Happily Ever Afton (18 page)

Afton entered the room almost shyly, freshly showered, without a speck of makeup and Cooper’s breath whooshed out of him as though by a physical punch to the stomach as he stared at her – thinking that he had
never
seen her look more beautiful.

Never seen anyone look more beautiful.

Ever
.

Her fresh-scrubbed natural beauty was highlighted by skin glowing a honey brown, the enchanting sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her upturned nose making her look about sixteen years old. But the full luscious curves beneath a simple thigh-length white-eyelet peasant dress, made it very clear she was all woman. She might have been the
first
woman ever – a modern day Eve.

And just as tempting Cooper thought, swallowing a lump in his suddenly parched throat that not even the ice-cold beer could wash away. Her feet were bare and her lips were also, their natural pinkish hue a more appealing shade than any factory-manufactured lipstick could possibly hope to achieve. Her hair was still slightly damp from her shower with silken chestnut tendrils curling along the back of her long swanlike neck and around delicately scrolled ears.

Dayna and Caitlin observed their brother’s rapt expression and exchanged a smiling look behind his back that seemed to say –
bet he won’t be a bachelor too much longer
!

‘Hey, Afton! You look great,’ Dayna called out, ‘come on in and join us.’

‘Yes, you certainly do!’ Caitlin echoed. ‘My goodness, I am going to have to
give
you that dress. It certainly never looked that good on me – not since way before my pregnancies that is!’

‘I’ll say!’ Jonathan agreed mouth open in admiration, flushing darkly when his wife reached over to playfully swat him on the arm.

Cooper jumped up coming out of his daze, hastily dragging a tan chrome-and-leather chair over near the couch where he sat, which Afton sank into with quiet thanks. He resumed his position and they all discussed the latest world news – or maybe it was the weather for the next quarter of an hour. Cooper wasn’t sure what was said, only made the appropriate murmured agreements when they seemed to be called for – but all his attention was devoted to Afton.

Making sure her glass was always full, offering her up food – or a napkin, inquiring if the room was cool enough for her or if he should adjust the air.

The sharp eyes of his sister picked up on all of this – and also on Afton’s responses as well. The way her eyes lingered on Cooper’s face when he was talking to someone else, the way her breathing seemed to increase and become more labored when for a brief moment he brushed against her to let Jonathan pass by him on his way to the kitchen. The way she laughed the hardest at his jokes and comments.

These two are fools if they can’t see they’re perfect for each other
!

Dayna frowned. Could be they needed a little push – which she
just
might be able to arrange, she thought with a hidden smile.

There was the sound of a loud boom followed by a bright flash of color outside the dark windows. The twins jumped up from where they had been lying stretched out on their stomachs on the rug watching a cartoon their father had flipped on for them on television after the game ended.

‘
Fireworks!
’ they screamed out in unison. ‘Is it time, Uncle Cooper?’

‘Yep, I do believe it’s time.’ Cooper finally agreed after their one hundredth or so query.

The excited, jumping up and down twins trailed by the more contained, but equally excited adults all made their way out to the limestone terrace designed so it almost seemed to jut out over the tranquil lake below where fireworks were now being sent up from the deck of a boat anchored not far away.

‘
Oooh, look at that one – and that one over there
!’

Afton watched the show in the star-ripped sky with an arm wrapped around each sparkler-wielding twin exclaiming loudly with each boom, all three sitting on the closely manicured green lawn staring up in wonder at the carefully timed bursts of lights and explosions flowering out in a myriad of designs and colors above them.

Cooper sat not far behind them in a deck chair on the terrace. While all eyes were on the heavens, his remained rooted on Afton – for nothing manmade could possibly
ever
match the excitement he felt when he looked at her.

The fireworks show ended a while later and the twins leapt up, each tugging on one of Afton’s hands. ‘Miss Afton’s going to sleep up in the tree house with us!’ they crooned in ecstatic glee.

‘No moppets,’ Dayna laughed from where she was lazily stretched out on a chaise lounge on the terrace, ‘Miss Afton is certainly
not
going to sleep on the hard floor up in a tree with you!’

‘But she promised!’ one of the twins pouted, lower lip stuck out mutinously.

‘Afton,’ Dayna said with a sympathetic smile, ‘I know just how persistent these two little monsters can be, trust me – you do
not
have to keep this promise. They’ll get over it.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Afton’s grin was wide, ‘this is the invitation I’ve waited my whole life for! My mother was too overprotective when I was little so I never got to go to any sleepovers. I’m going to make up for it tonight!’

The twins cheered in unison and hugged Afton’s waist tightly. Both seemed clearly relieved there would be an adult handy just in case that headless zombie did decide to make an appearance that night.

Cooper smiled at Afton, ‘I’ve aired out the sleeping bag and found you a flashlight – I’ll just bring everything down to the tree house for you,’ he said about to turn away to retrieve the items.

‘No, Uncle Cooper!’ a small redhead with hands firmly planted on non-existent hips issued a strict decree. ‘No boys allowed – we don’t want any boys with us – it’s girls only tonight!’ she huffed in a sentiment that, sadly for her parents, would only last another ten years or so.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle,’ Cooper bowed down to her with a grin on his face. He scooped up the comfy goose down-filled sleeping bag, tote bag filled with a thermos, pink pajamas and other girly essentials plus a powerful flashlight from a nearby chair and doled them out to Afton and to each twin.

‘Here you go then, ladies – and remember to hold on to your heads…’ he lowered his voice to a low whispery croak, ‘so the headless zombie doesn’t
steal
them…’

The twins screamed in excited terror, and they all three held hands and raced down the green grass to the miniature house set in the branches of the towering tree far in the distance. The adults left behind could see the soft glow from the flashlight and hear the frequent bursts of giggles and laughter from where they sat talking quietly on the terrace for the next hour, until the light suddenly flickered out in the small house in the trees and all sounds ceased from below.

Cooper’s conversation became more and more distracted, his glance frequently darting down to where Afton was located. Dayna watched him with a knowing smile. Finally, she nudged her husband with her foot, making covert motions with her hands that he easily understood after over ten years of a marriage filled with such silent conversations.

Michael coughed to attract Cooper’s attention and made a show of looking down at his watch, ‘eleven thirty – and all is quiet below. Looks like they didn’t quite make it until midnight,’ he grinned.

Dayna rose from her chair, her hand covering a theatrical yawn, ‘I’m knocked out too – would you go down and get them, Michael – while I go get their beds ready?’

Michael headed down the hill and Caitlin got up from her chair pulling her husband up along with her, ‘we’re going to turn in too. I need to give the baby another bottle now anyway and check on Victoria – and poor Jonathan is practically asleep on his feet after our late nights changing diapers, aren’t you, honey?’

He nodded agreement with a huge yawn. ‘Goodnight, we’ll see you all in the morning,’ a sleepy-eyed Jonathan said as they disappeared back into the house through the sliding glass walls.

Satisfied that nature should now take its course between her brother and Afton, Dayna turned to follow in after them – but nature it seemed had other plans.

Boom
!

Dayna turned from the doorway with a puzzled look on her face, ‘was that more fireworks this late?’

Cooper looked up, his gaze searching the black night sky being lit in intermittent flashes by white streaks of lightning. ‘Nope. I do believe that was thunder. I think Mother Nature is about to put on a little show of her own. I was hoping it would miss us, but at least it held off for the fireworks earlier.’

He called to his brother in law, ‘Michael, wait up! I’ll help you bring the twins in and get Afton to take her home – looks like we’re about to have quite a storm.’

Cooper and his brother-in-law made their way down the slight slope of the lawn with the aid of the high beam of a flashlight, hurrying to try to beat the rain. Michael climbed up the sturdy wooden ladder that lead to the silent tree house and peered in the darkened windows, twisting his head over his shoulder to report, ‘they’re all three knocked out and sleeping like babies.’

He poked his shoulders through the small door and reemerged with a heavily sleeping twin in cartoon-covered pajamas cradled against each shoulder, starting carefully down the ladder just as another loud boom of thunder cracked apart the sky above.

‘Here,’ Cooper extended his arms when he reached the bottom step, ‘let me take one of them for you,’ he offered. ‘The rain’s just about to start.’

‘Nah, that’s okay, Coop,’ with a touching smile, Michael looked lovingly down at the ruffled auburn heads that matched his exactly. ‘They’re not heavy at all, here you keep this flashlight for you and Afton and I’ll take the other one,’ and with that, he made his way back up the hill to the main house with his precious cargo held securely in his arms.

Cooper watched them go, feeling a tug at his heart for something he hadn’t even realized he wanted until earlier that day in a coatroom at the country club. He turned back to the tree house and quickly climbed up the ladder looking in through the open door with the aid of the circle of light cast by the flashlight.

Afton lay sleeping peacefully on top of the downy soft sleeping bag that was unzipped and spread out to cover the floor of the tree house entirely. Her hand was beneath her sleep flushed cheek on the pillow and on her head lay a crown of fragrant flowers plucked from his nearby garden by two young girls who had apparently designated Afton their new fun, fearless ‘Queen’ declared the scribbled likeness of her on the crayon drawing lying beside her.

Cooper gazed in at her for long, long moments, his face absorbed until the heavens opened up and rain began to fall outside. He quickly squeezed inside closing the door securely behind him of the miniature house designed for two small girls that was just big enough for him to spread out his six-foot plus frame if he laid down flat, with only a few inches to spare if he stood.

Switching the flashlight to its lowest beam, he knelt down beside the sleeping beauty on the floor gently shaking her shoulder. ‘Afton.’

She stirred, her eyes opening with lovely dreams still visible in their depths in the dim glow.
‘Cooper,’
she whispered with a smile in her voice that turned his insides to jelly until he saw the moment when memory returned, her face clouding, the look of rapturous joy quickly erased.

She sat up abruptly. ‘Where are the twins?’ she asked as the rain began a steady
rat a tat tat
against the windows of the house.

‘Michael took them inside just before the rain started,’ he said softly. ‘We can make a run for it too, but I think we’d be better off and much drier if we wait it out here. It shouldn’t last long and this tree house is completely weatherproof and won’t let in a drop of water.’

‘That’s fine,’ she agreed in a soft murmur after a moment’s hesitation.

‘So did you have fun out here tonight?’ Cooper asked to break the heavy blanket of silence that had fallen over them.

‘Oh yes,’ Afton replied with a quiet laugh, ‘we ate cookies with lemonade, and told spooky ghost stories, then we painted our finger and toenails – and we even did each other’s hair.’

‘I can see that,’ Cooper said huskily, reaching out a hand to straighten the lopsided floral wreath of colorful roses, daisies and wildflowers perched on her silky brown head.

Afton blushed in a beautiful bloom of color rivaling the flowers, ‘I forgot I was wearing this silly thing,’ her hand rose to remove it but Cooper captured her wrist.

‘
No, leave it!
’ he whispered urgently, his voice uneven. Her gaze clung to his and he pulled her towards him until his lips were just a whisper away from hers.

‘Afton!’ Cooper groaned her name and then the storm truly broke as booming thunder sounded and her arms went with frantic haste around his neck. His mouth claimed hers in a cataclysmic reconnection that made them both shudder and tremble at its powerful strength.

As the elements raged outside the tiny house perched in the swaying branches, they rode out the storm in each other’s arms, the thunder and lightning not nearly as dramatic or awe inspiring as the pleasure they took from and gave to each other that rainy night. Her petal-soft lips found him sending him rocketing to the moon like the screeching bottle rockets released earlier at the breath-stealing sensation of being completely engulfed in the moist warmth of her mouth.

Her stroking tongue tormented Cooper to near insanity. His head tossed restlessly back and forth on the pillow, fists clutching handfuls of the sleeping bag before he roughly pulled her away, lifting her astride his taut hardened thighs. His hands gripped her hips tightly as Afton glided over him in a languorous, sensually rhythmic motion that made him moan out her name over and over.

‘Afton – open your eyes. I want to be able to
see
and
feel
your pleasure,’ Cooper muttered hoarsely, staring up at her with blistering eyes in the soft glow of light as she obeyed. He turned his head on the pillow to watch the erotic flickering shadows she cast on the walls when her eyes closed again tightly as she began to move faster nearing the plateau of pleasure, her long neck arched, hands spread flat against his damply muscled chest.