Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (19 page)

Fifteen minutes later
they were pulling up outside the auto shop. Coop was relieved to have some distance between them and not be under such close scrutiny from half the district. He was also pleased to be in
his
environment. Being around Lacey, particularly in that dress, left him daunted and uncertain. Being in a garage—on his turf—gave him the semblance of control he needed to deal with her.

And her dress.

“You forgot your hat,” she said, passing it to him as he opened her door for her.

Lacey had made him pull up at the Stock and Feed shop on the way to the wedding, insisting he buy an Akubra. Coop had been worried about his lack of formal clothing for the wedding but Lacey had assured him that most of the men would be dressed in their fanciest Wranglers, best boots and their best hats reserved for special occasions only.

She hadn’t taken no for an answer and he’d walked out with a hat.

He’d felt silly wearing it to start with—Coop was more a baseball cap kinda guy. But with ninety per cent of the male wedding guests decked out in fancy Akubras, he’d soon forgotten he was even wearing it.

“I haven’t been wearing it since we sat down to eat.”

“I know.”

“It’s night time.”

“I know.” She smiled as she slipped out of the car, the skirt of her dress fluttering around her knees. “But it suits you.”

Coop put it on her and adjusted it to a jaunty angle. She tipped her head back and looked at him from under the brim.

Damn it. Big mistake.

A woman really had no business looking that good in a man’s hat.

She looked like a cowgirl. In a red floaty dress and six-inch heels. About a dozen images of being ridden by her in that hat and those heels, her long gypsy locks rippling down her back, crowded his mind.

So
not
helpful.

“It suits you better,” he said, forcing a calmness into his voice and his actions he didn’t feel as he shut her door.

She nodded absently as she rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “Bloody hell,” she said. “It’s going to be a cold one tonight.”

If Coop had been in possession of a jacket he’d have given it to her, but he wasn’t. And he was damned if he was going to put his arm around her shoulders and loan her some of his body heat. Not in that dress. “I believe I mentioned something about bringing a coat.”

She grinned at him, clearly not perturbed by the unsuitability of her outfit. “Fashion is pain,” she quipped.

Coop rolled his eyes. So she’d prefer to freeze her nipples off and look good? Although that line of thought wasn’t good given she was high-beaming the hell out of him. “Come on, then. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

Before he did something really crazy like offering to warm her cold nipples with his hot tongue.

“Now remember, it’s a work in progress,” he said, hyperaware of her behind him, of the tap of her heels on the concrete path as they headed around the back. “There’s still all the interior work to do but the paintwork is done and the engine is in. The wheels are on, but the mags I’ve ordered won’t be in ’til next week.”

Coop concentrated on pushing the key into the lock of the back door instead of thinking about Lacey, and her nipples, waiting behind him for entry into the relative warmth of the garage. The door gave and he reached in to flick on the light switch before stepping aside to allow her to precede him.

“Oh,” she said on a half groan as she entered. “That’s better.”

Coop followed her in. It wasn’t exactly warm but it was an improvement from outside. He shut the door against the creep of cold air already pushing in as she walked ahead, disappearing momentarily, blocked from his view by a car up on the hoist. “Just be careful,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to get grease all over your dress.”

She might have to take it off. Not good for the state of her nipples. He might have to help her with them after all.

“Oh
Cooper
!”

She came back into view, her hands over her mouth as she stood a foot away from her car and took in the work that had been done. She dropped her hands as she turned slightly to look at him. “It’s …” She shook her head and looked back at the car. “It’s
a
—mazing.”

Cooper always got a kick out this moment. But with Lacey it was extra special. He loved his job, but
her
car had been different. He hadn’t realised just how much a labour of love it was until her obvious pleasure washed over him like a physical force, stroking all the right paces.

His pride and honour. His ego and libido. His heart. His soul.

“You like it?”

“Oh like is far too mild a word,” she said, running her hand over the highly polished duco of the hood. She looked up at him. “I freaking
love
it.”

Their eyes locked and Coop’s breath hitched, cutting off somewhere around throat level as he fell a little more in love with her, standing there in her red dress and cowboy hat, her eyes shining with excitement and gratitude.

“You’re the best,” she said, launching herself at him for a quick yet cataclysmic hug before pulling away again and heading back to her car. She trailed her fingers over the paintwork of the roof as she slowly circumnavigated it. “The paint looks awesome,” she enthused.

Coop had to admit it did look great. The light shining down on it refracted a fiery red-orange luminosity. Out in the sunshine the effect would be even more dazzling.

She reached the front again and tapped the hood. “You said the engine was in, yeah?”

Coop nodded, taking two strides until he was standing beside her. Ignoring the brush of her arm, he reached under the lip of the hood with his fingers, feeling for the lever and released the latch. She stepped back slightly as he pulled up the hood to reveal the gleaming engine he’d painstakingly pulled apart, cleaned, reconditioned then put back together again.

“I have no idea what’s what in there,” she said bending over it, inspecting the engine like she was seeing it for the first time, “but it looks beautiful too.”

Coop chuckled. “Beautiful on the inside and out.”
Just like her.

She grinned then straightened, obviously done looking at the mechanics. Coop felt that smile right down to his toes and a lot of places in between as he shut the hood, pushing down hard on the lip so it clicked shut properly, before stepping out of her gravitational pull.

“I don’t know what to say, Coop,” Lacey said as she turned and rested her butt on the hood of the car.

“Leave it for the end result,” he said, waving away her search for compliments. “Once the inside is done and the doors and mags are on whatever you say now will be completely inadequate.”

She quirked an eyebrow, a smile playing on her mouth. “Oh really?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. They may have to invent new words just for it.”

She laughed and Coop wanted nothing more than to lay her back on the hood and test out the durability of the paintwork and the damn Akubra. He shoved his hands in his pockets to stop himself reaching for her.

“I like a man who’s confident. It’s sexy.” She used her hands to boost herself onto the hood properly, her feet dangling for a second before she placed her heels wide apart on the bumper he’d polished until it shone just this morning. Her skirt slipped down her thighs a little, the hem of the floaty fabric drooping into the space between her legs, protecting her modesty.

But only just.

He followed the path of her flattened palms as she caressed the gleaming duco either side of her. Coop understood the need to touch. The smooth-as-glass paintwork was irresistibly tactile. His own palms itched to touch too.

But
not
the paint.

He wanted to step right between those bare knees and glide his palms down those smooth thighs and hitch her close. Coop swallowed at the image and forced himself to look at her face. Not at her provocatively spaced legs or the way the slippery fabric was very slowly inching down those thighs.

She looked up from the hood, their gazes meshing as she leaned forward at her hips, propped an elbow on her knee and tipped back the brim of her Akubra.

Now
that
was sexy.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said as she looked at him with a gaze so direct it hit him straight below the belt. With predictable results. “About ways to thank you.”

“No need.” He swallowed against a throat as dry as dirt. “Free advertising … the website, remember?”

She looked at him for long moments before easing herself back onto her bent elbows. Her hem slid down her thighs a little more as she regarded him from under the brim. “I was thinking about something a little different.”

So was Coop.
Bad
different. “Instead of what we talked about? You welching on the deal?”

He had to keep this businesslike or he was doomed. Lacey had already pushed him to the edge of his sanity at the wedding today. Touching him, kissing him, holding his hand, looking at him with flirty eyes, making him laugh. Charming him with her perfect rendition of besotted girlfriend, killing him with every rub of her body as they’d danced.

The strands of his resistance were threadbare.

She shook her head real slow, her gaze searing into his. “As well as.”

Coop kept his hands jammed in his pockets. “Lacey.”

She dropped her head on an angle. “You think I don’t know that you’re hard for me right now?”

Her gaze zeroed in on the zipper of his jeans. His erection stiffened further, clearly appreciating the recognition.

It was such a freaking narcissist.

“You think,” she continued, returning her gaze to his face, “I don’t know you were hard for me on the dance floor? You think
I
wouldn’t have a hard-on for
you
right now if it was anatomically possible?”

All the oxygen in the garage seemed to evaporate as Coop dragged in a heavy breath. “I think if you had a cock we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She ignored his attempt at deflection. “We’re both consenting adults and I’ve lain in that bed next to yours for almost two weeks now and wanted to join you
every single night
. Haven’t you?”

Coop was hard
and
throbbing now as he thought about her wanting him as much as he’d wanted her. He should just lie. Prior to his confession to Ethan he probably would have. But he couldn’t lie to the woman he loved. Not about how much he wanted her.

Even if it was only going to inflame the situation.

He tightened his hands into fists in his pockets. “Yes.”

She nodded nice and slow, her gaze boring into his. “What the hell are we doing, Coop? You want me. I want you.”

Coop almost groaned out loud. His cock felt like it was about to burst out of its skin and if only she’d said
I love you
he’d have walked right between those legs and given it to her. But she didn’t. And this would be over in a few days and he wasn’t sure he could go back to his old life in Brisbane after being in Lacey’s bed again. Because if they had sex right now it wouldn’t just be a one-off and they both knew it.

Not while they were living in each other’s pockets.

They’d go from the hood to the hotel and she’d be lucky if he let her out of the goddamn room for days.

“I’m really trying to do the right thing here, Lacey.”

“I know. And I’m a terrible person for trying to get you to change your mind. But it just seems so incredibly stupid when this is what we both want.”

Coop’s gaze flicked down to mid-thigh where hem met skin then back up again.
Jesus he wanted to put his mouth there
. “Please don’t ask me to do this, Lacey.”

“I’m not asking.” She slid her feet wider, the skirt falling further down her thighs, her fingers gathering it from her hips aiding the inexorable slide. “I’m offering.”

Coop watched on helplessly, his fists clenching and unclenching, as the skirt revealed more and more of her legs until it had fallen down as far as it could go and he was staring at acres of bared thighs and a red lace triangle held on by what looked like two sides made of dental floss.

His pulse pounded through his head and surged through his cock with a rhythmic imperative. Do it. Hit that. Take her.

Desire blurred all his common sense and love got lost in a sea of lust. Or maybe it just made it more acute? Hell if he knew when he was seconds away from busting out of his shirt—and his underwear—like the freaking Hulk.

The air grew heavier between them.

“Please, Coop?”

Her voice was low and soft with a note of yearning, but it wasn’t that which undid him, it was when she held out a hand to him that Coop’s resistance snapped with a ping that could probably be measured on the Richter scale.

God-
fucking
-damn her!

He stormed towards her, angry at himself for his weakness where she was concerned and angry at her for being able to exploit it so damn well.

In two paces he’d stepped between those legs, grabbed her hips and dragged her forward until she was jammed tight against the hard bulge between his legs. “Is this what you want?” he demanded, his heart beating like a jungle drum through his head now.

“God yes,” she groaned, her hands grabbing for his biceps, her eyes closing as he ground against her.

His hands disappeared beneath the ruched fabric of her skirt, found the insubstantial sides of her underwear and yanked hard, the fabric giving easily. He tugged on what remained of the lace and tore it off her, throwing it over his shoulder. He yanked his zip down, the noise ricocheting loudly as it cut through the charged atmosphere.

“You want me to
fuck
you on the hood of your car in your cowgirl hat like some cheesy porn film?”

“Yes,” she hissed, a touch of defiance flashing in her eyes. She wasn’t ashamed. Nor did it look like she was going to apologise for wanting what she wanted.

Her calves locked around the backs of his legs and her chest rose and fell in a completely discordant rhythm.

Fuck, he wanted her
.

Coop freed his aching cock and she looked at it like she wanted to devour it. “
Yes
?” he demanded again, their combined breathing a vortex as loud as a hurricane in the heated space between them.