He gazed down at her doubtfully, but her face was guileless. Abruptly he asked, “How many?”
“How indelicate!”
“How many?”
Rusty wrestled with her decision to tell him. Finally, eyes evasive, she said quietly, “Less than I could count on one hand.”
“In a year?”
“Total.”
Cooper stared down at her, searching for any trace of duplicity in her eyes. God, he wanted to believe her, but couldn’t. His probing caress was telling him what his mind wasn’t ready to accept, what he should have known the moment he entered her, but couldn’t reconcile with his image of her.
“Less than five?”
“Yes.”
“Less than three?” She looked away. “Just one?” She nodded. His heart did an odd little dance, and the emotion that surged through him felt like happiness. But he’d known so little of it, he couldn’t be sure. “And you didn’t live with him, did you, Rusty??
??
“No.” She tossed her head to one side and bit her lower lip at his thumb’s indolent stroking. The callused pad of it had been gifted with a magical and intuitive touch that paid honor to a woman’s body.
“Why not?”
“My father and brother wouldn’t have approved.”
“Does everything you do have to meet with your father’s approval?”
“Yes... No... I... I... Cooper, please stop,” she gasped breathlessly. “I can’t think while you’re doing that.”
“So don’t think.”
“But I don’t want to...to, you know...oh, please... no...”
After the last shimmering beam of light had finally burned out, she opened her eyes and met his teasing smile. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She discovered that she had just enough energy to answer his smile and reach up and touch his mustache with her fingertips. “I didn’t want to do that so soon. I wanted to look at you some more.”
“I guess that ends the discussion of you and your father.”
Her brows drew into a frown. “It’s very complex, Cooper. He was devastated when Jeff was killed. So was I. Jeff was...” She searched for the all-encompassing word. “He was wonderful. He could do everything.”
Cooper brushed her lips with his mustache. “Not everything,” he said mysteriously. “He couldn’t—” He bent down and whispered what Jeff couldn’t do with him, using a street word that brought color rising all the way to Rusty’s hairline. But she blushed with pleasure, not with affront. “So, see? There’s no reason for you to feel inferior to your brother.”
Before she could expound on the subject, he sealed her lips closed with an arousing, eating kiss. “Now, what was that about looking at me?”
Her breath was insufficient. She drew in a deep, long one before saying, “I haven’t looked my fill.” Her eyes, shining as brightly as copper pennies, roved down his chest. She lifted her hand to touch him, glanced up at him as though asking permission, then laid her fingers against the springy hair.
“Go on, coward. I don’t bite.” The glance she gave him was eloquently sensual. He laughed. “Touché. I do. But not all the time.” He leaned down and whispered, “Only when I’m buried inside the sweetest silk I’ve ever found between two thighs.”
While she explored, he nibbled her ear and took love bites out of her neck. When her fingers flitted across his nipple, he sucked in a sharp breath. She jerked her hand back quickly. He recaptured it and pressed it back against his chest.
“That wasn’t alarming or painful,” he explained in a hoarse, thick voice. “It’s like connecting two live wires. I wasn’t prepared for the shock. Do it again. All you want.”
She did. And more. She dallied with him until his breath became choppy. “Something else needs your attention, but we’d better not,” he said, catching her hand on its downward slide. “Not if we want to take this one slow and easy.”
“Let me touch you.”