Page 16 of Cooper’s Promise

“Kiss me before we leave.”

“Brenna, I don’t think-”

“You’ve been doing too much thinking. For some reason you didn’t agree with me when I said you were gorgeous. You are to me. And I want you to kiss me.”

It took both hands to circle his bicep and force him around to look at her.

“There’s only one hottie in this room, and it sure as hell isn’t me,” he said with a rakish grin. His moment of self-consciousness seemed to be behind him. But Brenna knew what she had seen. Even in heels she had to reach up to cup his cheeks.

“I want my kiss,” she whispered.

He covered her hands with his, and twined them around his neck as he swooped in to take her mouth. This was not the sweet seduction that she had experienced before with Cooper. No, he was a warrior, intent on claiming his prize.

His tongue thrust between her lips, and she melted. Thank God his strong arms were there to hold her up as his flavor exploded through her very being. He filled her senses, and she was dizzy with Cooper’s power as he bit and licked at her mouth, again and again, kiss after kiss. His arms pressed their bodies together, so that she yielded against every hard plane.

He moved, and she felt the door against her back, her feet up off the floor. She wound her legs around his waist. He was surrounding her, and she couldn’t get close enough to him. His warmth and scent enveloped her in a cocoon of safety and pleasure. She thrust against his erection, and he lifted his head.

“Brenna.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Brenna,” he said again.

“Right here,” she sighed, digging her heels into his ass.

He clutched her ass with one hand, and with the other he began to gently extricate himself from her hold. She whimpered.

“Honey, not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I promised myself we would take this slow.” He stroked his hand up and down the length of her upper leg, until she final dropped it back down onto the floor. Soon she was standing back up. “God, you’re beautiful. Leaving this apartment has to get me sainthood.”

“It wasn’t my idea.” She gave him a shaky smile from under her lashes. He really was handsome. She had never realized that he was upset about the scar he had received in combat. To her mind, it only accented his masculinity. Never once had she thought he was anything other than the sexiest man alive.

Bending down, Cooper picked up her purse and handed it to her. Then he unlocked the door, and opened it to usher her outside. She got out her key to lock the door, but he took them from her and locked it and pocketed the keys.

“Hey, those are mine.”

“I’ll give them back. But I’m a Southern gentleman and I’m going to unlock your door when we get back tonight, so I might as well hold on to them.”

Damn right, he was Southern. His accent was just one more thing that had attracted her from the start. Every man had paled in comparison to Cooper Laughlin.

“Where are we going?” she asked, as he guided her towards his truck.

He named a seafood restaurant that overlooked Tampa Bay. The drive went quickly, as he asked her questions about her time in the Everglades.

“You’d really been listening to me all those nights when I had babbled on about my senior year project,” Brenna laughed.

“You were so excited. It was infectious,” Cooper said, as he walked her into the elegant restaurant. They were soon seated.

“Cooper, you hardly ever talk about your job. Why is that?”

“On a lot of my assignments I sign a non-disclosure agreement with the clients. Then, there are others that just seem kind of grim, and I don’t want to burden you with them.”

“What do you mean? I understand about the NDA’s, but what do you mean about some of them being grim?” Brenna asked as she took a bite of her white fish.

She watched as Cooper cut off another bite of his steak and bit into it. It was obvious he was thinking about the best way to answer her question. She hoped that he wasn’t planning on lying to her.

“A couple of us went down to Brazil because a banker’s wife had been kidnapped. He had been told not to bring in any outside assistance, just pay the ransom. But he knew that the last three kidnappings, the victim had ended up dead. So he called Grey.”

“Grey is in charge of the Omega Team, right?”