CHAPTER
EIGHT
COOPER watched his sister taking instruction from Harley on how to chop peppers as he put away the groceries they’d bought in the fridge, marveling at how good this felt. The kitchen felt warm and cozy, olive oil heating in a pan on the professional-grade stovetop he’d never used. It had taken some rooting around to find the equipment needed to cook a meal, with all three of them opening a variety of cabinets and drawers, but they’d found everything they needed, most of which he hadn’t even known he owned.
Sometimes his house felt like a corporate rental. Decorated by someone else for temporary living. It was amazing what a thirteen-year-old and a home-cooked meal could do to change the vibe.
Not to mention Harley.
She took to the domestic role naturally. Which made sense. She was a nanny, for chrissake. But it was more than that. There was something about her that made it very easy to be near her. He felt . . . comfortable. Which didn’t sound right. Content? That wasn’t it, not exactly, though he did feel content.
Happy.
That’s what it was.
How completely fucking bizarre.
He had flirted with her in the grocery store and it had made her uncomfortable. That hadn’t been his plan, but then she had looked so sweetly sensual, teasing him about a time-out. It had given him an erection, without any warning whatsoever. Which was made worse by her little dominatrix whipping motion. She had no idea how sexy she truly was, and that made her all the more appealing.
Which meant he was an asshole. He’d had sex with her sister. He had to keep it in his pants and not make her quit this job and bolt. He needed Harley. Mary Jane needed her.
“OMG, this is hard,” Mary Jane said.
“You’re doing awesome. I’m going to start some rice to go with it.” Harley gave him a smile as she shifted around him into the pantry to get the rice.
It all felt very normal. Like they were a family.
Jesus. He needed a beer. And a lobotomy.
She was his nanny. He paid her to live in his house.
But he couldn’t help but notice that she was as OCD as he was. When he popped the top off his beer, the cap skittered down the counter. Harley snagged it and tossed it in the trash without missing a beat or even seeming to really notice she did it.
Which was weird because he remembered Charity saying Harley was messy. Maybe she was just being respectful in his house.
Mary Jane was giving all sorts of shrieks and exclamations as Harley helped her lay down her tortilla in the hot skillet. It amused Cooper to see her so excited and so willing to try something new. But he was shoving every loose vegetable into his mouth that was lying around because he was goddamn hungry.
“I get the first quesadilla,” he told his sister.
“Why? That’s not fair.”
“Because I pay the bills.”
She made a face. “But I’m a growing child.”
That made him snort. “I love that you admit you’re still a child only when it’s convenient. Most of the time you’re trying to convince me you’re entitled to the full rights of adulthood.”
“We can pull out another pan and make two quesadillas at once,” Harley said, already reaching below into the cabinet.
Cooper and MJ looked at each other. “Damn. Harley is reasonable, isn’t she?” he asked MJ.
She nodded. “It takes the fun out of fighting with you.”
He laughed. “Exactly. But I think Harley is afraid I’ll knock you down to get the quesadilla. Which smells awesome, by the way.” The pungent scent of onions filled the room. “God, I can’t stand waiting.”
He knew he wasn’t showing a great side to his nanny, but hunger made him an asshole. He couldn’t stop himself.
“Patience means you have to wait,” Harley teased him, clearly amused. “Touch your nose and count to eight.”
Mary Jane laughed. “Touch your nose, Cooper. Do it. You totally need to learn patience.”
It was funny, he had to admit. “You touch it for me, Harley,” he said, meeting her gaze.
Her laughter died out. She reached out and the pad of her index finger touched the tip of his nose. He hadn’t expected her to really do it. But she stared at him with an intensity that went straight to his cock and squeezed. She had the most compelling eyes. They were like a crowded ocean of thoughts and emotions, none of which he had access to.
“One, two . . .” Her voice was a soft murmur.
Nothing about him felt soft. Cooper was debating how much trouble he would get into if he reached up and took her hand and drew that lithe finger into his mouth. A lot. A lot of trouble. Astronomical amounts of trouble.
Mary Jane brought him back to his senses. “So is Holly going to be here anytime soon?” she asked in acid tones.
It was annoying, and he didn’t like her attitude, but at the same time she had just reminded him of why he could not look at Harley the way he just had been. He did take Harley’s finger, but he took it lightly and gave her a friendly squeeze and smile before dropping it down by her side. “I’m sorry for being so cranky. I’m not usually such a bear.”
Then he turned to MJ and inspected her quesadilla. “I think you need to flip this,” he said, before adding casually, “and not that it’s any of your particular business but I’m not seeing Holly anymore.”
“Good. She’s not right for you.”
He helped her use the spatula. “How would you know that? You never even met her.”
“I know her type.”
“Don’t be judgmental. Besides, you don’t know what my type is.” Hell, he didn’t know what his type was, how could she?
“I know more than you think I do.”
He wasn’t touching that. Cooper took the handle of the skillet and slid the quesadilla out onto a plate. He handed it to MJ. “Let’s eat at the table instead of the island.” He had the damn monstrosity. They might as well use it.
For a split second, he thought she was going to refuse to accept his changing the subject, but then she just pursed her lips and complied. Harley was finishing with the second quesadilla. Cooper started on a third, reaching over and taking a long swallow of his beer, tension in his shoulders.
“You’re doing good with her,” Harley said in a low voice. “Just remember you’re the one in charge.”
That was doubtful, but he nodded. “Thanks.”
But despite the uneasiness he felt in his role, he knew Harley was right.
Dinner was an interesting experience, and easier than he would have imagined. MJ talked about her fashion blog, which didn’t interest him necessarily, but her enthusiasm did interest him. He could hear the passion and commitment in her voice and he appreciated that. It was how he had sounded about racing at that age. He wondered if there was a way he could do for MJ what his former stepfather had done for him—set her on the path to a successful career.
His sister was always funny. She made faces and used ridiculous hand gestures and slang and he was reminded all over again of how complex and intriguing and brilliant she was. He saw a lot of Bud in her, and he was grateful for that. MJ’s dad had been a good man.
After they ate, Cooper stood up and stretched. “That was fine cooking, MJ. I’m full.”
“Finally. You ate like seven hundred pounds of food.”
“I’m a man. We need fuel.”
“If you get chubby you won’t fit in your car.”
“I’m not getting chubby!” He reached out for Harley’s plate to clear the table. “You finished, Harley?”
She nodded.
“MJ, get over here and help me with these dishes,” he said, carrying the plates to the sink.
“Leave them for the housekeeper. Isn’t that her job?”
Harley’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say a word. She looked at Cooper pointedly.
But he was already on it, fairly appalled at his sister’s attitude. “No, that isn’t her job. Rosa is here to dust and vacuum messes we don’t intentionally create and I don’t have time to maintain. That doesn’t mean we can be lazy and just leave dirty dishes lying around for her.”
“Mom says only ugly girls have to wash dishes.”
Cooper saw red. He was so furious with his mother he actually felt his eye twitch as he paused, trying to control his emotions before he spoke. “You don’t agree with that, Mary Jane. I know you don’t. And you’re smart enough to know that Mom doesn’t speak for the rest of this family.”
It had obviously been some kind of test because his sister’s gaze skittered away from him, her cheeks turning pink. “Yeah. I know that.” Then she picked up her plate off the table and took it to the sink without another word.
He found the dish soap. “How about you dry them for me?”
She nodded and they fell into a quiet efficiency as he filled the sink and washed dishes. It wasn’t tense and he was grateful for the quiet. Harley was disposing of the vegetable scraps and sponging down the counters. It felt blissfully normal and he was almost past the point of wanting to call his mother and tell her precisely what he thought of her bullshit.
When the last dish was done, MJ said, “Can I go to my room?”
He was surprised she’d even asked for permission. Usually she did a whole lot of what she wanted. It made him feel good, like she respected him. “Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow, Skinny Minnie.”
MJ slid across the kitchen on her socks and said, “Night!” She added something under her breath that he didn’t hear.
He was pretty sure he didn’t want to, given the look on Harley’s face. “What did she say?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said, suddenly dropping her gaze to the countertop and becoming very interested in scrubbing the marble with a sponge.
Since it was damn near ten o’clock and he figured he’d waded through enough of his family muck for one day, he decided to let it go. MJ had probably called him a prick or something. Whatever. He’d been known to cuss at authority a time or two back in the day. Hell, he still did it.
What he really wanted to do was flop on the couch in his basement and watch a movie, a beer in his hand. “I’m going downstairs to watch some TV. Care to join me?”
* * *
HARLEY was so grateful Cooper didn’t pry that she would have agreed to just about anything. “Sure. Okay.” It was a miracle that he hadn’t heard his sister call him “Cunny King” because Harley had heard it loud and clear and had promptly wanted to die, for several reasons.
One, because she did not feel qualified as a nanny to address the issue of Mary Jane using that word, or attempting to figure out if she even knew what it meant. Which presumably she did, because Mary Jane looked everything up online, and that made Harley sad. Not that she used the Internet, but that she would gain her knowledge of sexual activity online at such a young age, with no one to explain to her the dynamics of emotional intimacy. Two, because Harley was stupid enough to fall for a man nicknamed the Cunny King, and that if given half the chance, she would do it all over again.
“I didn’t even know this house had a basement,” she told him truthfully. There were many random doors she never felt comfortable opening, not feeling like it was her place to explore his home. “Where are the stairs?”
He got a beer out of the fridge. “Want one?”
“Sure.” Which was probably a horrific idea. But it might ease the tension she was feeling. The dinner had been a success, but she still felt stressed about her ability to successfully mentor Mary Jane. Or compartmentalize her attraction to Cooper.
He opened a door next to the mudroom that she had assumed was a broom closet. “Voilà. The stairs. Ladies first.”
While Cooper flicked the lights on, Harley moved past him and down the lushly carpeted stairs. At the bottom, a motion sensor tripped and the lights came ablaze. She was amazed to see that there was a massive rec room, with a huge TV, a bar, a pool table, and arcade games. “Wow. I’ve been walking over Dave and Buster’s and I didn’t even know it.”
“It feels comfortable down here to me. I like it.” Cooper took the beers over to the giant sectional and set them down on the coffee table. He picked up the remote and turned the giant television on.
Harley chose the L of the sectional so she would be a good four feet away from him. “It’s very nice. It’s like an upscale man cave.”
There was a lot of memorabilia on the walls. Standing right back up, she went over and studied the pictures. Him in Victory Lane, champagne exploding in front of him. Him with other Chase contenders. The year he had won the championship, holding his cup at the awards ceremony, grinning for all he was worth.
“Cami did that,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I didn’t hang a bunch of pictures of myself. She decorated it down here.”
“I think it’s fantastic. You should be proud of all you’ve accomplished.”
“Aw, shucks,” he said, his tone mocking and silly. “T’weren’t nothing, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” Harley came back to the sectional. “I’m too young to be a ma’am, surely.” She thought about how bizarre it would be to always have other people doing things for you. What did Cooper really have ownership of, what did he put his heart into? Racing. The rest was just periphery, including her. She needed to remember that. She took a spot even further away from him than before.
“Why are you all the way over there?” he asked. “Do I have onion breath?”
“Not that I noticed.” Or had been close enough to him to notice.
“Then come over here. There’s only one blanket and I’ll share it, but I’m not giving it to you. I’m not feeling that much of a gentleman tonight.” He patted the couch next to him. “And I was just teasing. I don’t think of you as a ma’am.”
An hour later Harley was starting to wonder what he did think of her. They were watching an action movie and she had long ago lost the grasp of the plot. Things just exploded and people raged at each other. But admittedly she wasn’t concentrating all that hard because Cooper was altogether so distracting, she couldn’t focus on anything other than how close his body was to hers. He didn’t seem to think it was odd that they were so close their legs were touching, a fleece blanket spread over them. She tried to tell herself that Cooper was like his sister—a touch lonely and in need of companionship.
It didn’t hold water. He could have the company of anyone he wanted at any time. She supposed she was just convenient. Right in front of him.
But that didn’t explain why his arm went over the back of the sofa so that she was essentially resting in the crook of his arm. It tripped the memory of him hovering over her, both his biceps surrounding her, while her greedy fingers explored his muscular chest. It was fairly ridiculous that a man like Cooper would be lonely. Hell, Holly had been there just the week before. He wasn’t lacking for company, naked or otherwise.
It was that thought that had her shifting away from him, drawing her feet up so it would just look like she was trying to get comfortable, not put space between them.
“Are you stiff?” he asked. “Here, stretch out.”
Before she could process what he was about to do, Cooper had taken her by the ankles and drawn her legs out straight across his lap. He casually massaged her feet, his eyes still on the movie.
Harley swallowed hard, heat pooling between her thighs and gradually spreading out through her limbs. Her nipples firmed.
Cooper was rubbing her feet. It felt good. It felt intimate. It felt cozy and pleasant. It felt like with a little bit of encouragement he could go from rubbing her feet to rubbing one out for her. Would he do that if she shifted, if she let her legs fall slightly apart, if she gave soft sounds of encouragement and told him how good his touch felt?
To her total embarrassment, she felt her panties growing damp at the thought. She shifted a little.
His elbow was by her knee and when she moved, it ended up jamming her in the thigh. Harley winced.
Cooper glanced over at her, his face alarmed, hand already shifting up to rub her tender flesh. “Shit, I’m sorry, Harley. You okay?”
“I’m fine. That was my fault. I moved.” Her nerves had caused her to wiggle, which had caused his hand to move even further into the danger zone. Wonderful. She was inadvertently torturing herself.
He smiled and stopped rubbing her thigh. But he left his hand down in the gap between her legs. That was not a place for a boss’s hand to be. It just wasn’t. Yet Harley wasn’t opening her trap and saying a word. She couldn’t. If she did, she just might blurt out the truth. Or climb on his lap and grind her desperate body against his. Either way, she was bound to humiliate herself. Because she liked it. Damn it, she liked him touching her.
But why was he touching her? He knew she was Harley. Not Charity. Plus he didn’t look particularly flirtatious or amorous. He just looked comfortable. Relaxed. Like he thought of her as asexual.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Not when her crotch was hotter than an engine on race day.
The movie went on and on, and Cooper’s hand got higher, and Harley got horny. She couldn’t help it. It felt like every nerve ending in her body had stood up and was doing the cha-cha. After fifteen minutes she was fairly certain she was going to die. She now understood what every teen boy felt in a dark family room with the object of his lust, because the only thing she could think about was how desperately she wanted his hand to shift higher and tear her jeans off of her.
When she decided she absolutely could not stand it anymore, she dropped her feet to the floor in one smooth motion and asked, “Is there a bathroom down here?”
“Sure. I’ll show you.”
Why did he have to be a gentleman? And why did his house have to be so big that you couldn’t give directions without a map and the use of physical landmarks? There were approximately seventeen doors in the basement. “Thanks.”
It was a good thing he was acting as tour guide. He went around a wall and suddenly there was a whole other section of the basement Harley hadn’t even seen before. It had a rock-climbing wall and a putting green.
“You know, you and MJ can use whatever you want down here. Well, except for the booze. MJ probably doesn’t need to drink.” He grinned at her. “But anything else is fair game.”
“I’ve never rock-climbed before.” Harley eyed it dubiously.
“Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Right now?” Was he serious?
“Sure. Why not?”
That was a good question. Mainly because it meant her butt would be in a sling in front of her boss, who happened to be her onetime lover, only he didn’t know that.
“Okay. But you go first.” So she could check his butt out before he was subjected to hers. “So I can see how it’s done.”
It wasn’t really sound logic. Because in three minutes Cooper was hooked into a harness that outlined his junk perfectly. It was like someone had taken a marker and circled all the good stuff on an anatomical chart. It emphasized everything he had in a way that had Harley remembering with startling clarity how it felt to have her mouth over his cock. She licked her lips without meaning to. Then he started scrambling up the wall, giving her detailed steps on what he was doing, of which she heard none.
“Are you listening?” He glanced back and down at her.
Busted. She nodded.
“What did I just say?”
“Something about climbing that wall.”
Cooper grinned, shaking his head at her. “I knew you weren’t listening. You’re a terrible liar.”
Oh, really? “You’d be surprised,” she told him, annoyed that he, like everyone else, thought she was one-dimensional. That she didn’t have layers.
Cooper kicked off of the wall and dropped to the floor. He stepped out of the harness. “I can’t imagine you’d surprise me. That’s something I like about you.”
Harley took the harness from his hand and waved him off when he tried to help her. “So everything I’ve done and said is actually what you would have predicted?”
His grin softened. “Well, no, I suppose not. I wouldn’t have predicted what a firm hand you have.”
She reached for one of the plastic boulders to grip. “I have a lot of things.”
Without warning Cooper reached out and wrapped his hands around her waist. “Your harness is loose.”
She should have jerked away. But instead, she found herself leaning slightly into his touch, letting her eyes flutter shut briefly. This had been a mistake. Taking this job. Living in this house. Spending time with Cooper. Because she was still Cinderella huddled by the fire in the kitchen for warmth, and princes only married the help in fairy tales.
Especially when the prince had done the deed with Cinderella’s sexy sister.
“I’ve got it, thanks.” She was on her own. Better to remember that at all times.
* * *
“SO how you been?” Cooper asked Ryder Jefferson as they sat in the backseat of a car waiting to be driven back to the garage after a fan appearance.
“Tired.” Ryder had the dark circles under his eyes to back up his words. “I love having Suz and the baby on the road with me, but he’s teething and the kid never sleeps. Ever. I’m not kidding. I didn’t know it was physically possible to exist on this little sleep.”
“He’s training for college frat parties,” Cooper told him with a grin. “Though, sorry, man. I can’t even imagine.” He couldn’t. Doing the job and being a parent was a difficult balancing act.
“I’ll be dead by then at this rate. I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel.”
“Please don’t. I plan on being next to you on the track.”
“With my luck, I’ll hit a pole in the parking lot at Wally World getting diapers at midnight. Least sexy death ever.”
“You want your death to be sexy?” Cooper just didn’t want his death, period. If it actually happened, he figured the manner didn’t matter in the slightest.
“Yeah, well, you know, I’m vain. What can I say? Or maybe I’m delirious from lack of sleep.”
“At least my sister sleeps, I’ll give her that. It’s when she’s awake that the trouble starts.” Cooper was a little fearful as to what was going to happen in Daytona. It was coming up in just a few days.
“Yeah, uh, she’s been known to post a thing or two online,” Ryder said, with a pointed glance in his direction. “She’s kind of ballsy for a teenager.”
“You have no idea.” But then he felt disloyal to MJ complaining about her. “She’s had too much freedom. And money. I’m trying to rein her in, but it’s a process. At least my new nanny is good with her and I think she’ll stick around for the long haul.” He did. If he didn’t scare Harley off with his constant need to touch her. She’d been on the job almost three weeks and Cooper found himself spending every free moment he had at home, seeking her and his sister out. He enjoyed both of their company, and he found himself using every excuse possible to casually touch Harley’s arm, her leg, her face.
He couldn’t chalk that up purely to gratitude. It was more than that. A hell of a lot more than that. “Though I have to admit, I think I’m starting to have the hots for my nanny. That’s not right, is it?”
“Why not? You’re not married. She’s not married. What’s the big deal? You’ve got a chick living in your house, presumably young and good looking. You’re allowed to feel attracted to her.”
“But I can’t do anything about it.” He didn’t think. “Besides, I don’t think she’s into me that way.” Which chapped his ass, he had to admit.
Ryder snorted. “So talk her into being into you. What the hell, man? It’s not like you ever had a problem getting pussy before.”
“This wouldn’t be about getting pussy.”
Ryder’s eyebrows went up and Cooper silently cursed. He’d revealed more than he’d meant to with that statement. But it was true. He liked Harley, as a person. He enjoyed her company. He felt easy and happy around her and any number of gushy and dumb things.
Oh, God. What the hell did that even mean? He felt like he was in totally new territory. But the truth was he was stalking her in his own house. There was no other way to describe it. He listened for her footsteps and followed her. He’d traced her to the kitchen in the morning and to the basement at night, all while pretending like he’d come across her by accident. How pathetic was that?
But Harley didn’t seem to mind his presence. She talked to him. Smiled. Laughed. He thought she actually liked him, the real Cooper Brickman, not the guy who grinned for the cameras. Then again, he was paying her. How was she supposed to act around him?
“Really? So if you’re not just going for a hookup there’s definitely no reason not to go for it.”
“I can’t. She works for me.” What if she turned him down? What if they dated and it ended horribly? He didn’t want to lose her as a nanny. MJ was attached. Cooper tossed his hair out of his eyes. “And . . .” Here was the real rub. “I had sex with her identical twin at McCordle’s wedding.”
He and Ryder had been friends a long time and he needed to tell someone the truth about what he was dealing with. He wanted some solid advice. Because whenever he thought about sex with Charity, he got a hard-on, and how could he have developed a friendship and want maybe more with Harley when he had fond memories of nailing her sister?
“Wait a minute. She has an identical twin you already boned? Did you think you were boning your nanny? Was it like a twin swap? Now that’s hot, man.”
Harley would never in a million years have slept with him. He hadn’t even considered it. “No. I knew which sister I was doing and it wasn’t my nanny. I didn’t think Harley was the one-night-stand type. Not that I was trying to nail her or anything. But her sister sat on my lap and . . .”
“Enough said.” Ryder held out his hand. “I don’t need details. But yeah, you’re right. You’re fucked. Unless they are into the twin tag-team thing.”
“I’m not into the twin tag-team thing.” He might not be known for serious relationships, but he wasn’t into group sex.
“Then I guess you should have stopped to think about that before you sacked her sister.”
“Seriously?” Cooper gave him an annoyed glare. “That is not helpful.”
“Hey. I am sleeping three hours a night and I haven’t had sex in three weeks. I’m not brimming with sympathy for the guy who has twin tail at his disposal.” He put his finger out. “Not that I’m jealous. I love my beautiful wife and I never want to be single ever again. I’m just saying in the grand scheme of things your problems are lame.”
Ryder just might have a point. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“Well, what do you want? That’s the real question. Who do you want to bang and who do you want to date?”
There was the rub. “Well. I want them to be the same person. You know?”
“You want twins to become one person?”
“I just want my nanny to be both. The one I bang and the one I date. I mean, her sister was great in bed and all, and I had a good time, but I don’t know her.”
He did want to date Harley. Duh, as MJ would say. It all suddenly seemed so obvious now. “I feel like I know Harley and I dig her.” There. He’d said it out loud and had set himself up for complete and utter humiliation.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I guess there isn’t one.” Except he didn’t think that Harley felt the same way about him, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Ryder. He could only be so vulnerable before he felt the need to prove his masculinity by shooting off some fireworks, going hunting, or taking a tree limb down with a chainsaw. None of which he had time for at the moment, so he kept his mouth shut about the possibility that Harley did not see him as potential mate material.
But he wasn’t a bad catch. Sure, he had a history of not committing much, but that was because he hadn’t been ready. His career had been too demanding. He hadn’t met the right woman.
Then he’d stopped on that terrace at the Biltmore and Harley had smiled at him and everything had changed. He hadn’t continued to call her just because of Mary Jane. He’d been hoping she would take the position so he could see her. Get to know her better.
The driver climbed back into the front seat and looked back at them. “Y’all ready?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said without thinking. “Yes.”
He was ready. To do this thing. To grow a friendship with a woman. Possibly his first genuine friendship with a woman ever. To take it, nurture it, and create a relationship out of it if Harley was interested.
If she wasn’t yet, well hell, he’d charm her into it.
Then later, when they’d established something real between them, they would have great sex on a frequent basis.
It all made total sense and he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it before.
He was going to make Harley his.