CupidsChoice Read Free Page A

so it shone up the wall
between them. In the light she could seen his mouth pull back in a sympathetic
grimace. “Yes, I think that might cure me of being able to drive in bad weather
as well.”
    “Well, I’ve been freaked out by storms all my life. I
remember lying in bed at night when I was little, crying because I was sure
lightning was going to come right through my bedroom window and zap me dead,
but too paralyzed to go to my parents’ room and crawl into bed with them.”
    His grimace turned to a smile. “How’s your mom’s leg now?”
    “She has a prosthetic from the knee down.” She smiled,
thinking of her mother. “The woman is crazy. She has one that’s shaped like a
real leg so she can wear shoes, but she loves to go shopping in the
bionic-looking one she wears for running. She tells everyone she got into a
fight with a bear when she catches them staring, and she always finishes the
story with a wink and says, ‘You should see what I did to the bear’.”
    He laughed then. She kind of liked the sound.
    She shook her head, reminding herself that one random act of
kindness did not wipe out the history she and Cooper Bennett shared. Bree’s
life remained unchanged, but her friend still could not get a job as a nurse
because of him.
    “Your mom sounds like a tough one.”
    She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs.
“She has the most positive outlook on life. She loses her leg and sees it as a
new way to strike up conversation with people.”
    And Bree ended up with a phobia so bad she could hardly
function the moment a cloud rolled over the sun. How she handled the trauma she
dealt with on a nightly basis at work was a mystery some of the most educated
shrinks she’d spoken with couldn’t solve.
    A prolonged flash of light lit the basement through the
high, narrow windows around the foundation. She tensed, wrapped her head in her
arms and swallowed a scream as a gust of wind made the house creak and shudder
above them. There was a long, ear-splitting cracking followed by something huge
and heavy hitting the ground outside.
    She didn’t realize he’d moved closer until she could feel
his warm breath on the side of her face and hear his voice, soft-spoken and
deep, close to her ear. It didn’t matter what he was saying, only that he was
talking and he’d wrapped an arm around her back.
    She didn’t protest, found she wanted it even, when he
slipped an arm under her legs and pulled her onto his lap. She choked back the
last shred of her pride, wrapped her arms around the solid strength of his body
and buried her face in his neck. He smelled amazing—clean and just a little
piney—and the feel of the deep vibration of his voice in his chest was soothing
as he continued to speak to her.
    It had to be the adrenaline coursing through her veins,
building on itself with every shock she’d experienced throughout the night,
that was causing her body to react to him the way it was reacting. She wanted
to slide her hands under the hem of his shirt and feel the skin of his strong
back. She wanted to tip her face upward and touch her lips to his neck, feel
his cheek brush against hers as he turned his head for a kiss.
    She tried not to squirm against his thighs, but she was
getting warmer by the second. The rhythm of the tight contract and expand of
his stomach and chest against her body was hypnotic. It didn’t help she could
feel the beginning of a stunning erection against her hip.
    How many conversations had she had with Rachel and Petra
about sex during stormy weather? She’d thought they were crazy at the time,
because seriously, was that how they wanted to be found when the house came
down around them—naked and skewered together by cock and roof beam?
    But as Cooper Bennett held her in his arms, talking about
God knew what because she still wasn’t paying attention, she could see the
appeal. And fear and arousal were pretty much the same thing when it came right
down to it,