stared at him, blank faced.

  ‘No strings. We’re friends now and we’ll be friends after. Nothing has to change.’ That finger in her hair teased down the collar of her shirt, lightly brushed her décolletage as it headed lower. When it met the first button, he slid a finger inside the fabric and traced the edge of her bra against the curve of her breast. Her skin zapped and tingled.

  Maggie looked down where his fingers grazed her skin, shooting sparks right into her heart. She started to remember what it was like to be spontaneous, to be free to do what her body wanted. And damn she wanted to have sex with him. So, so much.

  ‘Just because we’re good at kissing, doesn’t mean the sex would be any good. Sex would be another thing entirely.’

  ‘Damn right it would,’ Cooper murmured.

  ‘And you’re injured. I’m sure you wouldn’t be up to your full strength, if you know what I mean.’

  He chuckled and the sound of it was the sexiest thing Maggie had ever heard. His breath was hot on her neck as he whispered in her ear, ‘There are ways around that. I’m good, Maggie Mac. You know that about me, don’t you?’

  When Cooper’s lips touched her throat, parts of her sparked. Parts that had been lonely for a man’s touch for a long, long time. Parts of her that had been imagining for six years what it would be like to make love with Cooper. Maggie stood completely still, willing his fingers to move across her breast, to cup her there, to flick her budded nipple with his thumb. He was right about one thing. He was a man, and he was there, and she was reacting the way any woman would.

  She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what’s bigger. Your cock or your ego.’

  Cooper pressed his lips to her throat again. ‘Why don’t you be the judge of that?’

  He popped a button on her shirt, and he kissed her there, in the dip between her breasts. When he glanced up at her, she tucked her index finger under his chin and directed his gaze away from her breasts to her eyes.

  She froze at what she saw.

  She’d expected a tease, a laugh, to go along with the game she thought he was playing.

  But what she saw was raw desire. His darkened eyes, the clench of muscles in his shadowed jaw and the sound of his breath, ragged and quick, revealed that this wasn’t a game to him anymore.

  She stepped back. Wrapped her arms around herself. Her head had won. ‘Thanks for the generous offer,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

  And turned on her heel and left.

  *

  Cooper’s knee was throbbing like a bastard. Probably because all the blood in his body was pooling elsewhere. He picked up Maggie’s wine glass, finished what was in it with a huge gulp – even thought he knew he shouldn’t – and put the glass back on the coffee table.

  He caught his reflection in the mirror behind the picture frames and told the man reflected there the truth. ‘You’re a fuckwit, you know that Cooper Malone?’

  What the hell had he just done? He’d let the ghosts and regrets of six years ago come back to life in his head. When he should have acted, but he hadn’t. And now, he’d acted when he shouldn’t have. He’d made a stupid proposition to Maggie that she was right to reject. Trust her to be the sensible one. He guessed that’s what came with being a mom and with being part of a family. A family. The word rang inside his head. His own had shattered when he was fourteen, and he’d spent the past nearly two decades moving around so much so he wouldn’t feel the yearning for home and for that comfort; the longing for one place to rest his head, for one woman to be waiting for him. For calm and peace, for a safe haven. His brothers had it, finding love with two great women, which only made Cooper feel more distant than ever from the happiness he wanted.

  The happiness he wanted but couldn’t have. As long as he was a surfer his life was on the road. It was all he knew. He’d turned it into a professional career to make up for not having a family, and now it was the one thing standing in the way of what he’d always hoped would be his future.

  A future his former friend Vance could have had but had walked away from. A future that could have been Cooper’s if he’d taken the chance when he’d had it. Damn it. And just now, he’d acted like an idiot instead of a friend and missed his second chance, but it was a chance he had no right to take. Maggie’s life was in California, his was all over the world. She’d created a life here that he was a guest in, not a partner.

  But that kiss … His suggestion had started as a hopeful tease but holy hell, it had turned into something he hadn’t planned. The way her breath had hitched and caught when he’d touched her, the sweet smell of her, so intoxicating when he’d pressed his lips to the swell of her breasts. If she hadn’t walked away …

  She was right to have done so.

  Cooper made it to the sofa and fell backwards onto it. It jarred his knee awkwardly and he cursed. No matter what happened—in or out of the bedroom (or the kitchen or the sofa)—they needed to remain friends. He would never walk away from the kid he thought of as his own. He would never let Evan go through what he’d been through.

  And he would never walk away from the woman he’d been in love with for six years but could never have. The woman who’d chosen Vance.

  He had to remember that, no matter how much it burned.

  Cooper grabbed the remote control to the TV, found something mindless to watch and settled in to count the explosions.

  *

  Maggie had torn off her clothes, tugged a camisole top over her panties and slipped between the cool sheets on t
he sofa bed. She was too wired to do anything but lie there, twisting the sheet in her fingers, and think about Cooper’s totally stupid, ridiculous-as-all-hell offer. His patronising, ridiculous-as-all-hell offer.

  His words swirled around her head like the wine in her glass had.

  I’m good, Maggie Mac. You know that about me, don’t you?

  She’d always thought he would be. There was a physicality about him that was undeniable. That masculine, testosterone-filled competitive streak he had meant he would want to be good. He was attentive to women, and boy did he know how to flirt. When he’d turned it on her just now, lowered his eyelids and his voice, even though she knew it was a game, she’d fallen for it.

  Almost.

  Maggie tossed and turned, twisting the sheets around her body, sweating now and itching for someone’s touch.

  God, she wanted him. She hungered to feel someone skin to skin. She was desperate to be kissed the way Cooper had kissed her. She craved the blissful satisfaction of taking a man inside her and then the throb and release of her own orgasm. It had been too long. Criminally long. Beyond-human-endurance long.

  But she couldn’t have any of that, could she? Not with him. Life didn’t turn out that way. Just because a woman was about to explode from desire, didn’t mean she could find someone to share the fireworks with. There was no point in going down that road with Cooper. As soon as his knee was better, he’d be back on a plane and off to the next beach. That wasn’t what she needed. That wasn’t what Evan needed in a father.

  There were lopsided, stomping footsteps in the hallway and then the sound of the bathroom door closing. She lifted her head from her pillow and looked up. The dim strip of light bleeding under her doorway had disappeared. A moment later, more footsteps and another door quietly closed. He was in her bedroom. In her bed. He was probably kicking himself out of his board shorts right about now, and then getting into her bed, naked.

  And then it all became too much.

  She’d turned her life into order out of chaos. She was organised now and practical and was raising a beautiful young boy. She was a great daughter and a reliable accountant.

  What had happened to the woman? The one who jumped on a plane at a moment’s notice and lived?

  Maggie tossed back the sheets, pushed herself up to sitting and planted her feet on the floor. It had been too long, and Cooper had offered no strings attached. All she knew was that if she didn’t orgasm in the next, oh, ten minutes, she would melt from the inside. All that heat needed somewhere to go.

  In the room next door was a man she liked. Okay, a man she’d always wanted to have sex with, maybe a man she’d always loved. And if she were going to break this drought, she needed someone who was damn good. She didn’t want tentative. She didn’t want sweet talking. She wanted someone who could handle her fireworks.

  Because, oh brother, there were going to be fireworks.

  Maggie walked to the door, every nerve ending throbbing. She doubled back to reach for her perfume bottle and was about to spray her neck and wrists before stopping herself.

  She didn’t want any scent on her body but his.

  *

  She didn’t even knock.

  Maggie opened the door to her bedroom—Cooper’s temporary bedroom—walked in and closed it behind her. He was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dim lamplight, his injured leg out straight, his shoulders hunched. He turned his head in her direction, looking rueful. He’d pulled off his T-shirt but was still wearing his shorts. Half naked. All man.

  He didn’t move to cover himself, just exhaled, big and loud. ‘Listen Maggie, I’m so not in the mood for …’ he lifted his hands and made quote marks in the air, ‘… talking anymore about what did or didn’t happen. And I’m especially not in the mood for you calling me out on what I just did.’

  Maggie propped her hands on her hips, lifted her chin. ‘Me, neither.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘So what are you doing in here?’

  Maggie strode to him. ‘That offer before. About having sex. Is that still on the table?’

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘Very funny.’

  She poked him on the shoulder. ‘Well, is it?’

  He looked up. His eyes widened. ‘What the fuck, Maggie?’

  She moved closer, found a space between his straightened leg and his other one, nudging it aside to get closer. Her thighs moved against the inside of his.

  ‘Yes. I want to have sex with you,’ Maggie declared and then realised maybe she should qualify. ‘Well, with anyone really, but you’re here in my house and you offered so, you’re it.’

  He paused. ‘Are you drunk?’ She thrilled at the way his shoulders tightened when she rested her hands on either side of his neck.

  ‘No. This might make more sense to me if I was, but no, not drunk.’

  His eyes took a long, slow trawl up her legs, past her knickers—stopped at her breasts—and then he met her eyes.

  That thing that had freaked her out earlier in the living room, that dark-eyed raw desire? It was back.

  ‘The thing is, Cooper, I used to be like this. I used to be the kind of person who takes risks and has fun and does crazy things. I used to be spontaneous. You reminded me tonight of who I used to be. So for one night, I’m going to not think about tomorrow.’

  Cooper stared up at her.

  She slid her hands from his shoulders up around the back of his neck, tangling them in his blond hair.

  He looked at her for a long, languorous moment. ‘Give me a minute to get in the mood,’ he finally mumbled.

  She pulled her hands from him, reached for the hem of her top and pulled it over her head.

  Cooper’s eyes flickered down to her breasts. ‘That’ll do it.’

  His arms were around her in a hot second, pulling her to him and his mouth was on a breast, his tongue sucking and flicking her budded nipple, and she almost buckled at the knees. She threw her head back and heard herself moan and didn’t care. She found his hair once again and pulled him closer, wanting to feel him all around her, wanting that exquisite pleasure. He got it; he gave it to her. He found her other nipple and repeated his sucking and licking and she felt weak and strong all at once. When Cooper tore his lips from her, his teeth nipping a little as he let go, he pulled her closer and kissed her on the mouth, really kissed her, and she felt it in her sex and everywhere else on her body. The sound of it, the lipsmacking sound, the wet promise of his lips on hers, was such a turn-on that Maggie kissed him harder, desperate to feel him. She pushed herself against him, skin to skin, breast to chest, as they kissed more, deeper, tongue meeting tongue, his teeth nipping her lip, and it felt so good and right and made her hunger for more.

  It made her hunger for everything about Cooper Malone.

  ‘Fuck, Maggie,’ he ground out and, as he pulled her up to straddle him, she tucked a knee on either side of his hips, cradling his head in her hands, holding on as he kissed her and turned, to the left, to the right, tasting and savouring every corner of her mouth. When he fell back onto the bed—or had she pushed him?—she held on and spread her legs wider, pressing herself against his hard and throbbing cock, which was still encased inside his shorts. She propped herself up with splayed hands on his chest, panting, trying to get a breath, then threw her head back, loving the sensation, grinding on him, knowing that was going to light those fireworks of hers that had been primed and ready for so long.

  ‘You got a condom?’ he whispered into the hormone-charged space between them and Maggie nodded breathlessly. She reluctantly slid off his body, tugged open a bedside drawer and found a foil packet. It was her emergency stash that she kept refreshed in case of emergencies. Thank God she was about to have one. She held it between her lips while she slipped off her panties. When she looked back at Cooper, this big man on her bed, he’d freed himself and was lying back, propped up on his elbows, grinning at her.

  Naked. Beautiful. Strong. Her friend. A man like no-one she had eve
r met.

  She ripped the packet open with her teeth. He watched her every move, as she slipped out the condom and climbed back on his thighs.

  ‘That okay?’ she murmured, wondering if she was too close to his knee. His hands shot to her hips and held her there.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She looked down at his cock, flat against his belly, his smooth tanned belly. And then watched until it wasn’t. She raised an eyebrow and held up the condom. ‘Hope it fits.’

  ‘It better not have expired,’ he groaned.

  And then she began the teasing torture. She leaned over, pressed her lips to his cock, and then licked him, in one smooth, wet stroke from balls to tip, once more, twice more. When she sheathed him, she smoothed her fingers down his hardness and width, relishing his groans of pleasure, which made her more desperate that he should be inside her. Her pulse throbbed in her temple and her sex ached beyond control. When she couldn’t wait one more second, she straddled him again, slid over him and onto him, teasing, back and forth, until with a thrust from him she was filled with Cooper.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned when his hands gripped her hips, and she rode him and he moved under her, slow then fast and then faster still and when those damn fireworks exploded in every nerve ending in her body, she forgot to breathe.

  Chapter Ten

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  The only sound in the room was their breathing.

  Like they’d just run a hundred-metre sprint kind of breathing.

  Maggie had thrown herself on the bed next to Cooper, while her orgasm shimmied its way through her body. That delicious, delirious heaviness dragged on her sex and she felt like a lead weight under it.

  It was dark—or she didn’t have the energy to open her eyes, she couldn’t tell—and Cooper was silent next to her.

  ‘Well, aren’t you Little Miss Firecracker,’ he finally said with a husky laugh.

  Maggie felt her own laugh burble up inside her. ‘Funny how it comes back to you. Just like riding a bike, I guess.’