Below the Belt (17 page)

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re going to have to do better than that, sweetheart. I want to hear you say it. I
need
to hear you say it,” he said. All traces of humor faded from his face as he slid his hands into her hair and caressed the nape of her neck.

“I know you’ve been fighting a long time, baby. I know it’s been tough and dirty. But you don’t need to fight against me,” he said quietly. “I want you to trust me. I want you to feel safe with me. I love you.”

His words hit her in the chest.

“I love you,” she said. “Of course I love you.”

The words came from a place deep inside, a part of herself that she’d held clenched into a fist for a very long time. Once she’d opened that fist, the words just kept tumbling out, unstoppable, raw, revealing.

“I love you so much it hurts. I love everything about you—your body, the way you look at me, the way you deal with the world, your honesty, your gentleness, your strength. I love the way you smell, and the little creases you get at the corners of your eyes just before you smile, and the way you always push your hair off your forehead when you’re frustrated. I love that you can’t stand it when the guys swear in front of me at the gym, and that when you look at me I can feel it in my blood and my bones. I love that you didn’t hesitate to try to protect me, that you’ve tried to protect me from the very first moment we met, I love—”

Cooper cut off the rest of her declaration with a kiss. His tongue mated with hers as he rolled his body on top of hers, his weight pressing her down into the mattress.

Despite the fact that he’d barely been out of hospital an hour, he had no trouble finding the hem of her skirt and pushing it up toward her waist. With one flick of his wrist he had her panties down. Then he was sliding inside her, big and thick and hard.

“Say it again. All of it,” he said against her neck as he began to stroke into her.

He felt so good. They felt so good. She’d been so afraid of feeling this way again. So scared of making herself weak and vulnerable. Deep inside, there was still fear, doubt, uncertainty. She’d learned wariness too well for it to dissolve so easily.

But she’d let this big, beautiful man into her life, just as she’d allowed him to join with her body. And for the moment, there wasn’t a single regret in her heart.

Closing her eyes, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, she whispered her love into his ear as he drove them both a little bit crazy.

C
OOPER STIRRED
to wakefulness. The first thing he registered was the warm silk of Jamie’s body pressed against his, then the scent of her shampoo, and lastly the sound of her breathing, deep and steady in his ear.

He smiled as he remembered her heartfelt words, burrowing his face closer to the nape of her neck and inhaling the scent of jasmine and Jamie.

He loved her. The most stubborn, brave, prickly, sassy woman alive. He was almost grateful for Vandenburg’s brutality in attacking him. Would Jamie ever have admitted her feelings if they hadn’t both had the scare of a lifetime?

She shifted in bed beside him and her bare butt pressed more firmly into his groin. His cock hardened. Despite the fact that his eye was stinging and his head throbbing. Despite the fact that they’d made love barely an hour ago.

Made love.

He pressed a kiss against her shoulder and pulled her closer.

He’d had a lot of sex in his lifetime. Some good, some average, some sleazy. It had always been intense and fiery with Jamie. But touching her, being inside her, having her touch him when he knew they had a future, that she loved him and he loved her had been a revelation. Never had he felt so tender and connected, as though he would never be alone again, no matter where she was in the world. They
knew
each other, and despite them both having more than their fair share of flaws, they loved each other. After years of standing with his back to the wall, letting the world know he didn’t need anyone or anything, he’d finally come home.

Jamie moved again, twisting in his arms this time and pressing a kiss to his neck.

“How are you?” she asked. Her voice was husky from sleep. “Do you need painkillers? Are you hungry?”

He opened his mouth to answer. His belly beat him to it, growling with emptiness.

“Okay, that’s a yes.” She laughed. “I’m not much of a cook, but I make a mean cheese on toast. It’s a family specialty. I could bring it up to you in bed?”

He pulled a face. “And get toast crumbs on your nice clean sheets?”

“Ah,” she said, as though she’d just discovered something new about him. It was amazing how much more nuance he could detect in her voice without his eyesight to distract him.

“Not a bed eater, then,” she said.

“There are certain things I’m more than happy to eat in bed.”

She laughed again, the sound low and sexy. “Hold that thought.”

She rolled away from him. He felt the loss of her body heat keenly.

“I’ll come down with you,” he said, throwing back the covers.

He could lie and tell himself it was because he would be bored, lying in bed waiting for her to come back upstairs. The simple truth was that he wanted to be with her. After all the weeks of not being able to touch her and hold her, he suddenly had permission. He wasn’t even close to having his fill of her yet.

She passed him his robe, and he heard the rustle of clothing as she dressed.

“What are you wearing?” he asked. He wanted to picture her in his mind’s eye.

“A black skirt and a red T-shirt,” she said.

“Is the T-shirt tight?”

“Tight enough.”

“Tell me you didn’t put your bra and panties back on,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

He made an appreciative noise. She came and took him by the hand.

“Food first,” she said. “I’m supposed to be looking after you, not riding you like a pony at the fair.”

“But if the pony wants to be ridden…”

She led him toward the door. “Stop tempting me. You know I have no self-control where you’re concerned.”

He filed that little piece of information away as she guided him to the top of the stairs and placed his hand on the banister. He liked that she didn’t try to cosset him and that she understood he needed and wanted to do as much for himself as possible. She hadn’t tried to dress him at the hospital or insisted on supervising him in the shower. She understood. But on an instinctive level, they’d always understood each other, hadn’t they?

He could hear her feet on the floorboards ahead of him as he descended the stairs. He followed her to the kitchen, one hand on the wall. He didn’t have a lot of decorative crap in his house, so he could move freely, knowing there were no vases to knock over or hall tables to walk into. One hand extended in front of himself, he found the edge of the island counter in the kitchen and walked along it until he bumped into the first of the three stools tucked beneath it.

He sat, resting his elbows on the cool granite counter.

“The light’s flashing on your answering machine. Do you want to check your messages?” she asked.

“Sure.”

There was a click, then the stilted voice of a man who was very aware he was talking to a machine.

“This is the Dubbo police calling for Cooper Fitzgerald. Mr. Fitzgerald, we need to interview you regarding the assault charges we have laid against Kyle Vandenburg relating to the incident on Saturday, December twelfth. Please call us to let us know when it would be suitable for an officer to attend your house to take your statement.”

The policeman reeled off a number, then the machine beeped to indicate there were more messages.

“This is Alice Jenkins from the
Daily Telegraph
calling. Mr. Fitzgerald, I’d love to talk to you about your recent experience in Dubbo. If you could call me as soon as you get this message, that would be—”

The machine cut off before the message finished and Cooper guessed Jamie had deleted it. There were three more messages after that one, all of them reporters. They all got the same treatment—a few seconds of air time, then deletion.

“I’m a popular guy,” he said.

“Bloody parasites.”

He could hear the sounds of her working in the kitchen, and he tried to identify each noise. The
click-squelch
of the fridge opening and shutting, the rustle of a plastic bread bag, the slide of containers being placed on the counter.

“My mother used to make me cheese on toast when I was a kid,” he said.

It was the one thing he’d always been certain of growing up—no matter how out of it his mom was, there would always be a loaf of white bread in the pantry and a pack of processed cheese slices in the fridge. In her messed-up, half-assed way, she’d tried to do her best for him.

There was a long pause before Jamie asked him if he wanted tomato on his toast or not. He didn’t need to see her face to know that she’d wanted to ask him more. She was so careful with her own privacy, he knew she would never push.

He waited until they were seated on the couch, a plate each on their knees before he spoke up.

“It’s okay, you know. If you want to ask questions.”

He heard the rustle of clothes as she shifted beside him.

“What happened that you had to leave home?” she asked quietly.

He swallowed a mouthful before he answered.

“My mother was a heroin addict. She did the best she could, but she had lousy taste in men. Most of them weren’t particularly happy to have a little kid hanging around.”

There was a small silence as Jamie digested what he’d told her and he ate his toast.

“Did they hit you?”

“Yeah. Some of them worse than others. And they hit her, too. It was bloody miserable.”

His fingers tightened on the plate as he had a sudden flash of memory: his mother curled into a ball, trying to protect herself, him throwing himself into the fray, trying to save her. He’d felt so helpless, so damned powerless….

That quickly he understood why it had been so hard for him to watch Jamie get hurt in the ring. Watching her under attack tapped into some deep shit for him.

He was still examining the realization when Jamie spoke up again.

“I bet you wish you could go back in time and beat the living crap out of some of them. What kind of coward beats up on women and little kids?” Her voice vibrated with anger.

“I did run into one of them once. Just after I started winning my first few fights. Guy actually had the balls to come up to me after the bout and ask if I remembered him. Like that was a good thing and I’d be happy to see him again.” He shook his head at the memory.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I wanted to hit him, but I was nearly a foot taller than him and twice as wide. I walked away. You can let that stuff own you, or you can use it to get what you want in life. I won’t ever forget where I came from, but it’s not the most important part of me.”

It was important she understand that. He was a lot more than a kid who’d had a hard time growing up. His demons didn’t ride him anymore.

He wished he could see her face but had to be satisfied with reaching across to touch her thigh.

“Is your mother still alive?” she asked. Her hand pressed down on his.

“No. She OD’d when I was twenty.”

Another small silence. Then Jamie cleared her throat.

“My mom died when I was eighteen. Cancer. I thought she was too young at the time, but later I was glad she wasn’t around to see what Jack did to us. She used to be so proud of him, his number-one fan.”

Jamie often referred to her father by name. It was something he’d noticed before. As though she was trying to distance herself from him, deny his role in her life. His gut told him that they must have been very close. The deeper the connection, the more bitter the betrayal, in his experience. And Jamie was very bitter and angry when it came to her father.

“Your old man was a hero to me when I was coming up through the ranks,” he said. “He had so much heart and tenacity. I used to watch his fights over and over to psych myself up sometimes.”

Jamie stiffened, then slid her hand away from his. “What do you think is going to happen to Vandenburg?” she asked. “Do you think he’ll be banned from boxing if he’s found guilty?”

There was a beat of silence as he processed the change of subject. They weren’t going to talk about Jack Sawyer.

No surprises there.

“They might suspend him for a while, but I doubt he’ll be banned. Tyson fought again after he did jail time, remember?”

She took his plate from his lap and he heard her move back into the kitchen. He pushed away a flicker of concern over her refusal to discuss her father. Talking wasn’t the only way to deal with things. He’d walked away from enough heavy conversations in his lifetime. He’d like for her to talk to him, to let him in fully, but there was no rush. Today, it was enough that she loved him. Anything else was bonus material.

J
AMIE STACKED
the lunch dishes in the dishwasher, very aware of the silence in the room after she’d diverted their conversation into less personal channels. She opened her mouth to try to explain to Cooper about her father. The only words that came to mind were so angry that she swallowed them again. She didn’t want to taint this special time with Cooper with her father’s legacy. It wouldn’t do any good, and it wouldn’t change anything. Maybe, one day, she would tell him. When the knot of anger and guilt inside her wasn’t so tight and complicated.

The nurse came at four. They survived three whole hours with her in the house before Jamie had a hurried consultation with Cooper and sent her home.

She didn’t want someone else looking after him. She wanted to do it herself. Old-fashioned, but it was how she felt, what instinct demanded. She was his lover. Quite literally, the woman who loved him. And it seemed only right that she express that love by looking after him when he was injured and living with the prospect of losing the sight in his left eye.

She phoned into work to let them know she was taking all the sick days she had owing—four in total. Her boss wasn’t happy, and Jamie wondered if she’d have a job to go back to. It didn’t matter. Cooper was more important than cleaning bathtubs and using maid origami on the toilet roll. Anyway, she had two purses under her belt now, and though most of this weekend’s prize money would be chewed up by the lingering bills from having her car fixed, she’d have enough left to keep the wolf from the door for a few weeks if she had to find another job.

That night after dinner, she dimmed the lights in Cooper’s bedroom and applied his eyedrops. She cradled his head in her lap, holding his strong jaw. She felt swamped by tenderness. He was so strong, but also so fragile. He’d had a horrible childhood, but he’d survived it to claw his way to the top of his chosen field. He’d literally conquered the world—just as he’d conquered her.

Reapplying his bandage, she kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair back.

“Are you tired?” she asked.

“A little. Why, what have you got in mind?” he asked. She heard the underlying desire in his voice and understood the question he was asking. She craved him again, too.

Would it always be this way between them? Sometimes it felt as though they’d barely rolled away from each other before need was building between them again.

She studied him, her gaze skimming his body.

“Why don’t you just relax,” she said.

He smiled slowly. “I think I can handle that.”

He lifted his head so she could slide out from beneath him. Stretching alongside him on the bed, she smoothed her hands down the satin of his bathrobe. She undid the sash slowly, and pushed the robe off his shoulders. He had such a beautiful body. She saw with a surge of desire that he was already hard for her, his cock a rigid demand against his belly.

She could feel herself getting wet just looking at him. She licked her lips. She wanted him inside her again very badly. But first she wanted to taste him and drive him a little bit crazy, the way he’d driven her crazy that night before her fight.

Trailing her hands through the hair on his chest, she followed the narrowing arrow down, down into the thick, dark curls surrounding his erection.

She wrapped her palm around him, sliding her hand up and down his shaft a few times. She watched as his mouth parted a fraction and his jaw muscles tightened. Enjoying her power, she wriggled farther down the bed and took him in her mouth.