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

‘I don’t want you to go.’ Seemed he’d been saying that all night. This minute he meant it more than ever.

Her slender throat bobbed as she swallowed. ‘Why?’

He ground out, ‘You know why.’

He felt her holding her breath, evaluating the situation, going over their conversations. Her words came out a threadbare whisper. ‘We weren’t going to do this.’

‘I changed my mind.’ He had no other explanation. ‘I think you might have too.’

To test his theory, he skimmed a palm up the silken texture of her arm and those earlier tingles caught light. When she didn’t move, he slid that hand around her waist. She examined the motion, then searched his eyes while her own glistened in the soft light. ‘We’re totally incompatible.’

As if drawn by a magnet, he lowered his head to touch her lips oh-so-softly with his. Physical longing curled like a fist in his stomach. ‘Without a word of a lie, right now I only remember how you taste.’

When his mouth met hers again, she kissed him back. As he pulled away, her eyes drifted open. Her sigh was a sound near surrender. ‘I remember too.’

He tugged her closer and her body melded with his—supple, curvaceous, inviting. Nose touching hers, he murmured against her lips, ‘I want you to know I didn’t intend for this to happen.’

She looked both anxious and decided. ‘This is purely physical, right?’

Yes. ‘Purely physical.’ Overpowering, irresistible. No for ever tied in romantic ribbon here.

‘We’re agreed. We won’t pursue this. I’m not what you want. You’re not what I need. We have no future.’

‘But we can have tonight.’

The next kiss left his breathing ragged and left her clinging to his shirt like a lifebuoy. He went in deep, feeling his pulse rate spike, his energies harden, knowing, regardless of what was said next, there was no turning back.

When he let her surface, she was looking over his shoulder, a little amazed. ‘Cooper, you have a painting of butterflies on the wall.’

Tasting her temple, he carefully released the zip down her back. ‘Do I?’ He couldn’t remember.

‘Three white butterflies together. That’s very good luck.’

‘Have you heard the saying, make love three times before dawn and your life will be long and happy?’

She grinned. ‘Think that’s true?’

‘Only one way to find out.’ For a second time that night, he swept her up into his arms.

Their eyes remained glued as he carried her up to his master bedroom.

‘When I first saw you,’ she murmured, ‘I thought you looked dangerous.’

‘And now?’

She touched his cheek. ‘Now I need to know for sure.’

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN they reached the bedroom, Cooper nudged a light switch with his elbow and the glow from a corner lamp faded up. Sophie’s breath caught in her chest as he smiled down at her slung in his arms, lidded eyes compelling and hot.

Neither had planned this. When she’d agreed to accompany him to his room she’d believed they both meant what they’d said. Cooper had made it clear she didn’t fit his requirements. She’d made it just as clear she considered his attitude towards finding a match puritanical. She was through with overbearing men, and one thing she’d learned about Cooper in their short acquaintance was that he absolutely wanted to be boss.

Yet their bodies had overwritten their concerns and made up their minds for them. In the end Cooper Smith’s unique and potent brand of sex appeal was simply too convincing to resist. What he saw in her she couldn’t say. This had never happened before—not even in her dreams. Was it a by-product of her assertiveness when they’d danced—her decision to speak up rather than suppress? How had Kate put it? ‘You should flaunt what you have, instead of always trying to hold it back.’

Either way, being desired by a sexy, powerful man was flattering. Now she was here, she wouldn’t back down. Rather, she would enjoy every stimulating moment. Tonight, for the first time, she would completely lose herself and reach for a handful of far-flung stars.

And tomorrow she would have no regrets. The only consequence would be a boost to her confidence. God knew, it was time.

He carried her to the side of an ominous-looking king-sized bed, then carefully angled her to set her on her feet. Cupping her cheek, he dropped the most tender of kisses at one side of her mouth. His attention drifted to her shoulder, and the slide of his hand helped the strap fall to her elbow. ‘I should cancel the hot chocolates.’

As his kiss tasted her lips more fully, and the other strap fell too, delicious warmth flooded her belly and seeped through her limbs. She didn’t want him to temper the mood by picking up the phone.

With the zip already undone, the dress dropped in a rustling puddle at her feet. She shivered as the air, enhanced by his mesmerising masculine scent, brushed her breasts. She felt exposed, vulnerable, yet at the same time smouldering with anticipation.

When she answered, her voice was unrecognisably thick. ‘What’ll happen if we don’t answer the door?’

Clearly he wasn’t keen to hit ‘pause’ either. Without releasing her forearm, he grabbed a corner of ocean-blue doona in his other hand and, with a decisive action, flicked it back. ‘They’ll get the hint.’

In a dreamy haze, she helped release his dress shirt buttons, then peeled the fabric from his broad, steamy back. As it dropped to the floor he embraced her again, somehow managing to manoeuvre her back and onto the mattress as he made love with his mouth and his hands. Quaking inside, she let her eyelids flutter shut. She felt almost desperate—in a way starving to know every mouthwatering inch of him. As he settled down beside her and his undiluted power radiated out, she knew that wish would soon be granted.

After he softly broke their kiss to sit on the edge of the bed, she heard his shoes ‘thunk-thunk’ onto the carpet. Tipping onto her side, she briefly wondered if he considered her shape ‘puddingy’ or curvaceous, but she buried the thought and cupped her head in a palm, ready to savour the fascinating vision unfolding before her.

His tanned, toned abdomen rippled and flexed as he slid off his trousers, then his shorts. Then he swung a crooked leg onto the bed and faced her. Awed by the complete bared-all package, she dared a two-finger stroke of his thigh—a surface that compared with sun-warmed granite. Cooper Smith had the body of a male swimwear model—tight, polished, bulging in all the right places. And that included south of the border.

Her mind was stuck on glorious freeze-frame when he urged her onto her back and, reclining beside her, smiled down, as if pleased by her level of interest. He held her hand and placed it on his sternum. Her more romantic side was convinced he had imprinted her touch on his heart.

The sound of his pleasure rumbled beneath her palm, deep and seductive. ‘Your turn.’

Ready to return his smile, Sophie instead found herself holding her breath. All at once the shadow on his strong jaw seemed darker, the blaze in his eyes more intense.

No! She’d promised herself she wouldn’t change her mind. But now the former, far more anxious Sophie whispered in her head. Don’t be a fool. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

As if reading her thoughts, Cooper’s smile vanished. Hair fallen over one side of his brow, he pushed up to support his weight on one arm as his gaze skimmed her lips, then examined her eyes. ‘You’re trembling.’

Sophie inhaled his fresh, earthy scent, drank in his concerned expression, and, suddenly feeling childish, shook her head. She wanted this. Would always remember it. All she had to do was take this last step. ‘It’s just that it all seems a little … surreal.’

The air compressed, then pulsed around them as he leaned in close to draw his bristled chin up her jaw. ‘Great, isn’t it?’

His reply was so gravelled and honest, so what she felt as well, that Sophie laughed. Smiling again too, he rolled, sweeping her over on top of him with the movement. She went with the flow and, naked but for her panties, pushed upright to straddle his hips.

A moment of something like reverence passed between them before he reached around, held her behind and, his gaze lowering to caress her body, began to rotate his pelvis—back and forth, up and down. As she let herself go, closed her eyes and gently rocked above him, she felt his physical appreciation increase along with her own. Head lolling forward, then back, she worked with him—against him—till nothing barred their joining but crumbling restraint and an annoying strip of damp cotton brief.

Lost to the swirling depths of sensation, she was about to clear the obstruction when a hot fingertip began a tantalising ascent up her spine. Starting with circling at the base, his touch traced up over each vertebra—an action so subtle yet so exceptionally seductive it raised her skin to goosebumps and her soul to even dizzier heights.

By the time his touch arrived at her tingling nape Sophie’s backbone had not only straightened, she’d over-arced. Her fingers dug behind her into his thighs, while her face worshipped those stars in her own private sky.

As she sizzled with need, he pivoted to a sitting position and, framing her face with his hands, kissed her so deeply she thought she might pass out. When he tried but failed to work a set of fingers through her coiffed hair, his husky murmur brushed warmth across her lips.