Erica Lucke Dean - To Katie with Love (9 page)

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL BE AS FUNNY

C
ooper sat across from me with his feet up on my desk. His fingers were laced behind his head, and he was tilted so far back in the chair I was afraid he would tip over and fall to the floor.

I could tell from his expression he was thrilled with himself. And it was funny to watch him struggle, torn between the devilish grin he wore and the pure sexual longing I had almost gotten used to in the past few days.

He’d arrived not fifteen minutes after the roses. My suspicions about his surprise visit had been dead on.

“Have I told you how sexy you are today?” The hungry look was back.

I rolled my eyes. “Three times.”

“Not often enough,” he murmured, staring a hole in me.

I had to restart my heart again. I was very glad no one else could see the way he was looking at me. Silvia was too busy admiring her roses and gloating that she was the only one who got flowers to even notice Cooper at all.

She
had
spent several minutes thanking him when he first arrived. His premonition of needing to be protected from Silvia wasn’t that far off the mark. She fawned all over him. I wasn’t worried about her, though. And her attention guaranteed Vicky wouldn’t have an opportunity to get close to him.

Cooper righted himself in the chair and leaned toward me. “Tell me again what happened when the delivery guy said the flowers were for her.” He smiled the megawatt smile that made me breathless.

His mood was contagious. I found myself having as much fun as he was. “Well…” I started. He had already heard the story once, but I had a hard time getting through it without laughing. “Okay, at first, she just popped up her eyebrows and stared at the guy. For, like, at least two whole silent minutes, she just stared at him with this shocked look. And then she asked him, ‘Who are these flowers for?’” I covered my mouth to stifle another round of giggles.

“He said her name three times—” I held up three fingers. “—before she acknowledged him. Then she said…” I paused to jam my hands on my hips in my best Silvia impression. “‘You have got to be shitting me.’”

His grin widened. “And the driver said?”

“The driver said, ‘Lady, I can I assure you that I shit you not. Now, do you want your damn flowers or what?’”

He roared with laughter. It was, for lack of a better word, the
cutest
thing I had ever heard. It was easy to forget he was a grown man when he laughed like that. Yet the sound did things to my body that reminded me how much of a grown man he was.

He took my hand and played with my fingers. “I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

“No, I think your timing was perfect. I’ll need to be very careful around you. You have a sneaky streak in you, Mr. Maxwell.”

“It’s all in the name of love, Miss James.”

I froze, and for an instant, my heart stopped. He said
love
. I told myself I was being silly. He didn’t say he loved
me
; he just said the word. But my heart was having a hard time maintaining its rhythm, and my ears were ringing. Or was that my phone?

“Did I scare you?”

I tried to act nonchalant. “No.”

“Katie, you have to know I’ve been in love with you for months.”

Breathe, Katie. Breathe.
I wasn’t sure what hit me the hardest, my name, like a caress on his lips or… I couldn’t even think it. I couldn’t think at all with the ringing in my ears. I reached over to my desk phone to silence it and automatically picked up the receiver with a shaky hand. I heard a muffled, “Hello?” but I was much more concerned with Cooper as he stood up to walk around the desk.

He frowned and leaned over me to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Surely none of your other clients spend as much time in your office asking stupid questions and stumbling around with balancing their checkbooks. At least, I hope none of them do.”

I heard the voice on the phone say, “Hello?” again, and I absently put the receiver to my ear. “Hello?” I said, gazing into Cooper’s uneasy eyes.

“Ah, there’s my best girl. I’ve been calling you all morning. I need help with something.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who is this?”

“It’s Dean,” he boomed over the line. “Isn’t this Katie, my best girl?”

Cooper grimaced. “
His
girl?” he mouthed.

My eyebrows furrowed together as I shook my head. “Oh, hi, Dean. I have someone in my office right now. Can I call you back?” I smiled at Cooper, who wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something bad.

“Who could possibly be more important than me?” Dean asked.

I ignored his question, but Cooper clearly heard it and reached for the phone in my hand.

I moved it out of his reach and said, “I’m right in the middle of something. Can you give me thirty minutes?”

“I’ll just come down there,” Dean replied.

“No! I mean… don’t come here. I’ll call you back in thirty—” Cooper pulled the phone from my ear, and I had to shout to be heard. “Make that forty-five!”

Cooper replaced the receiver and raised an eyebrow at me.

“I didn’t think you’d noticed me,” I muttered.

He shook his head with a look of utter exasperation and pushed his hand through his hair until it stuck up. “How could you think I didn’t notice you? I couldn’t sit still when you were around. And I found any excuse to see you.”

My heart was flying in my chest again. His face was just a few inches from mine, and I was getting dizzy from the proximity.

“Oh.” Speechless.

“Can I kiss you?” He put a hand on each arm of my chair and leaned down again, his eyes softening and turning hungry.

I knew he wasn’t asking permission to kiss me; he had kissed me enough times to know he didn’t need permission. He was asking if it was okay to kiss me
here.

He saw my hesitation and pulled back slightly, a strained smile on his lips. “Not here.”

“Not here,” I mouthed, shaking my head.

“Not a problem.” He stood up straight and held out his hand.

I took it hesitantly and let him lead me out of the office.

Once we were in the lobby, he spoke loud enough so anyone nearby could hear. “Katie, I think I may need a new safe deposit box. Would you mind if I compare a few different sizes?” He kept his face smooth, but I recognized the quiver of his smile threatening to destroy the illusion.

“Sure, Cooper,” I said, trying to play along. I wasn’t sure anyone was convinced, but I wasn’t about to argue with him. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

I went to my office and got my keys for the vault. I jingled them for everyone to see as I crossed the lobby, and he bit back a smile. We walked together to the door, and I twisted the key in the lock. He held the door open for me. Once on the other side, I let loose a nervous laugh. For just a moment my thoughts flashed to the dream I’d had about Cooper in the vault, and I felt that familiar jolt of electricity surge through me. If he only knew…

He put his arm around my waist, checking behind him as he hurried me through the thick walled opening of the secure vault. The area was out of view from the lobby, and no one could walk in without unlocking the door. We would hear anyone before they saw us.

Once we were alone, he gently pushed me against the metal wall and put a hand on either side of my shoulders, caging me in. “Can I kiss you now?”

“If you don’t, my heart may stop beating,” I whispered.

“Well…” He kissed my forehead. “I have a vested interest in your heart beating, so—” A kiss on my nose. “—I guess I know what I have to do.” He nuzzled my neck, nibbling and kissing his way across my chin, sending goose bumps up and down my arms.

“I’m going to pass out. I’m not kidding.” I panted for air.

He shook lightly with laughter but didn’t stop his slow attack. “I’ll revive you,” he whispered against my lips, teasing them with his tongue.

I let my head fall back, and it hit the metal wall with a dull thud. “Ouch,” I said with a giggle.

He stopped teasing my mouth and looked at me with wide eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I purred.

He shuddered against me. I liked that I could make his body react in the same way he made mine go crazy. He went back to causing shivers of electricity to shoot through me, making my limbs turn to jelly. He kissed his way from my chin down my neck and back up again, finally finding his way to my mouth.

“You’re
my
girl,” he practically growled, molding his lips with mine and sending his peppermint breath into my lungs. He pressed the length of his tall frame against me, trapping me between the hard metal wall and his muscular body. If it weren’t for the pressure on both sides of me, I would have collapsed to the floor.

He murmured my name between kisses, having clearly discovered the power it had over me. I was sure I didn’t disappoint. Every time I felt my name on his lips, I shuddered. And each time I shuddered, he trembled. The power I had over him quickly became obvious. It was intoxicating.

I had no idea how long we stood in the vault getting drunk off each other, but I thought people would start getting suspicious. “Cooper…”

“Katie,” he teased, reveling in the way my traitorous body reacted to my name on his lips.

I rested my hands on his chest as I struggled to catch my breath, ready to shove him away if he didn’t cooperate.
Oh my God.
“The cameras!”

“Mmm,” he murmured, obviously unconcerned, then slid his hands under my shirt, bringing them halfway up my bare back.

“I’ll get fired.”

He paused as if thinking it through—then went back to his silent assault. “I’ll find you another job,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I relented, twining my arms around his neck.

We both flinched at the sound of someone putting a key in the lock and jumped apart, quickly smoothing our hair and clothes like a pair of guilty teenagers. Phil poked his head into the vault as I was pretending to point out a box size Cooper didn’t already have. I flashed Phil an innocent look. I knew he wasn’t buying the act, but he didn’t say anything about our obvious make-out session.

“James, the natives are getting restless. No one is going to get anything done if you two are in the building. For some reason—that I can promise you I
will
get to the bottom of—you have no appointments scheduled for this afternoon, so why don’t you get out of here for lunch? Call it a client meeting, but don’t even think of expensing it.” He turned to Cooper and nodded. “Nice job with the flowers. I wish I’d known that was all it took to shut Silvia up. I would have sent her roses a long time ago.” Phil laughed, then turned and left.

Cooper drove me thirty miles away to his favorite restaurant, a place called Rustique. During the drive, he raved about the food as if it rivaled kissing. He didn’t actually say that, and I wasn’t going to offer the comparison—I couldn’t imagine anything being better than Cooper’s kisses—but the way he talked about it made me all tingly. Unlike French cuisine with its calorie-laden sauces, kissing was allowed on my diet.

When we finally got there, we were escorted through a quaint dining room with rough-hewn beamed ceilings and aged stone walls to a small, candle-lit table isolated in a dark back corner. The aromas of fresh bread, lavender, and rosemary were strong. I had never been there, but I instantly knew it was where last night’s dinner had come from. I was right to get the tingles. Being there was like having Pavlov ring the dinner bell. And although the food didn’t rival our kissing, it came very close. The conversation came close as well. I discovered wonderful new things about the man I was falling for.

“… so that’s it in a nutshell. A few months ago, my parents chucked their highbrow lifestyle, took their names off the guest list for every upcoming society ball and cotillion, packed up the house in the city, and moved to Dorchester, in the English countryside, where they bought a dilapidated manor house and converted the grounds to an organic farm. They live like hippies, raising cows, sheep, and chickens. That’s how I learned how to milk a cow, but trust me, it’s not something I share with just anyone.” He winked.

“I had no idea you’re from London,” I said, tearing a piece of bread from the loaf. “You never said… and you don’t sound… I mean, you can’t tell.”

“I moved here when I was young,” he explained. “But my parents speak with a very pronounced, very posh, English accent. I don’t notice it. But I’m sure you would.”

“So you’re not an American citizen?” Not that it mattered, but I was curious.

He chuckled. “Yes. I am. I’m actually both. Although I hardly ever go back to England, I have dual citizenship. My parents moved back after I graduated from college, but I never had any desire to leave America. I’m very glad I stayed.” He said the last part without inflection, but I hoped I was part of the reason he was happy with his decision.

“How often do you see your parents? I don’t believe you’ve ever mentioned them.”

“I used to visit them several times a year, but lately I only go back for Christmas. I hate making the trip. They come here frequently, though. I adore them, of course, but they’re very… um…
private
people, and I suppose I’ve fallen into the habit of respecting that by not talking about them.” He picked up my hand and played with my fingers. “That’s just how it’s always been.”

I knew we were abusing the liberty Phil had given me, but I couldn’t find it in myself to worry. Better Phil’s wrath than Silvia’s, anyhow. Besides, when it came to accounts, Cooper’s was the biggest one we had. Phil could afford to give me a little latitude. If only I could have stopped thinking about the very unsexy underwear I was wearing and how the law of averages said I would need something better in a hurry.

My thirty-minute lunch had stretched out over two hours by the time we got back to the bank. Cooper held the door for me as we entered the lobby, and we hadn’t gotten even half-way across the small space when we both stopped dead in our tracks.