Erica Lucke Dean - To Katie with Love (3 page)

June put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her folded hands. “Do you sing, Cooper?”

Cooper burst into nervous laughter. “The only serenading
I
do is in the shower.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, a shampoo bottle is hardly an enthusiastic audience.”

Not
fair
. I was imagining Cooper in the shower, water running down his back and chest, soaking into his hair. Big gulp of champagne. I needed to add that to the drink tally.

“You really look different tonight. It suits you,” June said.

It must have been the alcohol talking, because I kept hearing the little voice telling me to lean in and kiss him. I sucked in a ragged breath at the mental image of my mouth pressed against his. I must have groaned out loud because everyone turned to stare at me.

“See? Even Katie thinks you look good tonight.” Vicky smirked, and I felt the heat flowing up from my neck to my hair.

Cooper’s lips quirked up. “Is that so?” Then he leaned in close again—too close—catching my eyes before I could find somewhere else to look.

I wasn’t certain, but it was almost as if it wasn’t the imaginary wart on my nose he so intently noticed, but my bottom lip as I caught it between my teeth. I took a long last gulp of my champagne for something to do that would draw his attention away from my mouth.

The song Phil was singing had ended—the image of my boss riding a steel horse would haunt my nightmares for months to come—and I heard my name called from the stage again. I was never more thrilled to take my turn singing karaoke.

“That’s me,” I said with just a little too much enthusiasm.

Cooper finally took his eyes from mine so he could slide out of the booth. The waitress came by, and I snatched the shot before she could even place it on the table. I threw the drink back in one swallow, blinking back tears as the liquid burned its way down my throat.

In the dark recesses of my mind, I knew I’d crossed the imaginary line that would leave me deeply, deeply sorry.

THOSE WERE MAGNIFICENT SHEETS

W
here the hell am I?

I sat bolt upright in a pitch black room and knew instantly that
one
, I should not have moved so quickly—I was still very drunk—and
two
, I was not in my own bed. I would know my pillows anywhere, and as luxurious as those were, they were definitely not mine.

This is not good. This is worse than not good. This is downright bad.

I fell back against the exquisite pillows, tugging the soft sheet up to my chin. The warm linen caressed my bare skin. They were the nicest sheets I’d ever nestled into. My brain did a slow double take as my thoughts rolled back to linen on skin. Every muscle in my body tightened.

Oh. My. God.
I think I might be naked.

Wait. I dared to peek under the sheet, barely able to see my body in the dark. Okay, not completely… only mostly naked. I was wearing my bra and—thank goodness—panties. But that didn’t answer the nagging question of where I was. I put my head back down and stayed perfectly still, listening. No breathing. Nothing.

I was alone… at least at the moment.

I wracked my brain for the slightest shred of a clue as to how I’d gotten there. I remembered singing the last song, and I’d been pretty good if I did say so myself. I remembered a drunk with awful breath, I remembered tripping and falling into some guy’s lap, and I remembered being rescued by Cooper.

Oh. My. God!

I was in Cooper’s house… which meant I was in Cooper’s bed.
This is bad. Really bad. Even colossally bad.
There had to be some policy I was violating by being semi-naked in a client’s bed. I had no idea what policy it was, but I was certain I would spend the first part of Monday morning looking for it so I would have a complete understanding as to why I was being fired. I would most definitely be fired. Unless no one found out…

I suddenly thought of Silvia. And worse… Vicky.

Everyone would know.

I needed to find my clothes, but other than the slice of moon peeking through the window, the room was completely dark. I could barely see my hand in front of my face. What time had we left the bar? Ten? Eleven? Midnight?

Phil was right.

I’d always been a total novice when it came to drinking. I was a novice when it came to most everything. I certainly wasn’t used to finding myself half-naked in a strange man’s bed in the middle of the night.

Then again, he was hardly a stranger. He was Cooper Maxwell. I knew him fairly well, didn’t I? I’d seen him twice a week for the past year. I liked him… a lot. Though I had no idea how much until he’d walked into the bar, channeling James Dean. I’d always placed him in the out-of-reach category: rich, handsome, mysterious, and as it turns out, amazingly sexy. But last night, when he looked into my eyes, I felt it. Need. Desire. He suddenly didn’t feel quite so out of reach.

So if I was in his house, where the hell was Cooper?

Again, I sat up a little too quickly and immediately regretted it. The room spun, and even my hair hurt. I should have skipped that last drink. Who was I kidding? I should have skipped the last three. I was definitely still drunk. It couldn’t have been very long since leaving the bar if I still felt the effects of the liquor.

I slipped a leg over the side of the bed and pulled the blanket with me as I eased myself up. My bare feet sank into the plush carpet, and I let my eyes adjust to the little bit of light coming from the moon before I carefully made my way to the bedroom door.

Cautiously, I ran my hands across the door and discovered it wasn’t one door, but two. French doors. They led to a sitting room with a fireplace. The orange glow from a recent fire gave off just enough light for me to make out the layout of the cozy little room. The stone fireplace was flanked on each side by matching leather sofas.

Lying across one, looking unbearably sexy, was Cooper. He slept on his back, still wearing his jeans and the long-sleeved gray shirt from the previous night. His bare feet hung off the side, and one arm was draped across his face as if to block out the light.

While I stared down at him, the alcohol started talking to me again, telling me to drop the blanket and jump the guy.

I am not that kind of girl.
I didn’t jump men on the first date. And we weren’t even on a date. I wasn’t sure what to call it.

I decided I needed to hightail it out of the sitting room before he woke up. I didn’t want to try to explain the blanket. Of course, I might have asked him to explain the underwear and how I’d ended up wearing nothing else. I made a mental note to thank Silvia for the matching bra and panties to go with the new outfit.

I figured the smartest thing to do was go back into the other room, find my clothes, and go to sleep. I wasn’t going anywhere until morning. I certainly wasn’t going to walk home, and if I had to wake him, it wouldn’t be to drive me anywhere other than crazy.

There it was, the little voice putting ideas into my head again—very bad paperback romance ideas. I seriously needed to do something about that. Not listening would be the first thing. Not drinking ever again would be next. I let out a ragged breath—okay, a moan—and knew instantly I should have held it—my breath, my thoughts, the whole shebang. Because the moment I made the sound, Cooper stirred on the sofa. When I turned to slowly wobble my way back toward the French doors, I heard the sofa groan under his weight.

“Do you always stare at people while they sleep?”

I didn’t have to look to know he was sitting up. “I… um… I was…”
Oh, great, Katie. Think of something good.
“I wasn’t sure if it was you?”
Brilliant. Now he’ll not only think you’re a drunk, but an idiot too.

I practically heard the corners of his mouth tip up in a smile. “Oh, really? How many choices were there?”

I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “It was so dark, and I was a little disoriented.” And naked. And drunk. And totally crazy, apparently.

Behind me, the floorboards creaked slightly, and I shivered. I didn’t dare face him, but I was frozen in my spot.

“Do you wake up in strange places often?” He was having way too much fun at my expense.

“Of course not. I never wake up in strange places.”

He moved to stand directly behind me, so close I could feel the heat coming off his body. “Good. I’d hate to think of you waking up in a different bedroom every weekend.”

His mouth was just inches away from my ear, and his breath against my neck sent shivers down my spine and goose bumps up my arms. “Are you cold? You’re shivering.”

I finally found my nerve and turned to face him. “I am a little cold. I think I’ll go bury myself under the covers in that nice warm bed you left me in. Thank you for driving me… um… here. I hope I wasn’t much trouble.”
There.
That was much more professional and composed. Maybe he wouldn’t notice I was wearing a blanket.

He gripped me with both hands and slid them up and down my arms, lighting little fires everywhere he touched. “No trouble at all. It was my pleasure.”

His eyes skimmed down my blanket-cocooned body and I knew he was remembering undressing me. He smiled, and my knees nearly buckled. I tried to look at him but only got as far as his mouth. I instinctively sucked in my lower lip and bit down to hold it in place.

He made a sound as if he was in agony but didn’t want it to stop. And the little voice, the one that had been talking to me all night—telling me to kiss him and jump him and do other very naughty things—screamed for me to grab a fistful of his hair and drag him down to kiss me.

“Okay!”

“Okay, what?” He cocked his head slightly to the side, and even in the dark I could see the little smile threatening to come out.

I let go of my death grip on the blanket, letting it fall to the floor, and slid my hands up his chest and shoulders, then hauled him against me with all of my might, drawing him in until our lips almost touched. “Okay, this.”

If I thought I was going to be making the moves on him, I was wrong. The second my lips brushed against his, he took over. It was plenty dark, so I didn’t need to close my eyes, but I did. I guessed I was trying to hide a little, but I didn’t need to worry about embarrassment because that out-of-reach, mysterious, deliciously sexy client of mine was kissing me back. He used his tongue to part my lips, and my tongue tangled with his. He slid his hands into my hair and grabbed the back of my head, tipping it to an angle he seemed to prefer. He pressed the length of his body against mine, and I moaned into his mouth. I felt him against my stomach, the same stomach swarming with fluttering wings, and I knew I would not be satisfied with just a kiss.

My hands roamed over his chest and under his shirt, raising it up to be as close to him as possible. His skin brushed against mine, making me all kinds of hot in the cool air. I reluctantly pulled away to ease the shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. He cupped my cheek, caressing the side of my face with his thumb as his lips skillfully drove me mad with desire.

His free hand slid up between us and found its way to the rounded underside of one of my breasts. I shuddered as he slipped his hand under the silk to skim my sensitive flesh with his fingers. I grabbed his arms to hold myself upright. I was afraid if I let go, I’d become nothing but a puddle at his feet.

Cooper pulled his mouth from mine and trailed his lips down my throat, over my chest, and to my now-exposed breast. He flicked his tongue over my hardened peak, and I let out a whimper as the shock waves of pleasure pulsed directly to my core.

In all my twenty-eight—
sigh
—twenty-nine years, I’d never felt such a deep, aching need. Electricity shot straight through my body and down between my legs. I desperately wanted him to touch me there, but I knew I would die of embarrassment when he discovered how wet I was.

I gasped. “Oh, God.” My head was spinning, and I wasn’t sure if I was drunk on liquor or pleasure. I tipped my face to the ceiling and heard the rush of my own breathing and my heart pounding in my ears. I was certain if he didn’t carry me off to his bed right that second, I would die.

Cooper pulled his mouth from my breast and kissed his way back to my neck, drawing me back from the brink. I raised my head to meet him in another passionate lip-lock.

And then I woke up for real.

Holy crap!

My head rested on the same luxurious pillows I vaguely remembered snuggling into earlier in the night. The same linen sheets were wrapped around my fully dressed body. Fully dressed, as in I was wearing the same ridiculous leather skirt and sheer blouse. No boots, but definitely
not
even close to naked.

Oh, I was in Cooper’s bed all right, but my wonderfully delicious dream slowly faded into the dark.

Damn!

The room was still pitch-black, yet clearly some of the memories from the dream came from my own vivid subconscious. I must have had some recollection of Cooper guiding me, half passed-out drunk, to his bedroom.

How excruciatingly embarrassing. Well, at least I didn’t have to go on an expedition to find my clothes in order to sneak out. If I didn’t run across my boots on the way, I would simply hike out in bare feet.

And Monday? Well, I had yet to use a single sick day. I could surely invent some horrible illness to keep me from work for at least one day.

But I didn’t need to get too far ahead of myself. I still needed to find my phone. I flipped back the sheets, wrenching myself from the decadence of the bed. If I got lucky, I could escape before Cooper had a chance to miss me.

“Kate, you’re awake. I was beginning to worry about you.”

The glow from the fire in the sitting room outlined Cooper’s silhouette in the doorway.

I was midway into my escape, one foot barely touching the carpet, one hand still gripping the linen sheet.
Caught
. “I was… um… looking for the bathroom?” It wasn’t meant to be a question, but it ended up as one. I was not the best liar.

He chuckled as he padded across the room. “You don’t sound convinced. Are you sure it’s the bathroom you’re looking for?”

“Of course. I need to use the bathroom. I drank a lot.” My attempt at feigning irritation was a complete failure. Even to my own ears, I sounded confused.

He reached into the darkness and flipped a switch, lighting a room I hadn’t noticed. It was gorgeous, as if it sprang straight out of a magazine… or a French hotel suite.

“Wow. Nice.”

“Yeah, thanks.” He sounded almost embarrassed. I decided to tuck his reaction away for later, when I wasn’t still under the influence.

“Do you need me to show—” he started.

“No! I can find my way.” The last thing I wanted was for Cooper Maxwell to stand outside the door while I was peeing.

I reluctantly let go of the sheet and walked toward the light. I heard the bed creak behind me as I wandered into the enormous room. The crystal chandelier alone screamed money, and the marble floor was warm against my bare feet.
Radiant heat. Figures. Definitely nothing like my icy bathroom floor.

I caught my awestruck reflection in the mirrors—all of them—as I took in the scrumptious party shower with four heads and assorted other spouts that would undoubtedly shoot water from every angle all at once. After a glance at the shampoo bottle in the corner—
that shampoo bottle has seen him naked
—I quickly shifted my attention to the huge claw-foot tub. Simple but elegant, right down to the ornate silver feet.

His bathroom had everything. Except for maybe… “Hey, Cooper? Where’s the—”

“Around the corner, first door on—”

“Got it. Thanks.” I closed the door behind me and fought the urge to hyperventilate. I wasn’t sure if I could pee in his bathroom. Once my heart settled down to its normal rhythm, I managed to do what I had come to do, but I cringed when the sound of the toilet flushing echoed in the quiet room.