Page 3 of Rebels and Roses

The words had slipped out. He hadn’t meant to say them out loud. It didn’t matter if she was angry or not. He had to go. She had left him plenty of times. It hadn’t been a big deal.

Another eye roll.

“No, do you think my delicate feelings are hurt, Coop? It’s fine. I need to lay off the pizza anyway. Plus, I have some things I need to do at home. Don’t get all weird on me. We don’t have any expectations of one another, and we both like it that way. It’s easier without all those messy feelings gumming up the works.”

Amen to that.

“I’m not getting weird. You just had a funny look on your face. Like maybe you were upset or mad.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Good. We don’t want that.”

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Jane hesitated at the doorway. She usually would sneak down the backstairs at the end of the hall so no one would see her. They’d both decided that Winslow Heights didn’t need to know they were sweating up the sheets together.

“Good luck,” Jane said. “I hope it’s not anything terrible.”

If Fiona was here, it probably wasn’t good news.

“I hope so, too.”

He almost said that he’d tell her about it later, but he stopped himself before the words tumbled out. While Jane was easy to talk to, and he knew he could trust her with a secret - he wasn’t sure he wanted to speak toanyoneabout Fiona.

“So…I guess I’ll see you around.”

“We’ll get together soon,” he replied. “Maybe tomorrow or the next night. If Zack isn’t here.”

It was summer vacation, and Jane only had one class - her last class before she graduated. He and Zack, however, were busy renovating the movie theater so his older brother was around when he wasn’t with his girlfriend Lucy.

“Sure,” she said, swinging open the door. “I have an exam coming up, too. I’ll need to spend an evening studying for it.”

Jane was working on her degree in finance and accounting. She was a straight A student, and she probably didn’t need to crack a book. She was naturally intelligent, and numbers seemed to come easily to her.

She turned and left, leaving him standing in the middle of his living room, phone in hand. He quickly tapped out a message before ducking into the bathroom to clean up a bit.

Give me ten minutes.

He had to admit that he was curious as hell as to why Fiona was here. The fact was, he’d thought he’d never see her again in his lifetime. She’d been more than adamant about that the last time they’d spoken.

This…was going to be interesting, if nothing else. It might also be a terrible idea. But how could he say no when she’d flown to his dinky little town to talk to him?

Jane didn’t carethat Cooper’s ex was in town. It didn’t have anything to do with her anyway. They weren’t a couple. They didn’t have “feelings” for one another. They had sex.

Raunchy, sweaty, earth-shattering sex that ought to be illegal. She didn’t know the exact laws of other countries, but she had a feeling it actuallywasillegal in a few of them.

She hadn’t had a bunch of lovers in her life; in fact, only four before him, but Cooper was the best of the lackluster bunch by far. It wasn’t even a contest. He won hands down by a wide margin. The three guys before her ex-husband got a pass, however, because they’d been fairly young and inexperienced. She hadn’t really known what she was doing either, to be honest.

Her ex-husband Peter had supposedly been a “man of the world”, and frankly, he could have done a hell of a lot better. He hadn’t cared much about her pleasure, concentrating on his own.

Cooper, on the other hand, wasn’t satisfied unless she was clawing at the sheets and practically screaming his name. Not that she was a screamer. She wasn’t. If anything, she liked to keep quiet, but he was always trying to get her to let go and be more vocal.

Let go. Relax. If it isn’t a little dirty, honey, it isn’t fun.

She’d been a bundle of nerves their second time together. The first didn’t count because they’d gone at each other like wild animals, releasing all that pent-up sexual frustration that they’d been bottling for months. There hadn’t been any time to be awkward or worried until afterward when her panties had been down around her ankles, and her makeup all smudged with sweat. He’d fucked her against a wall in his apartment, both ofthem grunting as their damp flesh lewdly slapped together. It was the kind of sex you didn’t tell your mom about.

It was then that she’d realized what they’d done.

And she wasn’t a bit sorry about it. It was finally the time in her life to have some fun.

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