Dragon and the Dove (18 page)

She’d been alone for at least an hour, maybe
longer. Cooper had left so quietly, she hadn’t known for sure when
he’d gone. She hadn’t seen John, Bo, or Yuxi since shortly after
they’d all arrived. Cooper had given the men instructions
concerning the security of the house and they’d gone, taking the
woman with them.

Checking her watch, she decided it was time
for her to go too. She made a quick phone call home and talked to
the children and Tony. Paul was out for the evening, but her
youngest brother had everything in hand. Jessica knew she had a lot
to be grateful for when it came to the men she lived with. They
felt their family responsibilities keenly and had welcomed her and
the children with open arms. Arguments were inevitable, and more
than once schedules had clashed and promises had been forgotten.
After a tough first year, though, they had managed to find ways to
air resentments and stay out of one another’s space when privacy
was more important than teamwork. The five of them now functioned
more as a family than many regular families. Genuine love had grown
between her children and their uncles, the kind of love that only
came from sacrificing and putting work into a relationship.

Jessica was ever aware of what she owed her
brothers, including—but not limited to—a lot of back rent and
baby-sitting overtime. Her school loans were just coming due, and
she still owed money on her divorce. In an amazing feat of legal
sleight of hand, her adulterous ex-husband had fixed it so she
actually owed him money on the property settlement. Debt wasn’t
crushing her
, but only because Paul and Tony
were holding the roof up over her and her children’s heads.

The rest of her family had been able to
offer moral support, but not much else. Her parents were retired
and living on their pensions, and her other brothers had families
of their own to raise.

Yawning, she pushed out of her chair and
walked over to the oceanside windows. After a minute of watching
the waves come in, she opened the glass doors leading to the
balcony and stepped outside. The wind had dropped. The chimes were
quiet.

She scanned the beach, looking for what she
knew not until she saw him rising out of the darkening sea in a
black wet suit. Water sloughed off his shoulders and streamed down
his body, glistening and catching the colors of the sun. His face
shone with the differing shades of the sky—gold where the light
rimmed his profile, a darker bronze smudged to copper in the
shadows.

Waves broke against his legs, foaming up his
strong thighs and pushing him forward. The wet suit necessary to
swim the north coast clung to him, accentuating the hard lines of
his body. For all Jackson’s exotic mystery, the younger brother had
been no more beautiful than the man she watched. She reached for
the balcony railing and closed her fingers around the weathered
wood. Her breathing grew quiet and soft, and her pulse slowed, as
if she’d come upon a wild creature easily frightened back into the
liquid wilderness.

He slicked his hands back through his hair,
pushing it off his face as he limped across the cooling sand. The
tension that was so much a part of him seemed momentarily subdued,
washed away by an elemental sea. Light and shadow played across the
muscles in his arms, outlining the hard, rounded curves of his
biceps and the corded strength flowing from shoulder to wrist.

Halfway to the stairs, he looked up and
unerringly met her eyes. No smile graced his mouth. No
acknowledgment was made other than the eternity that he held her
gaze. Then he broke their silent contact and continued his walk to
the house.

A shiver coursed down her spine, as if the
wind had suddenly come back up. But there was no wind. There was
only Cooper, mounting the stairs and coming for her. The truth hit
her as strongly as it was unexpected and undeniable.

For a while she’d lost herself in her work.
For a while she’d forgotten all the different ways he’d told her he
wanted her.

He, she knew, had forgotten nothing. Every
moment of his kisses flooded back through her senses and she felt
an overwhelming urge to run. Yet she held her ground, allowing
herself to remember, even though she knew her downfall would be in
recalling how he made her feel.

Their lunch conversation returned to her
mind verbatim, and heat burned through her. No man had ever taken
so much as a bra strap off her with his teeth. It was definitely
time to run, before he made it all the way to the balcony.

Still she didn’t move, and she wasn’t sure
if it was politeness, fear, or anticipation that held her captive
at the rail. If her decision had been based purely on desire, she
probably would have slept with him on the massage table in his
office approximately five minutes after she’d seen him, just long
enough not to bother to say hello. The force of her attraction had
been that strong.

Desire, however, wasn’t enough to overcome
her trepidation. She didn’t want to get hurt, and she sure as hell
didn’t want to get used.

“Hi,” he said when he reached the top stair,
and Jessica realized she hadn’t moved so much as an inch in any
direction.

“Hi. How was the water?” Her voice sounded
stilted. Her body was frozen in place.

“Cold, but nice.” A slow smile curved his
mouth as he unzipped his wet suit. “Welcoming. Safe.” He lifted a
towel off the rail and used it to dry his arms and face. “Salty but
sweet.” A lambent light warmed his eyes when he looked up.
“Cradling. Heavy with love for me . . . the way you could be.”

The breath she’d been holding went out of
her and her heart melted. He offered nothing more than the truth
that he wanted her with a need he wasn’t going to hide.

Moving closer, he lifted her hand in his and
brought it to his mouth. He stroked his tongue across her palm
before kissing her there, then placed her hand over his heart. His
eyes came back to hers, and he waited.

His skin was cool where she touched him, his
heartbeat a strong and steady rhythm echoing her pulse. A thousand
reasons to say no fell over each other in her mind, and her body
had a response for every one of them. She wanted to make love. But
God, it was hard to let go.

She closed her eyes on a troubled sigh,
hoping to come up with an answer. But no answer was needed, for he
kissed her then, his mouth covering hers in a gentle but
irrevocable act that claimed her for his own.

He slipped his tongue in her mouth with a
soft groan and ran his hands down her body, cupping her buttocks
and pulling her close. When she was pressed against him, feeling
the dampness of his wet suit seep through to her skin, he slid his
hands up under her arms and guided them around his neck.

She offered no resistance. Every move he
made was too heavenly to resist, and deep down inside she knew the
die had already been cast. They would make love. She would feel him
on top of her, inside of her, infusing every pore of her being with
his essence. She wanted nothing more. She would accept nothing less
for the chance she was taking.

So she returned his kiss in full measure and
let her hands explore the breadth of his shoulders and the sleek
muscles of his chest.

“Don’t stop there, Jessie,” he said between
kisses on her face. “Touch me.”

She hesitated, then moved her hand lower,
and he rolled his hips against her, and his voice whispered against
her skin . . .
yes
.

She was totally seduced by his reaction and
the feel of him sliding into her palm. There was a sensuality about
him she’d never experienced with a man, a silent, compelling
confession of needs, and the equally compelling admission that only
she could meet them. The grace in his movements put pleasure above
domination. Or so she thought until she felt her skirt fall to the
deck. She’d been so consumed by his kisses, so fascinated with his
arousal, the hardness and the responsiveness of him, she’d been
unaware of where his hands had been or what they’d been doing.

She was still decent in her slip, but Cooper
wasn’t stopping with her skirt. His hands were already sliding up
her blouse, unbuttoning her from the bottom up.

“Cooper . . . Cooper, what if the
others—”

His fingertips grazing over the peaks of her
breasts silenced her more effectively than a kiss. Sweet pleasure
stole her breath and weakened her knees. He caught her to him with
one arm around her waist, but his other hand continued to tease and
tantalize, stroking her softly and slowly.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “No one is going
to come within fifty yards of this house unless we’re under fire.”
He kissed the side of her neck and bit the lobe of her ear. “John
has Bo under benign house arrest at his apartment, and I sent Yuxi
to your house.”

That got her attention despite the sensual
haze he was conjuring up.

“Why?”

She felt the muscles in his shoulder bunch
and give with his shrug. “I wanted to get rid of him, and that
seemed to be the place he could do the most good. I’ll pick him up
when I take you home.” His hand tilted her chin so he could steal
kisses off her lips. “Unless you’ll stay here with me all night
long”—he kissed her again—“and wake up with me in the morning?”

“I can’t do that,” she whispered, suddenly
feeling unsure of what she was doing. She wanted to make love with
him. She wanted to explore his body and partake of the pleasure he
offered. But every time he spoke, his words told her he wanted
more, and giving him more was exactly what she was afraid of.

“They’ll be okay,” he said, surprising her
with the depth of his empathy, even though he’d misinterpreted her
main concern. “I really did send Yuxi just to get him out of the
house, but he was a police sergeant in Hong Kong before he
immigrated. Nothing gets by him.”

“I still can’t spend the night,” she
said.

“I know. But you’re spending the next hour
making love with me. If I get lucky, maybe you’ll spend two, and
that’s what I need most.” He grew silent as he cupped her face in
his palms and rested his forehead on hers. Silky-fine hair slipped
over his brow and brushed against her cheek. With utter
concentration, like a cat licking cream, he flicked his tongue over
her mouth and lit her on fire.

She took the exquisite torture, until she
was gasping and wondering what was coming over her. She’d never
gasped from a kiss before. Then again, she’d never been simply
licked before.

“Lord, I love how you smell, the way you
taste,” he murmured against her lips.

With no more than that, no more than the
turn of a phrase and another soul-deep kiss, he made her reality
disappear.

She slipped her hand farther into his wet
suit and felt the powerful surge of his body’s response. He swore
softly, ever so softly, his hands tightening on her.

“Come with me, please,” he said huskily,
grasping her wrist and pulling her hand free. He twined his fingers
with hers and, holding her tight, led the way to his room at the
other end of the balcony.

A light headland breeze billowed the
floor-length curtains covering the open doorway to his bedroom, the
sheer pale material reflecting shades of the sunset. Inside, the
air was warmer than outside, warm and inviting, like his bed with
its plump white comforter draped partway on the floor, as if he’d
only gotten out of the bed to bring her back into it.

“Let me undress you,” he said, pulling her
into the room and letting the curtains fall behind them.

“How?” she asked, somewhat wary and somewhat
curious, remembering again what he’d whispered to her at lunch.

A quick grin teased his lips. “Not like
that,” he said, pulling her closer and reaching for the next button
on her blouse. “That’s a game for longtime lovers. Later we can
work our way through the books, but the first time we make love
isn’t for playing around. Everything is too new. We’re
nervous.”

“You’re nervous?” she asked, her wariness
decreasing.

His grin broadened, and the last of her
buttons slipped free of its loop. “No,” he admitted sheepishly.
“You’re nervous. I’m excited. But it amounts to the same thing.
I’ve been thinking about you a lot, thinking about how it would
feel to do this.” He opened her blouse and carefully pushed it off
her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. “And this.” His hands
came back to her slip straps, his fingers sliding underneath and
lifting them. He started to pull them down, but her hands came up
to her breasts, stopping the aqua lingerie from going anywhere.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “We’re going a
lot further than this, Jessie.”

“Maybe.” The word was a breath, her eyes
wide and unsure.

Cooper had drawn some conclusions from the
things Paul had told him about her marriage, and he had an idea of
what the problem probably was. She hadn’t been with a man in a long
time, and as much as she wanted him, she had a lot of doubts,
especially since the last man she had been with had been unfaithful
to her. Adultery was hell on a person’s self-worth and
sexuality.

He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time
either, though his celibacy had more to do with dissatisfaction
with casual sex than with any hurt he’d received. He had arrived at
a time in his life where he only wanted one special woman. He
hadn’t been able to find her, until the totally inappropriate Ms.
Jessica Langston had walked into his office. He didn’t have any
doubts with her.

Her importance to him didn’t make sense in
either the short run or the long run. She was a divorced mother
living in the suburbs. She needed stability, commitment. He was a
man living close to the edge of oblivion, and he needed her. Only
her.

“I want to be careful with you,” he
murmured, smoothing his hands over her bare shoulders. “I don’t
want to push you too fast, or make you uncomfortable—but I also
want to take your clothes off and lie down with you on my bed.”