Inside Out (14 page)

“No pressure or anything.”

Ella figured something was up when Cope went out to see his brother, but she wanted to check in on Erin anyway.

She loved this place. Beyond the initial
Oh my god this place is huge
impression, it was a home. A home Erin had built with not just one man, but two. It had been an unusual situation, but the longer Ella had known the three, the more sure she was that it was quite simply perfect for them. She’d rarely seen such love and commitment between two people, much less three.

“I can’t believe you were here in the building and weren’t going to come say hello to me. Todd, baby, can you please get Ella some tea?” Erin looked back to Ella. “Just made a pot of some calming blend crap I have to drink instead of coffee.”

“We were just finishing up when you called. I figured you’d be resting or busy.”

“
Pfft
. All I do lately is rest. Sit, sit. How are you?”

Ella sat, and Todd put a mug of tea at her elbow, squeezing her shoulder before he moved back to Erin’s side. “Thanks. I’m good. Just had a workout with Cope. Started Christmas shopping yesterday. Thinking about a trip to see Mick this summer for a week. You?”

“Christmas shopping in mid-October? Show-off!” Erin winked. “It’s all good. I miss you at the café already, and you’re not even totally gone yet. Things are fine, so get that worried look off your face. You are meant for other things, and it’s not like we won’t see each other since you’ll be able to have a social life now that the balance is in favor of your other job.”

Ella worried about leaving the café as Erin’s pregnancy neared its end. But the guy taking over was good, had worked at the café nearly as long as Ella had and he cared about the place and their customers.

Erin was right. It was time. Even if taking that step did scare her. She smiled at Erin, noting how her friend’s face had rounded as she passed into her eighth month. Ella thought it looked good on her but also that she looked tired.

“Of course we’ll still see each other. My new office isn’t even three miles from here. It’s not like I’m going to disappear. You’re stuck with me.”

They chatted for several more minutes, Erin showing pictures from the most recent ultrasound, talking about the baby’s room and other gloriously mundane things.

“It feels like forever since we’ve just hung out like this. Only this time we get the hot guy to bring us tea and baked goods.” Erin smiled up at Todd, who kissed her quickly.

“We’ve all been so busy. It’ll be better soon. I hope. We just need to carve out the time.”

“Starting Friday.” Cope strolled into the room and sat at the table, sneaking a cookie from the plate. “Ella’s coming to pizza, pool and beer with me.”

Erin’s eyes lit, and a smile of a different type marked her lips. Ella wanted to laugh. Truth was, she still felt pretty giddy about it herself. Ella had to admit she loved the way he’d verbally underscored the
with me
part.

“Hey, Ben.” Ella knew something was up with him. He usually had a smile on, an easygoing walk. Just then she could see the stress around his eyes.

But he smiled at her, genuinely, dropping to kiss her cheek before settling on the nearby counter. “Hey, Ella. I was just telling Cope I was glad we’d get to see you more often outside the café.”

Not that she’d comment, but he was talking about her to his brother? Part of her way deep inside fluttered and warmed. Fuck that. It was already fluttery and hot from the way Cope had kissed her. Twice. He’d been all manly and in charge. The way he backed her up against stuff, god, it pushed all her buttons in the best kind of way. Still, she needed to focus on that moment with her friends instead of the way she would be totally giving her vibrator a workout when she got home.

Ben was bothered by something. She wanted to follow up and ask him about the sadness in his eyes but worried that it might upset Erin, so she kept it to herself. She’d ask Cope about it when they left.

They stayed another half hour or so until Cope pleaded having to get up early the next day. She hugged Erin tight, urging her to rest, and said she’d see them all at the end of the week if not before.

“You okay?” Cope asked as they walked to her car in the building’s garage.

“Just tired, I guess. Was Ben all right? He looked upset.”

Cope watched her carefully as she peeked into the backseat before unlocking.

“Good. I like seeing that.” He stood at his door until she got in and then followed.

“What?”

“You’re being safe. It’s second nature. You have no idea how many people I work with who don’t even lock their front door, much less check the backseat.”

She stared at him, wondering just when everything between them had deepened. She felt raw and exposed, but she wouldn’t turn back time to what they’d been before, either. This time in her life was dizzyingly confusing in a rather unexpectedly delicious way.

Ducking into the car and starting it gave her a chance to compose herself. “Thanks. I suppose there are things in life you learn the hard way. I’d have preferred to learn this lesson from the hot young stud teaching me self-defense.”

“Hot young stud, huh? Hope we’re both talking about me, or I’ll be all embarrassed.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’ll wait for that moment.”

“Ha. I wish you could have skipped that hard lesson too. To answer your question, it’s the usual stuff. My dad called. Ben’s upset.” He shrugged.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He paused, and she didn’t push. God knew she understood what it meant to have to stay silent on things. But that came at a price, and she hated to think about Cope having to pay it.

“I do. But I can’t. Not now.”

Her heart ached at the sadness in his tone.

“All right. But if you change your mind, you know where I am.”

“I do. It means something to me that you care. That I know you do.” He shrugged, and she felt the emotion behind the words blanket her.

They drove on for a while in comfortable silence until they got to his condo. Once she turned the engine off, the silence drew around them. Just Andrew and Ella. Alone. Butterflies in her belly, nervous and excited all at once. He did something to her, and she liked it.

He smelled incredibly good. Manly and sexy, and how is it that she’d never really noticed how good a man could smell? She hoped he couldn’t see her sniffing at him and think she was a weirdo.

He looked out the window for the longest time, and she unabashedly stared at him, taking that opportunity to do so without him noticing. Truly Andrew Copeland was simply ridiculously handsome. Outrageously so. Strong features, his cheekbones were perfect, his lush lips surrounded by a closely cropped goatee and mustache. His lashes, dark and long, only highlighted the intense blue of his eyes. Add the body, tall, broad, muscled and tattooed and the slow, sexy drawl and you had an irresistible picture. And that didn’t take into account what a fabulous person he was in addition to the way he looked.

Each time she was with him, she learned more; he let her in a bit, and that trust, being a woman who found it hard to give trust herself, meant a lot.

Andrew Copeland was so much more than she’d known before. Complicated. Sensitive. Talented.

He sighed, not in a beleaguered way, but as if he’d come to some sort of internal decision. She fisted the fingers itching to touch his skin. To comfort and to inflame.

“Andrew, thanks for all your help tonight. With the lessons and all. I appreciate it.”

He turned to her, and the breath gusted from her lips at the raw intensity he wore on his features. She swallowed and tried not to gawk. He was so utterly gorgeous he stole her words. And he didn’t look grateful just then. He looked hungry
. For her
.

He took her hand, turning it upward, and pressed a kiss to the heart of her palm, sending a shiver through her.

“You move me, Ella. It’s my pleasure. It’s win-win for me. Keeping you safe and being with you.”

She struggled to keep her composure, leaving her hand in his. “I can’t believe you’re saying all this after all these years.”

“At first you were with someone else. And then you were hurting and had other priorities. I had to wait it out. Wait you out.”

She wanted to cry, wanted to jump on him, wanted to throw her arms around him for understanding and for wanting her anyway. He said things to her, things that burrowed beneath the self-doubt and pain, warming her, making her believe in more than just getting through each day.

All she could do was look at him there, so very close to her, smelling all sexy and stuff, rumpling up her thoughts.

“Damn it, Ella,” he stopped, running his free hand through his hair. He leaned toward her, and she stilled inside, knowing he meant to kiss her. Again.

She closed those few last inches, moving her body to his, the center console keeping her from jumping into his lap. The last thing she saw was the curve of his lips right before he made contact. Her eyes slid closed as the warmth of him blanketed her.

He took it slow, his hands grasping hers instead of holding her body close. Her system lit up like a pinball machine. She’d never been so ridiculously turned on by a kiss. How long had she waited for this? How long had this moment played itself in her fantasies?

Reality was far better than a fantasy.

Cope thought he’d die when he finally touched his mouth to hers, but then she made a soft squeak, moving closer to him, letting go of one of his hands to slide the other up the wall of his chest and up his neck into his . . . she tugged his hair, just enough to let him know she wanted more and wanted him closer. Waves of warmth, of pleasure and desire, rippled outward from his scalp down to his toes, making a long visit to his cock. He was pretty sure his cock was even more excited than the rest of him. It was different because she’d made the first move this time. She’d closed the gap between them in that shy/ bold way she had.

He groaned into her mouth as she opened to him. Her tongue was tentative at first, nearly shy. Her taste, bright and seductive, drove him, along with the curve of her bottom lip, so juicy it called out to be nipped.

So he did, and the sound she made tore at his self-control. So much so that he laved away the sting and began to pull back before things got any hotter. He wanted to take her long and slow, not in a car on a street outside his house.

At the loss of contact, her lids flew up, and the stormy green haze cleared, leaving her expression distressed. He laughed, feeling much the same way.

“I know. But if I don’t stop right now, the police will be called, and I’ll have to explain to an old workmate of mine why I’m necking with a beautiful woman in public.” He rubbed the back of his neck and gave in, leaning toward her to take her lips again.

This time
she
nipped his bottom lip, sucking it into the heat of her mouth, and his cock wanted to burst through the front of his sweats. He’d be masturbating about three seconds after he got through his front door at this rate. Again. His cock would fall off at this rate.

Breath heaving, he pulled back, pressing his body to the seat to keep from lunging at her again. Damn, she tasted so fucking good, like nothing he’d ever imagined before but would be damned without now.

Still, he didn’t want her to think he didn’t want more of her. But he’d not scare her with the realization that he wanted all of her. Not just then. “Tonight has been a very big win in the fantasy-gone-reality column. I’ve wondered what you would kiss like for years. That peck from the dance club wasn’t nearly enough.”

She smiled as she sat back into her seat, the worried look in her eyes fading. “Really?
Me
?”

“Yeah, you.”

“And?”

“Better than I imagined. I’m planning to do more of that on Friday. Just sayin’.” He opened his door and got out before he did anything else. The last place he wanted to feel the glory of her nipple against his palm was in a car after all the drama of the conversation between Ben and their father. And
damn
did he want to feel that.

He bent and looked inside at her and smiled. She returned the gesture, nearly felling him with the look on her face. “Night, Cope. I’ll see you on Friday.”