Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) (29 page)

Damn. He liked
her
. More than he wanted to. He liked her in his bed wearing his clothes. He liked her turning off his alarm and bringing him coffee. “Are you trying to distract me so I’ll give in and let you go to L.A. without me?”

The grin widened to lift the other side of her mouth. “Now would I do that?”

He ran his hand under her hair to the back of her neck and pulled her the half inch forward so he could kiss her. The moment his lips met hers, she sighed, deep in her throat, and Cooper’s reservations evaporated like the steam from his coffee.

Her lips parted under his and her left hand came up and rested on his forearm, slightly hesitant, as he kissed her deep and long. She kissed him back, her lips not hesitant like her touch, but all out intense and consuming. She tasted sweet and dark like his French roast with a couple teaspoons of sugar.

Careful of her injured wrist, he placed his hands on her sides and lifted her gently on top of him, leaning back as he did so. She took his lead and straddled him, the thin cotton fabric of his shirt a teasing barrier between his bare chest and her hard nipples. As she lowered her weight, he steadied her with his hands and inhaled her with his mouth.

Cooper kept his left hand on her waist and let his right hand explore under the shirt. Celina broke away from his lips on a gasp as his fingers pinched a nipple. “Be nice,” she murmured against his mouth.

So he massaged her instead, filling his hand with the heavy weight of one taut breast and then the other, wanting to follow his hand with his mouth. In order to do that, he needed her out of his shirt.

Both hands on her waist again, he raised her up, using his stomach muscles to pull himself up at the same time. Then he tugged the shirt up and off, still mindful of her injured arm. She helped as best she could, and Cooper stopped as the t-shirt fell to the floor.

A beautiful woman was sitting in his lap. A smart, beautiful woman. Her breasts were full and heavy from his fondling, her lips as well from his kissing. She was regarding him with that same wariness she seemed to wear on her face around him now. Seeking his approval, scared he’d shut her down. Wanting him to want her.

Want her he did, in this very physical way. He wanted to touch her everywhere, to keep her in his bed until he’d done everything he’d fantasized about doing and then made up a few new fantasies. But he wanted more than a fulfillment of his sexual fantasies.

He wanted to protect her. To spend his days and nights with her. And he wanted her approval too. Approval to be the man who could keep her safe and happy.

He touched her cheek with the ends of his fingers. Let them trail down her neck, over her collarbone that was half covered with white gauze and tape. Her skin felt firm and smooth as silk under his fingertips.

“I’m okay, Cooper,” she said. “You don’t have to baby me.”

He smiled at her insistence. “I’m not babying you, Celina. I’m staring at your beauty.”

She grinned. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she moved a centimeter closer, seating herself in his lap in the exact spot they both benefited from. The heat of her body in that spot, combined with her lush breasts brushing his chest, made him jerk.

“Jesus,” he swore under his breath as she lowered her lips to his. He knew he should be up and out of bed, watching the monitors, figuring out how to balance Owen’s schedule today with his own. Figuring out a way to capture Londano and Valquis and keep Celina safe. But all he could do was tug her closer, kiss her back. He’d never felt this way about a woman. Not even Melinda.

He rolled Celina underneath him, careful of her wrist, and withdrew the gun from her waistband. As he moved the gun from one hand to the other to set it on the nightstand, he dropped his lips to her neck and kissed the area around her bandage. He went lower to take her breast in his mouth and felt smug satisfaction when she inhaled sharply and pulled him closer.

Chapter Thirty

The two-way radio on the credenza squawked. Thomas’s voice filled the room. “Switchfoot, this is Crazy Clock. Come in.”

Cooper released Celina’s breast, laid his forehead on her chest, and blew out a sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Celina chuckled under her breath. “He told me to check in with him every hour on the dot.” She lifted her head from the bed and peered at Cooper’s alarm clock. “Seven-o-one. He’s punctual.”

“Switchfoot, this is Crazy Clock,” Thomas’s voice had elevated a notch. “Are you all right? Over.”

Cooper rolled off Celina. She scooted off the bed, swept up the radio, and smiled at Cooper over it as she answered. “This is Switchfoot.” While irritated with his partner’s bad timing, Cooper enjoyed the swing of Celina’s breasts as she paced back to the bed. “Everything’s fine.”

“Yeah, not quite,” Thomas responded. “Melinda and Owen are on their way up the driveway.”

“Ah, shit.” Cooper threw back the sheet now tangled between his legs. “What the hell’s she doing here at seven in the morning?”

Celina picked his shirt off the floor. “Roger that,” she said calmly into the radio, then she dropped it on the bed and pulled on the shirt. Grabbing her hair, she slipped it out from beneath the collar and let out an exasperated sigh. “You hit the bathroom.” She shoved her gun back in the waistband of her shorts. “I’ll answer the door and let them in.”

He sat up, then stood, rubbing his hands over his face through his hair, and pulling on his running shorts. “I’m not sending you to the door to handle my ex-wife at seven o’clock in the morning.”

“You’re going to open the door looking like that?” She pointed at the tent between his legs.

Damn. Right again. He pointed at her nipples, still predominantly on display under his shirt. “You’re going to greet them like that?”

Celina glanced down, crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’ll throw on a sweatshirt.”

She left the room and Cooper heard her bare feet padding quickly on his hardwood floors. He glanced at his bed, and even though he was in a pickle, smiled to himself as he too jogged across the hardwood to the bathroom.

Celina fought with her sweatshirt as she walked into the kitchen to open the door for Melinda and Owen. The tight sleeve of her right arm snagged on her cast and she had the shirt half over her head, half not, when Melinda opened the door and pushed Owen through it in front of her. Cooper’s ex stopped at the sight of Celina and lowered her Gucci sunglasses an inch on her nose. The two women stood staring at each other.

Melinda was at least six inches taller than Celina, owing part of her height to a pair of embossed leather heels. Her natural blond hair was long and straight and pulled up in a partial ponytail, partial bun on top of her head with a set of polished black chopsticks embedded in it. The perfect weapon, Celina thought, to poke someone’s eye out. Someone like the woman sleeping with her ex-husband.

“Hi,” Celina said cheerfully as she shoved her left arm in the sweatshirt and snugged it down over Cooper’s t-shirt. Melinda’s dark brown eyes ran an accusatory lap from Celina’s head to her feet. “You must be Melinda.” Without thinking, she offered her right hand. “I’m Celina. We spoke on the phone last night.”

Melinda regarded her hand and the accompanying cast. She didn’t accept Celina’s handshake.

Celina punched in the code on the security alarm by the door under Melinda’s unwavering scrutiny. Then she smiled at the young boy with his guitar case standing beside his mother. He was older than the picture on Cooper’s dresser. His hair was longer, curling on the ends, and blond like his mother’s, but his other features matched his father’s right down to the tiny cleft in his chin.

“And you must be Owen,” Celina said, still forcing brightness into her voice as she came back to a spot in front of him. Using her left hand, she gathered her hair and pulled it out from under the sweatshirt’s collar, and this time extended her hand to shake Owen’s. “Your dad tells me you’re quite a guitar player.”

Owen nodded and shook her fingers, his eyes darting to his mother, back to Celina. “My friend plays too,” he told her. “We’re going to have a garage band this summer.”

Celina smiled an honest smile this time. “That’s cool.”

“Where
is
Cooper?” Melinda looked past Celina with efficient dismissal in her tone and her body posture.

“He’s in the bathroom,” Celina said. “He just woke up.”

Melinda pressed her red glossed lips into a tight line. “He
just
woke up?”

Celina felt her true smile fading. Fast. “Yes. As I explained to you on the phone, he’s been working the Londano case all week. Last night was the first sleep he’s had in the past seventy-two hours.”

“I see,” Melinda said, but the tone of her voice said she didn’t buy it. “Owen, honey, take your guitar into the living room and practice that new chord Brian gave you last week.”

The boy gave Celina a look that said
sorry
as if this was a cue he’d been given from dear old mom before and he knew what was heading Celina’s way. He picked up his gig bag to clear out.

Once he was out of hearing distance, Melinda stepped forward, glaring down at Celina. “You spent the night here.” It was not a question, not even a rhetorical one. It was a statement. The start, Celina knew, of an ass chewing.

“Yes,” Cooper’s voice came from behind Celina. She turned to see him sauntering into the kitchen, sport pants falling appropriately in all the right places. “She’s under my surveillance at the moment. Why are you here so early, Mel?”

Melinda drew herself back, straightening her already ramrod stiff posture another fraction of an inch. “Steven and I are going to Vegas for the weekend. I told you that. We’re flying out of LAX this morning. That’s why I had to drop Owen off now.”

“Dad!” Owen shouted as he flew back into the kitchen, drawn by the sound of his father’s voice. Cooper opened his arms and the boy jumped into them. Cooper picked him up and gave him a bear hug.

“How y’doin’, buddy?” Cooper held Owen in one arm, used his free hand to tousle the boy’s hair.

“Good,” Owen mimicked his father, running his own smaller hand through Cooper’s short cut.

“We going to have fun today?”

Owen nodded. “Yeah.”

“Did you practice
Dirty Little Secret
?”

Owen’s head continued to nod. “I’ve got it down cold.”

Cooper bear hugged him again. “That’s my boy.” He put Owen down and looked at Melinda over his son’s head. “Let me talk to your mom a minute and then you can play it for me.”

Owen shot Celina another of his knowing looks. “All American Rejects?” Celina asked him. “You can play a song by them?”

A tiny smile tugged at Owen’s mouth and he glanced at his dad.

“He plays all kinds of alternative rock,” Cooper said, acknowledging Owen’s competence. Celina saw the boy swell with pride as Cooper winked at him.

Celina widened her eyes. “I love that song. Would you play it for me?”

When Owen nodded, Celina started for the living room, following him. She gave Cooper a supportive smile as she passed and he smiled back, gratitude in his eyes.

As Owen plugged his guitar into a small amp, Celina heard Melinda’s voice, sharp as steel in the kitchen. “You promised me you’d never bring one of them here.”

One of them
. Girlfriend? Taskforce agent? Celina couldn’t make out Cooper’s reply, only the low sound of his voice, but Melinda’s came through loud and clear again. “She shouldn’t be here. I won’t have her here. She’s a danger to Owen. To you.”

And then the rest of the conversation was lost as Owen placed his fingers on the strings, the first chords of
Dirty Little Secret
filling the room.

Thirty minutes later, the smell of cooking filled Cooper’s nostrils as he opened the bathroom door. Bacon, eggs, toast, onion, and pepper scents made him breathe deeply. The sound of a pan banging into another, a piece of silverware hitting a bowl, echoed down the hallway.
Homey sounds
, he thought.
Like someone lives here besides me.

He’d showered, shaved, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with Owen and Celina both.

Worst-case Scenario One: he let Celina go to L.A. with Thomas and Valquis snagged her.

Worst-case Scenario Two: he kept her home with him and Owen, and Valquis snagged Owen.

Cooper’s gut hurt at either thought. He couldn’t keep them together without risking Owen’s life and that was one thing he would never do.

Celina was at the stove, moving a spatula around in a pan of scrambled eggs. Her back was to him as she stared down at the food in front of her, but she wasn’t standing at the stove alone. Thomas was leaning one elbow on the counter, his body open toward her as he stared up at her face, smiling. He was entirely invading her personal space, talking in a soft, low voice, and waiting expectantly for…what? Was he trying to coax a smile out of her?

Worst-case Scenario not involving Petero Valquis or Emilio Londano: Celina fell for his partner.

And they lived happily ever after. Right under Cooper’s nose.

“Hey, Dad.” Owen sat at the kitchen bar, scooping scrambled eggs into his mouth, a crispy slice of bacon in one hand. He had a tall glass of orange juice in front of him as well as a second glass full of milk. A milk mustache was growing on his top lip.