One-Amazing-Night Baby!: A Wild Night & A Marriage Ultimatum / Pregnant by the Playboy Tycoon / Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition

She tried again. ‘I worked hard through college. I love teaching and making a difference. A lot of my friends are teachers there. That’s a huge part of my life, of who I am. I would never give it up.’

He consolidated his case. ‘Only if the principal forces you to.’

Her heart smacked against her ribcage. She refused to feel cornered—by the principal or by Cooper. She had options. ‘Then I’ll get another teaching position.’

Cooper covered her chocolate-smeared fist with the handkerchief and gently wiped. ‘We’ll see.’

A jet of irritation shot through her. There was nothing to ‘see’. She wanted to work. The last thing she needed was to feel indebted to him, or reliant upon his charity, and if she resigned that was precisely what she’d be: a commodity sponsored by Cooper Smith.

If she lost or gave up her job, and didn’t find another, what would that do to their relationship’s balance of power? Living in his house, surviving off his income … Would she then feel obliged to abide by his laws?

How had Paige summed up Cooper’s thinking?

I make the rules, you just have to follow them.

Sophie understood Paige was a teenager—and he wanted to protect her—but did Cooper make any distinction between the two of them as far as that was concerned? Weeks ago she’d decided she would follow her own path, her own rules. She hadn’t changed her mind, and, as much as he wanted to, Cooper wouldn’t change it for her.

He squeezed her hand, determination shining like steel in his eyes. ‘Understand that if and when you need me to step up and speak for us all, I’d like nothing better.’

Sophie understood very well.

That was what worried her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘YOU ready?’

Cooper stepped back from Sophie’s closed bedroom door and caught a glimpse of himself in the large teak-edged mirror at the end of his home’s mezzanine floor hall. He frowned. Bare chest, longish scruffy wig, nothing left to the imagination about a pair of hairy muscular legs. Good thing the loincloth concealed the essentials.

Sophie’s melodic voice drifted out. ‘Did you say you’d picked out other costumes this morning, in case these didn’t suit the party tonight?’

He was toying with the novel idea of thumping his expanded pecs when Sophie opened the door a crack. ‘I’ll need a big long coat,’ she said. ‘It’s cold outside, and there’s not a whole lot to this outfit.’

Her face looked fresh. Well, maybe flushed. Her eyes perhaps a touch more than alarmed.

His lungs deflated.

Jungle Fever had sounded ideal when the costume shop assistant had suggested it. Now, however, he wasn’t completely sold on dragging his fists around in public dressed as Tarzan. All the same, he was eager to see how well his pretty mate had fleshed out her animal print.

As he drew closer, her vanilla scent tugged on his senses, and he found himself hurtling back in time. One word summed up that night perfectly: sensational. He planned for the next few weeks to be equally enjoyable.

Starting tonight.

He moved closer. ‘Your friend will have central heating.’ Beyond that, he would do his utmost to keep his Jane warm.

But Sophie hadn’t heard. One set of fingers on the jamb, the other curled around the doorframe, her gaze drifted up and down the length of his body.

A glut of testosterone ran out to alert the team of this latest development. He puffed out his chest a little more.

She wolf-whistled. ‘Don’t know if my friends are ready for that.’

He found her hand and dragged her out. Jungle fever might work, after all.

Surrounded by spiralling dark ribbons of hair, her luminous green eyes stared out. Lower, a slash of faux fur fabric stretched over the ripe swell of her breasts; another adorned her curvaceous hips. Her still slender waist, slightly rounded midriff and shapely legs were left exposed. It was all he could do not to swing her over his shoulder like a sack and whisk her away to his treehouse.

Definitely later.

His bare toes wiggled against the carpet as she tossed back her head to shift a wayward curl hanging over one eye: a clear sign.

He accepted the invitation and reached out to play with her untamed mane. ‘Jane silky soft.’ His index finger trailed over her jaw. ‘Want to throw some leaves around?’

‘Only if they stick and cover some of our birthday suits,’ she said. ‘If I show up like this, I’ll send everyone into fits.’

Physical need coursed through his system. Taking possession of her hips, he gently gyrated the lower strip of cloth as he surveyed the provocative picture before him. ‘Do you have any idea how sexy you are?’

She quit squirming from his hold to peer up into his eyes. She looked maybe half convinced. ‘I am?’

His thumbs pressed the sensitive dips either side of her navel and his pulse began to boom. ‘Penny Newly had better be decked out as Kermit the frog or her envy will show big time. In fact, I have a better idea.’ Drawn like a magnet to a ready supply of molten steel, his hips edged closer. ‘Let’s have our own party.’

She assessed his eyes, the suggestive position of their bodies. Her breasts jostled and unintentionally teased as she wrangled to disengage herself and return to the room.

Cooper’s arms swung down, but the grin didn’t leave his face. She’d chosen the bedroom the greatest distance from his—as if that would keep them apart.

About to walk in and join her, he paused.

He hadn’t thought till this moment, but a lot of stairs led up to this floor—a spiral of open timber boards. Well-positioned strips helped to grip shoes and feet. Nevertheless, the stairs needed to be approached, and descended, with care and respect.

He and Paige were used to them, but their once-a-week housekeeper had had a tumble recently. Thankfully, Joan hadn’t been hurt, but neither was she pregnant. As he’d told Sophie yesterday, he would not take any chances with her condition.

Down the far end of the hall, the top of the handrail seemed to taunt him. Cooper considered again the possible dangers and nodded.

Tomorrow he would move Sophie’s belongings into the guest wing downstairs. He would move into the adjoining suite. By the end of the week they’d be sharing one or the other.

He sauntered into the bedroom.

Standing before a white-lacquered dressing table, Sophie collected an amber bottle and spritzed her hair. When she saw his reflection in the mirror, the tassel on her teensy skirt arced out as she pivoted to face him. She tried to look in control, but the quiver of her bottom lip and saucer-wide eyes were dead giveaways. She wanted him to leave. More so, she wanted him to stay.

She placed a hand on her stomach and raised her chin, defiant even in the face of defeat. ‘I didn’t invite you in.’

His attention dipped to the creamy length of her body—lines drawn by nature’s brush on a very good day. He shrugged and closed the distance between them. ‘Too late.’

When she took a step back, her animal print behind hit the edge of the table. She narrowed one eye at him. ‘You’re not going to start making monkey noises, are you?’

Stopping inches away, he loomed over her. ‘I do feel rather primal.’ He found her palm and rubbed it against his chest hair. ‘What do you think?’

As her own chest rose and fell, he imagined the tips of her breasts tightening to the beads he loved to roll around his tongue. Sweet heaven, he could taste them now.

He was about to gather her in when she dodged around him. She stopped on a pastel-striped rug in the middle of the large room, her back to him, head lowered, hands fisted at her sides. ‘I was surprised last night, my first night here, when you didn’t try anything. You’re making up for it now.’