Page 131 of Play the Game
Cooper is sitting on the couch wearing plaid pajama pants, his glasses, and no shirt. Emmy is tucked into the crook of his arm, staring up at him while he gives her a bottle. His dark hair is sleep rumpled, his jaw lightly shadowed in the dim morning light, and the way he’s looking at our girl has my heart leaping into my throat.
I must make some sort of sound because he looks over, his face lighting up when he sees me.
“Room for one more?” I ask with a smile.
“Literally always. Get the fuck over here and kiss me, Rhodes. I need those lips on mine.”
Walking over, I take a seat on the couch, tucking myself under the arm Cooper lifts up and wraps around me, tipping my face up to kiss him.
“You taste good,” he murmurs against my lips, diving in to kiss me deeper. “Mine. You taste like mine.” When he eases back and readjusts Emmy in his arm, I grab a blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over us both, then lay my head on his shoulder.
“I like it when you’re possessive in the morning,” I say with a smile, my fingers drifting over his chest.
“I’m always possessive over you.” He bends and kisses the top of my head. “I thought you would sleep longer. You were up late last night.”
“Texts from the girls woke me up. Apparently, there’s a whole plan for my last week of maternity leave before I start at Pierre next Monday.”
I feel a little rush of excitement at the thought of starting my new job. I thought maybe I would be conflicted about leaving Emmy, but I’m not. Not really. Cooper officially resigned from the firm and is taking another two months at home with Emmy before he joins me at Pierre, and Cece and Pam volunteered forbabysitting duty when we’re both back at work. Emmy is lucky to have so many people who love her, and I know going back to work is going to make me a better mom to her.
That’s one of the many things I’ve learned over the last four months.
I contain multitudes, and it’s okay to carve out time and space for all the different parts of me. It turns out I really like who I am when I’m surrounded by the people who make me feel most like myself.
“Oh, I know all about it,” Cooper says, smile in his voice. “They’ve been planning this for weeks.”
I frown at the conspiratorial tone in his voice. “What, exactly, are they planning?”
Cooper shakes his head. “Nope, my lips are sealed. Hannah made me swear, and she’s scary when she gets mad.”
I tip my head up, narrowing my eyes at him. “Wimp.”
Cooper grins and sets the empty bottle on the coffee table, lifting Emmy up to burp her. “Bet your ass, Rhodes.” Stretching his leg out, he hooks his foot around Emmy’s bouncy seat and drags it closer, leaning over to set her down in it, buckling her in before lifting me up and sitting me on his lap, pulling me into his chest and wrapping my blanket tightly around me. Tipping my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, he brings his lips to mine.
I should be used to the fireworks that explode behind my eyes when Cooper kisses me. The way my stomach swoops and swirls as his tongue tangles with mine, letting out that sexy little whimper that makes me feel like the most desirable woman in the world, his free arm wrapping around my back to tug me even closer. Breaking the kiss, he drifts his lips over my jaw and down my neck, nipping and sucking and making my blood heat in a way that is probably inappropriate with an infant sitting two feet away, eyes wide open.
“Fuck,” Cooper mutters, flicking his tongue over my pulse and groaning when I gasp. “When’s nap time again?”
I chuckle, leaning my head back to look at him, drifting my fingers over his stubbled jaw, down his neck, my eyes locked on his. Cooper shirtless in glasses doing parenting things is the sexiest fucking thing in the world, and I really thought I was immune to thepartner is hotter when parentingthing.
I was wrong. It’s like the most epic competence kink come to life.
“Probably like an hour.”
Cooper leans down and kisses my neck, his eyes dark with lust when he looks back up at me. “You better not have any naptime plans, Rhodes, because I’m spreading you out over our bed and fucking you until you can’t remember your own name.”
I smirk at him. “Bet I’ll remember yours though.”
His eyes flash. “Oh, you’ll remember it, because you’re going to scream it. Actually, you’ll say it at a respectable volume that won’t wake the baby. But you’ll definitely be screaming it in your head.”
I laugh. “When has anything between us ever been respectable?”
Cooper smirks at me. “I don’t know. That thing I did yesterday where I had my tongue in your ass and my fingers in your cunt was pretty respectable.”
“I love you.” I blurt out the words before I realize I’m speaking. Shifting to straddle him, my knees on either side of his legs and my eyes on his, I barrel ahead. “I love you so fucking much. I think maybe I haven’t told you that enough over the past four months. Everything sometimes still feels crazy, and I still have no idea what I’m doing half the time, but I feel okay about that because I get to do it with you. I never thought much about falling in love. I think maybe I thought it wasn’t in the cards for me. But then we decided not to hate each other, and now I have this whole huge family I love, and the most perfect baby, and I get to go to sleep and wake up with you, and sometimes I still can’t believe that all of this is real. It’s like the life of my dreams, but I didn’t realize I had dreamed it until I met you. Or, youknow, until I got pregnant and you supplied me with bagels and all the cherry things and held onto me when I was scared and made me laugh and made me think and made me realize that it really was you all along.”
“Oh, baby,” Cooper murmurs, stroking a hand down my face, resting it on the side of my neck, his eyes burning into mine. “You are the best part of my life and the very best thing ever to happen to me.”
Emmy chooses that moment to let out a gurgling screech and we both laugh, looking over at her, blonde hair sticking up everywhere and blue eyes sparkling with what I swear is humor as she studies us.
