I ignore his comment. “My mom liked you too.”

“Mothers love me.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“I’d much rather be filling you.” He winks at me and shifts the gear into fourth as he merges onto the highway. Even the way the man handles the gear shifter hints at how good he is in bed. He controls the car like he does everything else in his life. With unwavering authority.

“You have a one-track mind.”

“All Kate, all the time,” he says and it warms me. Although it’s a different warm than I get watching the man exert his power over simple things. I’m starting to realize there’s more than one way he causes a rise in my body temperature.

I put my hand over his on the shifter. “Thank you for coming with me.”

He nods. “Thank you for taking me.”

I sit atop the long marble double sink countertop in the bathroom swinging my legs, watching him get ready. “Did you play sports in high school? Seeing him with my brother made me imagine what he was like in high school.

“Yes. You?”

“Soccer.”

“Football.”

“Was your girlfriend a cheerleader?”

He smiles. “Cliché, huh?”

“I might’ve tried out to be a cheerleader instead of playing soccer if you were at my school.”

“I wouldn’t have went out with the cheerleaders if you were at my school.”

“Ssss,” I make a hissing sound and he furrows his brow. “You said cheerleaders, not cheerleader … as in, you went out with more than one.”

He finishes brushing his teeth and kisses me chastely on the lips. “Let’s not have this conversation.”

“Why not? It’s harmless. We’re talking about high school.”

“Yes, but I’d rather not talk about either one of us dating anyone else right now.” He lifts me from the sink and I oblige him, wrapping my legs around his waist. I flip off the light switch as we pass through to his bedroom.

“Cooper,” I whisper as he rests me gently on the bed and buries his face in my neck. He pulls his head back to look at me. “Make love to me.”

His eyes roam my face and he kisses me softly. Then he slowly makes love to me with the same domineering possessiveness that he always has. Only, this time it’s sweet and filled with heartfelt emotion.

It’s almost one in the morning by the time we’ve both quenched our desire. “Do you know why I wanted to bring you there tonight? To meet Mom and Kyle?” I say as I snuggle into the crook of his arm, fully sated.

“To show me why you’re doing the show?”

I should have known Cooper would see right through my thinly veiled plan to remind him why he needs to have patience with me when things get harder during the taping of the final four. “Did it work?”

“I already knew why you were doing the show.”

“I thought maybe it would make it easier to see the reason. Telling you what I’m working for doesn’t have the same effect. Making it to the end will go a long way for them. I would be able to almost fully pay off my mother’s mortgage and cover Kyle’s therapy while I finish school.”

“I can certainly appreciate your determination more. But if we’re being honest, nothing is going to make it easier to see you going out on romantic dates with another man.” He kisses the top of my head. “Although it means a lot that you tried.”

There’s a long silence and I start to think he’s fallen asleep. “Go away with me while you’re on hiatus?”

The question is unexpected. “Where?”

“My house in Barbados.”

“The house we’re going to stay at when we film?”

“I want you all to myself until then. Plus, I need to have you all over the island so there isn’t one place that you could sit with him and not remember me coaxing an orgasm from your body.”

I certainly don’t object to a marathon of orgasms on a tropical island. “I have to work tonight. But then I’m all yours.”

“Good. We leave tomorrow morning.”

I laugh. “You’ve already made the plans before asking me, haven’t you?”

“I did.”

“What would have happened if I would have said no?”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“That’s not the point.”

“I suppose I would have had to change your mind.”

“Let me guess, you’d screw me into submission.”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a thing at all. You couldn’t make me change my mind by having sex with me if I really didn’t want to do something.”

“Then I’d have to use my mouth on you if my cock didn’t work.”

“You’re totally not getting what I’m trying to say.”

“Let’s try out your theory, shall we?” My exhausted body shudders at the challenge in his voice.

“I’m too tired.”

“Are you?” He flips me on my back and is above me, his mouth sucking my nipple in deeply, before I can even object. I am exhausted, but my traitorous body reacts anyway.

Forty-five minutes and two orgasms later, I drift off, thinking I might need to say no more often, just to get him to change my mind.

Chapter twenty-eight