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

Cooper’s hard-muscled body above her.

Adoring lips nipping hers.

Hot male scent convincing her more and more.

His sable voice wove out to soothe her. ‘If you can’t say it, Sophie, I will.’

She closed her eyes and shivered as his warm breath stirred her hair and hot fingers threaded back the curls fallen over her face. He cupped her hip and scooped till he’d prised her away from the wood.

‘We want each other,’ he told her. ‘We’re not kids. Nothing is bad or wrong with feeling strong physical attraction towards a person you care about.’

Sophie’s heartbeat skipped, then she smiled. He cared about her? As much as she’d come to care for him?

Cooper murmured against her crown. ‘Here’s something else to think about. What if we make love two or three more times and the sparks fizzle and die? Shouldn’t we find out whether our physical attraction is long-term or just a flash in the pan?’

Sophie grinned. Oh, he was smooth. She had a big feeling her sparks for him would never fizzle.

Which sounded romantic, but in reality wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If this trial failed—if she still believed he wanted to marry the chicken who had incubated his egg rather than the person he respected, valued and, yes, maybe even loved—she didn’t want to be hung up on a lost cause all the lonely years of her life.

He brushed aside more stubborn curls on her brow. When he dotted a soft kiss on her hairline, her core squeezed with the unmistakable sweet pang of longing. Concentrating on the rapid rhythm of her heartbeat, she breathed in and out, then, forcing herself over caution’s edge, walked her fingers up his shirtfront.

Thing was, he did have a valid point. Didn’t he? Maybe they really ought to check out whether their compatibility in the bedroom was not only as real and wonderful as she remembered, but also whether it would last beyond a night … a week … a month …

His hand framed her face as his thumb worked a light, relaxing circle at her temple. ‘We need to check those waters out thoroughly.’ His mouth caressed the spot. ‘Very thoroughly.’ He groaned and held her closer. ‘Very, very thoroughly.’

Her mouth drifted over and skimmed his. ‘Cooper?’

‘Yes, sweetheart?’

Sweetheart.

She smiled. ‘I get the picture.’

Smiling back, he tasted her parted lips.

Her arms gradually linked around his neck, and he gathered her in for a passionate and meaningful no-holds-barred kiss.

A thunderbolt of searing heat fell through her middle and down her legs, before gushing back up in a fanfare of tingling bright lights. Hanging on tight, she invited him in fully, revelling in the fire that burned and leapt inside her. Time converged in on itself, a twirling, giddy spin that left her breathless, weak and needing more.

Needing it all.

When the kiss ended, Cooper’s breathing was laboured, his voice thick. He nipped her bottom lip. ‘We need to go home or the kangaroos are going to sell tickets.’

She floated up from her dreamy haze to see an audience of marsupials arced around them, eyes bright, apparently most eager to witness the next stage.

He found her gaze. ‘I might not believe in black cats and lucky charms, but I do believe our night together wasn’t a mistake. This isn’t a mistake. I want you, Sophie.’

He stole another penetrating kiss that melted the last of her resistance before reluctantly drawing away.

His smile was soft. ‘Let’s go home.’

With the afternoon’s cool shadows growing longer, and their arms looped around each other’s belts as they left the reserve, Sophie so wanted to take heart in Cooper’s confidence. But that annoying part of her which wasn’t affected by raging hormones niggled and whispered all the way home.

Whether or not she’d been a party to it, ultimately Cooper had got his own way. As of tonight, his bed was her bed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘DROP the bathrobe—but only if you’re naked underneath.’

Freshly emerged from a steamy shower after their big day at the zoo, Sophie enjoyed a delicious shiver at the authoritative tone evident in that deep, masculine voice. Sexual awareness climbed as, poised in the en suite bathroom’s doorway, she allowed time for her eyes to adjust from the brighter light to the bedroom’s corner lamp glow.

The commanding silhouette towering before her gradually acquired features. As Cooper’s hooded gaze became clearer, so too did his hungry smile.

The plateau of his chest was dusted with the wiry hair she adored driving her fingers through; the toned ridges of his stomach looked as hard as her whispered memories said they would be. Hair began again below his concave navel, arrowing down in a silky trail that left her heart beating so fiercely she could barely catch her breath.

He pushed out a put-upon sigh and rushed a hand through his damp, dark hair. ‘Guess I have to do my own dirty work and come over there.’

Cooper moved towards her with the athletic grace of a predator savouring the thought of its next, highly anticipated meal. His rolling muscles were a masterpiece in polished steel motion. His Levi’s were her favourites—well-worn, low-slung and unzipped. With each languid step the soft blue denim shifted on his hips, drawing her attention to what Sophie knew full well lay beneath.

Light-headedness tingled across her brain as the distance separating them narrowed and his scent reached out to fill her lungs. Finally anchoring his weight mere inches away, Cooper cuffed strong fingers into the collar of her heavy towelling robe and urged her up onto tiptoe at the same instant his mouth came crashing down.

Impatient, greedy … she happily submitted to the drugging magic of his kiss. The force was greater than any current catching her ankles and sweeping her out to sea. She was drawn in by the urgency, set free by the heady heights of passion. Some good reason had stopped her pursuing this intense longing these past weeks, but for the life of her now she couldn’t think what.

Stretching, she moved to embrace him, but found her robe’s shoulders had been dragged down, effectively confining her arms to her sides. Smiling against his lips, she burrowed close as his large hands continued to pull the towelling till her heavy breasts spilled out.

As his thumbs kneaded her arms, her nipples rubbed against his chest, releasing a scorching blast of want that struck and then consumed her feminine core. Legs turned to rubber, she clung to his forearms, willing this night to last at least until eternity.

As their kiss evolved into starved snatches, he urged her to follow as he backed up. His tongue was tickling a responsive patch on her neck when she imagined his legs hit the mattress, and something resembling conscious thought clawed its way up from the depths of wild abandon.

Still, it took the hot shell of his hand slipping under the robe for her to remember the all-important questions she’d decided, while showering, she needed to ask.

‘Cooper,’ she murmured, eyes closed, neck arced back, ‘we need to stop for a moment.’

He manoeuvred her around till she sat on the bed’s edge, then pressed her back against the dusky pink coverlet. His gaze trained on her swollen tender breasts, he released the tie at her waist. The hot plates of his palms ironed across her abdomen as he spread the robe apart.

In shadow, she saw a pulse jump at the side of his throat and one dark brow lift in shameless appreciation. ‘Yep. You’re naked under there, all right.’

His knees nudged hers apart, widening her thighs to a vee before a two-fingered touch slid a lazy path between her centre. As a powerful tremor gripped her, her hips automatically arched to meet his stroke.

Cooper’s smile changed.

The side of his hand breezed down then up one quivering inner thigh. ‘I’ve missed you.’

A knee on the bed, he lowered over her.

A flash went off in her mind. She remembered her preparation plan and rolled away.

Chuckling, he effortlessly rolled her back. ‘Sophie, all the fun’s happening here.’