CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
“I’M calling you a cab,” Jeff said.
Cooper glared at his friend and pseudo-stepbrother. “I’m not ready to go home.”
“Oh, I think you were ready a good hour ago, bro.”
Why was it that some guys never made idiots out of themselves? Jeff was one of those, and at the moment Cooper resented the hell out of him. Granted, it had been his own stupid idea to show up at the Buckle and he’d pretty much walked in with a busted heart and a dry mouth, which was a lousy combination. Then had seen Jeff making a move on Harley. His Harley. The woman he was pretty damn sure he was in love with.
Only he had ruined it. Not once, but twice, by kissing Charity on the dance floor.
But something kept niggling at the back of his whiskey-soaked brain that maybe it was a good thing he’d kissed Charity, because she was the woman he’d remembered from the dance floor at the wedding. Annoyed with him. Cold. Sarcastically polite.
Not the woman who had come apart for him in bed.
Not the woman who had stared up at him from the pillow with guileless eyes and soft, breathless sighs. Not the eyes that were remarkably similar to the way Harley looked at him sometimes when they were cooking in the kitchen, or discussing his sister. Kind, caring eyes.
One and one wasn’t adding up to two here. Or maybe it was. Twins.
“Don’t you think twins are a mind fuck?” Cooper asked Jeff. “I mean, they look the same but they don’t.”
“Don’t strain your brain tonight, my friend.”
“No, I’m serious. Like, for example, Charity works at your office. You’ve seen her. Now you’ve been talking to Harley. They carry themselves different.”
At times he found himself totally confused as to which sister was which. Harley had a habit of tilting her head so she looked up at him from under her eyelashes, and he could have sworn for a minute when Charity was looking at him in bed, it was Harley. But then again, Harley would never sit on his lap or make out with him in public, he was sure of that.
Given how identical their features were, it would be easy for most people to confuse them, especially if they shared similar gestures and tics. Or especially if they wanted to fool someone. How hard would it be?
He was getting a really goddamn bad feeling about a few things.
“It really is,” Jeff said, leaning against the bar. “There is something that actually makes me uncomfortable about it, but I can’t put my finger on it, exactly.”
Cooper knew what it was. He had found himself attracted to both of them, and that seemed wrong. Creepy. He shouldn’t want to nail both of them, yet he had. Did? He no longer wanted to nail Charity, that was for damn certain. But now he was starting to wonder if, in fact, he ever had. It was crazy.
They wouldn’t swap spots with each other. Would they?
No. Of course not.
“It makes me uncomfortable, too,” he said to Jeff. “Because for some reason, it makes me feel like a pervert.”
Jeff grinned at him. “And that’s a new feeling? Bullshit.”
“Suck it.” Cooper finished off the last of his drink. He wasn’t sure how to explain what was going on in his head to Jeff. “So you and my nanny, huh? Don’t mess with her head. She’s a nice girl and MJ really likes her. I don’t want to upset the balance of my household.”
Jeff’s eyebrows rose. “So hooking up with your nanny’s twin doesn’t have that same potential to disrupt MJ?”
Well, shit. “She didn’t know about that!” And wait a minute. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw you leave with her. It wasn’t like a dozen people couldn’t have looked over and seen it just like I did. People only wander off into the bushes together at a wedding for one reason, Brickman.”
Then it was a miracle MJ didn’t know. “It’s got nothing to do with my sister.” His whiskey brain was a little foggy and he didn’t like that somewhere in the back of his mind those warning bells were getting louder.
“And there’s the difference here. I want to date Harley, not hook up.”
That sounded like a criticism, and it pissed Cooper off. “Quit saying ‘hook up.’ You make it sound like we’re twenty and we’re sneaking into the bathroom at a frat house party.”
“You ever do that?” Jeff asked him.
“No. I didn’t go to college, you know that.”
“I might have done that once or twice at Princeton.” Jeff grinned, like the memory was a good one. “I’m not judging, don’t get your dick in a twist.”
“Well, hell, I definitely don’t want that.” Cooper wanted to adjust himself just at the idea of that.
“But look, I’m older than you. I was married once in my early thirties and you know how that turned out. Hitting the wall at Talladega would be less jarring. I had fun playing the field for a while, but now I’m tired. I just want to date a nice woman.”
Like Harley.
Cooper heard the implication, loud and clear. Harley was a nice woman who deserved a nice guy who would treat her right.
He stared at Jeff, something again niggling at him that the situation was not quite as it should be. “Yeah, I get that. But I’ve got to be honest with you, bro. I have feelings for Harley myself.”
Jeff pushed off the bar. “Excuse me? You can’t sample both twins. I’m trying to stake a legitimate claim here. That is not fucking fair.”
It wasn’t like Jeff to swear or sound so pissed off. “I saw her first, Sterling.”
“Yeah, and you fucked her sister, who I was about to ask out. I’ve been seeing her at work and thinking I would like to ask her out, and you stroll in and snag her at the wedding. So back off. You can’t have both.”
The challenge in Jeff’s voice made Cooper stand up straighter, posture automatically defensive. “Hey. How the hell was I supposed to know you liked Charity? And if you liked Charity, why are you moving in on Harley now? You can’t just swap them out like a couple of ink cartridges.” That pissed him off, actually.
“That’s exactly what you did.”
“I did not!”
Had he? That’s not what he’d meant to do.
“Yes, you did. Now quit playing around and quit the field. I am looking for something serious, not a play date in the sand box.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Annoyed, Cooper shoved the remains of his whiskey away from him and reached for the water he’d ordered. “Did you ever tell Charity you were interested in her?”
That gave Jeff pause. “No.”
“Well, then why are you pissed that she slept with me if she didn’t know? Maybe she would have preferred you to me.”
Now Jeff looked stymied. “You think?”
Cooper wanted to roll his eyes but refrained. “Why not? It’s not like she was ever really into me. She always acted like I annoy her.” Except in bed.
Which again reminded him something was just not right.
Suddenly he remembered Rosa matching the bra to panties Harley owned.
Hold the phone.
Speaking of phones. He pulled his out. “Something is not right here.” He texted Harley and asked her to come back to the bar. He didn’t think she would, given the time, but now that the idea had caught hold, he didn’t want to sit on ferreting out the truth.
To his surprise she responded in the positive. With a wink.
“Jeff, when you talked to Harley at the wedding reception, did she seem any different than when you spoke to her tonight?”
Jeff frowned at him. “I don’t know. Maybe. A little. Yes. She was flirtier at the wedding. Sassier.”
Fuck a duck. “I think they twin-swapped on us. I didn’t sleep with Charity. I slept with Harley.”
Cooper distinctly recalled going up to the table and thinking it was Harley, only to have her tell him he was wrong. He hadn’t been wrong. He hadn’t been wrong at all.
“What? Holy fucking shit.”
His thought exactly.
* * *
HARLEY walked into the Buckle with what was probably a completely misguided optimism that maybe Cooper would forgive her.
Especially when her eyes landed on him, sitting at the bar, his eyes fixed on her. She felt the heft of his lustful appreciation from across the room, and immediately her body responded to the intent in his eyes. But then he glanced behind her, at Charity, and his expression changed, looked thoughtful. For a second it gave her pause, but then he was undressing her with his eyes again and her panties went damp and all rationale went out the door.
“Jeff is so cute,” Charity murmured from behind her.
Harley hadn’t even noticed Jeff, which made her feel like a total jerk. But she couldn’t help it. Jeff just didn’t do anything for her. He was a nice man, but he reminded her of their father—stable, sweet. Just a touch boring. The male equivalent of herself. She imagined together the two of them would have exactly nothing interesting to say.
Which was exactly what had happened when they’d been talking earlier, in her opinion. She couldn’t fathom why he actually thought he was interested in her.
“He’s smiling at you,” Harley told her, though it looked a little lascivious. Jeff Sterling, generally speaking, didn’t look like a wolf about to pounce, yet he did.
Something was off. Why had Cooper texted her really? Was he going to plead his case again or was he just hoping to get a green light from Charity for another roll in the hay?
“I’m really nervous,” she told Charity, glancing back at her twin for support. There was a tension in the air she didn’t understand, a crackling.
“Me, too. Jeff looks . . . smoldering.”
As they approached the guys at the bar, Cooper gave her a dirty-boy grin, his legs spreading apart as he leaned back onto the bar with both elbows. “Thanks for coming back.”
He looked deceptively casual, but there was tension in his posture, despite the way he leaned back. Harley realized that over the few weeks she’d been sharing a house and meals with Cooper, she’d really gotten to learn his body language. Something was wrong here. He wasn’t just drunk. His actions were purposeful.
“Hey, Charity,” he said, leaning around her to acknowledge her sister. “Or should I say One Night Harley.”
Oh, yeah, he knew something.
“Excuse me?” Charity asked.
“So tell me this. When did you all change dresses at the wedding? Just curious. It was obviously after the bouquet toss but before the last dance.”
Charity pursed her lips.
Harley felt her cheeks start to burn. But there was nothing for it. She took another step forward. “Maybe we should talk about this someplace other than a public bar.”
His eyes narrowed and his grin stayed deceptively in place. But he was angry. Very, very angry. “You’re always telling me now isn’t the time. Well, when is the goddamn time to tell the truth?”
She swallowed hard. “If we just go outside . . .”
Cooper stood up and leaned over her, so close to her ear his breath was hot on her flesh. “Just tell me . . . who did I have sex with?”
His fingers traced along her jaw, over her bottom lip. A shiver rolled up her spine. “Hmm? Who was it, Harley? Whose lips did I kiss, whose body did I touch?”
She closed her eyes, his body so near to hers triggering an automatic response. Her nipples tightened and she ached to kiss him, to feel his arms around her. The only way to ever have that again was to tell the truth.
“It was me,” she murmured.
There was a pause, where she felt his entire body tense. Then he cursed and reared back from her. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” His fist hit the bar, making the glassware bounce.
Harley jumped, mouth hot, nerves taut. She knew she had about sixty seconds to convince him she wasn’t a horrible human being and that he shouldn’t hate her. “I didn’t mean to trick you.”
“No? You just thought it would be fun? That I’d never find out?” He raked his hands through his hair. “I have been feeling like the biggest dick asshole cocksucking jerk for the last month wondering how I could be falling in love with you when I had sex with your sister. And the whole goddamn time it was you.”
Which made it better, when you thought about it. Harley rushed to explain. “I didn’t think we’d wind up having sex that night! I talked to you, as me, and all you wanted to do was talk about your sister, and I had this huge crush on you already from watching you drive and I wanted once, just once, to be seen as sexy. It was like a . . . fantasy. Like Cinderella gets her night with the prince.” God, that sounded so bad. Like she’d just been using him. Which she had.
Harley flushed, arms tightly crossed over her chest. She wanted to reach for him, but he looked so . . . volatile.
A glance over showed Charity and Jeff deep in conversation, his head tilted down toward her, his jaw clenched. Charity was talking a mile a minute, making hand gestures. That looked promising. Not.
“But why couldn’t you just be you? Why not just tell me you wanted to hook up?”
Please. Like he would have responded positively to her, the woman he saw as a mother figure, throwing it out there that she wanted to have sex. He would have been horrified. “You wouldn’t have! You saw me as maternal. You called me that. Then you saw my sister and you basically started drooling. And we look the same.” That still baffled her. “I just wanted to feel sexy. But clearly I failed since you told me that the sex was terrible. The worst. Awful.” At the thought of that, tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t help it. That night had been amazing to her, but to him . . . nothing. Worse than nothing. Shitty.
“Don’t do that.” He kicked the stool so hard it slid out away from him and hit the ground with a crash.
“Whoa,” the bartender called from a few feet away. “Chill out.”
It was so late in the night there were only a few patrons left in the bar, but they all turned to stare. Harley sniffled, unable to stop herself, despite the fact that crying would only make him even more angry.
“I said that because I felt terrible for sleeping with your sister! The sex didn’t suck. The opposite, in fact.” Cooper picked up the stool and slammed it back into place. “Christ, Harley!”
Now her lip was trembling and she couldn’t seem to stop it. She almost reached up and held it to stop the pathetic tremor. She so desperately wanted to believe Cooper had enjoyed their night together, but more than likely he was just trying to flatter her. “You’re just saying that.”
He shook his head and made a sound of exasperation. “Harley McLain. I don’t know whether to strangle you or kiss you.”
“How about both?” She deserved to be yelled at, she could own that.
His jaw dropped. “I hope you don’t mean that literally or I’m forbidding you to ever go to a fetish club again.”
She started. “What? No! I didn’t mean literally. I just meant, yes, I did a bad thing.”
“A bad thing? You let me think I was having sex with your sister. That’s sort of like a big fucking deal. Not just a bad thing or a little white lie. That was a whopper of a lie.”
She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and touching his arm. She just wanted some form of contact. “I’m sorry. I never thought for two seconds that you would be interested in me for real. I never even thought I’d be working for you.”
“You lied to me. Repeatedly.”
She nodded, feeling miserable. “I was going to tell you the truth, but then you said the sex was awful and I was too humiliated to tell you. I . . . I didn’t expect to fall for the real you, along with the one I fantasized about, but I did. I really, really did.”
“I’m very angry with you,” he said, frowning down at her hand on his arm. The tone of his voice was stubborn, but not emphatic.
Hope took root. He wasn’t walking away. In fact, he’d stopped clenching his fists. Maybe, just maybe, he would stop, reflect. Forgive her. She wasn’t sure she deserved it, but she was optimistic by nature, and she wanted Cooper to look at her again with that adoration in his eyes. Look at her like she was special, important.
“I know. You should be. I’m sorry, Cooper. I’m so, so sorry.” Harley took advantage of his hesitation to shift closer to him, easing her body between his legs, shifting her hands to his chest. “I made the mistake of thinking of you as a celebrity, not a person, and that was really unfair of me. That’s why I left without leaving a number. I knew the deception was wrong, knew it couldn’t continue. I never even thought you’d want to sleep with me.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked down at her, his eyes dark, searching.
This was her one shot at making this happen. Sure, he might forgive her and they would go on as friends, or more likely employer-employee, but if she wanted to be with Cooper, to explore their relationship, this was her only chance, she knew that instinctively. So despite the fact that her heart was thumping painfully and her palms were sweating, she dragged out every bit of courage she possessed and went up on her tiptoes.
“What are you doing?” he muttered roughly.
“I’m going to kiss you, if that’s okay.”
“I’m not sure.”
That wasn’t a no.
“So let’s just try it and see how you feel about it.” Harley was tired of letting life just happen. She was driving this car for once and she wasn’t about to let Cooper slip through her fingers because of her own stupidity.
So she reached up and kissed him, a soft, gentle, but passionate kiss that she hoped conveyed to him that she thought he was an amazing man and if given half a chance she would fall madly in love with him and work the rest of her life to make him happy.
It was a lot to ask of a kiss.
But she tried and for a few agonizing seconds when he didn’t respond, she thought she had failed.
Then he hauled her against his chest and kissed her back. Hard.
Harley sighed and gave him everything she had.
* * *
AS he held Harley, Cooper was so furious he couldn’t speak. Yet at the same time he was so relieved he wanted to shake his head and laugh. But given that his mouth was busy with hers and his arms full of her sweet, warm body, he did neither.
He just kissed her.
It had been Harley. The whole goddamn time. It had been Harley whose eyes had locked with his when he was buried inside her. Harley who had demanded he make her come.
All this time he’d been falling for Harley, feeling like a supreme asshole for having nailed her twin, and it had been her he’d nailed.
So it was with a whole lot of mixed emotions and whiskey that he kissed her, gathering her up tightly in his arms and holding her against him. It felt like she might disappear again on him, like this, too, might prove to be a con. If it was, he was damned well going to enjoy it while it was happening.
She had opened her mouth for him, and he slid his tongue between her lips to tangle with hers, the soft sighs of encouragement she gave him setting fire to his insides. It felt so damn good to hold her, to smell her skin, to feel her petite fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, like she needed to hold on or collapse. The kiss went on and on, and it felt alive, the most intimate kiss he’d ever experienced, a mix of desire and frustration and exhilaration all at once.
Harley broke off the kiss, then disarmed him by rubbing her lips softly across his jaw and murmuring in his ear. “Take me home, Cooper. Please. Take me to your room.”
His cock, already half hard, pressed against her thigh. God, he wanted her so badly. But he hesitated, not sure she understood what she’d be getting. This wasn’t going to be suave and choreographed. It was going to be raw. Emotional. He’d thought he’d lost her entirely.
Now here she was, telling him it was all okay.
But it was only okay because she’d lied.
And he wasn’t sure that was okay.
He had shit to work out in his head. This might be premature.
But her hands were wandering down over his erection and her lips were gently tugging his earlobe, and how the fucking hell was he supposed to resist any of that? He was a man, not a machine.
“Harley . . .”
“Yes?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t . . .”
“I need to,” she said, her expression earnest. “Let me show you me. And I need to know that you want me. Take me home and show me.”
No. He definitely couldn’t resist that offer.
“This is going to be angry sex,” he told her, wanting it clear this would be no tender lovemaking. His emotion was running too high. “Because I’m still frustrated with you.”
Her eyes widened and she looked a little frightened. “Angry sex?” She swallowed.
He thought she would ask for an explanation, for reassurance that didn’t mean he was going to smack her around or something. Which, of course, he wasn’t. He just meant there would be a lot of yanking of clothes, pushing against walls, pounding hard. But Harley just nodded.
“Whatever it takes, Cooper. I trust you with everything.” She kissed him softly. “My body. My heart. My soul.”
Something cracked in him. He swore it did. It was like being kicked by a mule. Or having your car roll over a few times. His chest just cracked and he couldn’t have resisted her if she had told him she had lied about everything ever in the history of all words that she’d ever spoken.
But he knew she hadn’t. Harley wasn’t deceptive by nature and her gaze was open and honest, and he felt the weight of her words, her trust handed to him. It was something special, immense. Sexy.
“I will take you home, Harley.” He swept his lips over hers. “But I can’t promise I’ll be able to control myself.”
“I don’t need you to control yourself. I just need you to take me.”
Cooper couldn’t help himself. He hauled her up completely, lifting Harley off the ground. She made a small sound of surprise, but then she wrapped her legs around his thighs and gave him a seductive smile.
It was disarming, seeing Harley looking at him like that. Everything he could ever want, all in one woman, and even though he was still a bundle of mixed emotions of anger and frustration, he was knocked on his ass by how much he wanted her. He held her against him, hands on her backside, mouth brushing over hers.
“Let’s go home.”