CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Siena woke with a start, surrounded by fire and smoke. “Gennie!” she screamed, and then coughing took her over. Something caught her, tried to pull her into the fire, and she fought to get free.
“Easy, easy,” a soft, low voice said, coming from the thing that had her clamped down. “She’s okay. You’re okay.”
Cooper. He was holding her. She was ... in bed with him.
Oh thank GOD, the fire had only been a dream. She turned and threw herself into Cooper’s embrace. “I had the worst dream!”
“You’re safe, baby. I’m here,” Cooper said, stroking her hair.
Her voice didn’t sound right. Her throat hurt. She cleared it, and then started coughing again. He held her through the jag, stroking her.
Blinking—her eyes itched—she peeked over Cooper’s shoulder and saw they weren’t in her bedroom or his.
His office. The fold-out sofa. The clubhouse. The fire hadn’t been only a dream.
“Oh no,” she moaned and buried her face against his neck. “Oh god.”
“Everything’s gonna be alright, babe.” His voice was a soothing rumble against her cheek.
But she couldn’t be soothed by gentle words or a soft voice. How could anything be alright? They’d losteverything.
No, they hadn’t. Geneva was safe.Shewas safe. And she was in Cooper’s arms right now. Not long ago, she hadn’t had him, had never thought to have anything like this. But now he was holding her, comforting her after one of the worst nights of her life. She and Geneva had had a place to go because of him.
Cooper was the only safe place in the world.
Siena tucked herself even more closely to him, wrapping her arms around him, twisting her legs with his. She needed to be surrounded by him. She wanted to bury herself inside him and never come out.
Every move she made to get closer, he answered by holding her more tightly, as if he, too, needed to be as close as they possibly could be.
She felt him grow hard against her leg, and Siena knew what would soothe her. She needed him to give her the thing she’d thought she’d lost forever, the thing he’d helped her reclaim. She needed him to make her feel good. To make her feel whole.
Still wound as tightly with him as she could get, she shifted her arm down, snaking between their bodies, and slipped her hand into his boxer briefs to take hold of his cock. Perfect thickness, perfect length, perfect shape. Justperfect.
He flinched and grunted, pulling back a bit and grabbing her hand over his underwear, stilling her. “Hey, no.”
“Yes. Please.” She shook his hand away and took hold of him again.
He put his hand right back. “Baby, stop.”
She stopped and leaned back to meet his eyes. He was frowning.
“You don’t want to?”
His frown deepened. “It’s not that. I always want to. But we shouldn’t. You were in the hospital a few hours ago.”
“The ER. I didn’t need to stay.”