Taken Read online

  He was appreciative. He always thanked her nicely. But damn if he had ever invited her to share a meal. She had done everything to make certain he was in fit, healthy shape, and he still called her Miss Sarah.

  “The knee is as good as it’s gonna get.” He flashed her that bad-boy smile and her heart raced as though he had actually touched her.

  “I’m glad you’re doing better.”

  He made her feel jittery. He made her feel flushed and hot.

  “I’m doing just fine.” He tilted his head, lifted a hand, and touched two fingers to his forehead in a gesture of farewell before striding to the front door of his house, unlocking it, and moving out of sight.

  Damn.

  She drew in oxygen with a ragged breath, clenched her keys, and forced herself to the car. Hitting the auto door lock, she got into the sweltering confines of the car and started the engine with a hard turn of the key.

  He couldn’t know her fantasies. She kept all her fantasies safely locked away, along with her nightmares.

  He would never know that when she touched herself, she thought of him. That when she thought of being bad, being naughty, she always thought of being naughty with him. He would never know that she had come here because of him. Because of his actions on a dark, shadowed Dallas street and her fascination with the man who her uncle had saved.

  Ethan Cooper had been one of the first people she met when the realty agent showed her the little house. He had been outside, cutting the grass in his front yard, pausing to watch as she drove into the driveway with the Realtor.

  He had smiled and lifted his hand in greeting before going back to his yard work. Shirtless. In jeans and boots. Dark flesh gleaming. Sweat running in narrow rivulets down his back and shoulders. Black hair lying damp along his nape.

  Then he had turned his head back quickly, and grinned and winked at her while the Realtor wasn’t looking, which made her respond as though he had actually touched her.

  She had gotten wet instantly. Hot and wet. And she had practically been panting as she walked up the drive to the little house. As though it had been a sign, that the dreams and fantasies she had woven around him could have a chance.

  He was big, tall, broad, and dangerous-looking. The Realtor said Mr. Cooper was in the military. He had disappeared several weeks later and his house had sat empty, except for the occasional motorcycle-riding, thug-looking type who came, checked over things, and then left.

  A year later, Ethan Cooper had returned limping. She’d heard he’d been wounded in action. She’d watched as he worked out in the enclosed acre he owned behind his house. Weights, push-ups, sit-ups, stretches. God, he had made her crazy that year. She’d nearly killed herself trying to ease the cramp of arousal in her stomach.

  During those months, she’d had a chance to get to know him. When she took him cookies or soup, he always chatted, always laughed with her. And she always came home, desperate to be touched.

  She was tired of masturbating. She was tired of being alone. And she was tired of aching for that tall, broad bar owner with the sexy grin.

  Perhaps it was time to do something about this, she told herself. After all, covert looks and wishing weren’t going to get her anywhere. It was time to do something about it. If she was going to get Ethan Cooper to fall into her bed, then she was going to have to take the initiative.

  chapter 2

  he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Sarah Fox, spread out on the cement by her pool, long heavy ringlets fanned around her head, her curvy body slick and hot and oh so aroused.

  He jacked off to it after he got back in the house. Hell, as if he could help it. The more he thought about it, the harder he got. He hadn’t been so damned hot for a woman in years. Not since his first woman, in fact.

  Who would have thought it? Timid little Miss Sarah.

  He shook his head again before grabbing a beer and heading to his back deck. Sarah’s privacy fence was over seven feet tall and extended around the full half acre of land behind her house. His white wooden fence connected with hers at a corner and extended almost double her area.

  He didn’t have a pool, though. He narrowed his eyes at the backyard and considered it before grinning and lifting the beer to his lips. He’d just end up in trouble. He’d never be able to keep his buddies out of it. It was hard enough keeping them out of his house.

  He grinned, wondering if Miss Sarah would let him use her pool. Maybe while she was tanning herself beneath the hot Texas sun. All ripe and wet.

  He grimaced at the thought of that. Piercings aside, luscious sweet little body aside, Miss Sarah Fox wasn’t for the likes of him.

  He finished his beer before heading into the bathroom to shower and change. Owning one of the roughest bars in the area could get dicey at times. He liked to be there before too late in the evening.

  He was leaving the house, locking the door behind him when Sarah’s compact, boring-looking little sedan pulled into her driveway.

  He felt the hot lick of her gaze for just a second before the car shut off and she was moving from the vehicle. She kept her head down.

  Cooper couldn’t help but watch as she rounded the back of the car and opened the trunk. She pulled out a canvas bag—groceries, he assumed—and strode quickly up the drive to the house.

  Ignoring him.

  “Hello, Miss Sarah,” he called out as she stepped up on her porch and came to a hard stop.

  Her head lifted, eyes widened. “H-hello.” A small smile, not hardly a smile, tipped her lips. Pouty lips. He liked pouty lips.

  Cooper stepped across the drive. There wasn’t much distance that separated their particular houses. The two homes had been built by two sisters, close together. The property extended out behind and beside one side of the houses, bunching them close while other neighbors were kept at a distance.

  Cooper couldn’t even explain why he was pushing this, except he’d already jacked off twice today because of her. He gave her one of his trademark slow smiles and watched the little flush that filled her cheeks.

  She watched him carefully, making no move to unlock the door, holding her keys carefully with one hand, the canvas bag with the other, as though she hadn’t known him for two years. Wary, pausing to be careful. Miss Sarah wasn’t a casual person by any means.

  His eyes almost narrowed. She was in a carefully disguised protective stance. Keys to slash out with, bag to hit out with. Her body was balanced, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Now, why the hell would something that tiny, that damned shy, be on guard against a neighbor?

  “Can I help you, Mr. Cooper?” she asked carefully as he leaned against the side of her house.

  He let his smile widen. “Yes, ma’am, you sure can.” He nodded. “You can tell me why a pretty little thing like you is all alone on a Friday night. There should be a law against it.”

  “I’m sure there should be.” There was the barest hint of cynicism in the look she gave him.

  “Boys around here didn’t used to be so dumb.” He shook his head. “Leaving a pretty girl like you twiddling her thumbs.”

  “I’m into men, Mr. Cooper, not boys,” she told him coolly. “And I’ve been a woman, not a little girl, for a long time now. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  There was no fear in her. None he could detect. Wariness, suspicion, a whole lot of arousal, but not fear.

  “No, ma’am.” He finally shook his head and eased back.

  He wasn’t going there, he decided. There was something about Miss Sarah Fox that had every male instinct inside him rioting. And he wasn’t the man this delicate woman needed. No, Miss Sarah needed a forever kind of guy, and Cooper just wasn’t the forever kind. “Good evening, Miss Sarah.”

  “Mr. Cooper.” Her voice stopped him.

  He turned back to her, his brow arching at the confidence, the sudden look of a woman who sees more than she ever shows the world.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “My name is Sarah. Not Miss Sar
ah. Or Miss Fox if you prefer. But after two years, uncounted plates of cookies, and bowls of soup, I think you can call me by my name.”

  There was no censure in her voice, just quiet command. That quiet command almost had him chuckling. She wasn’t a pushover and she was finally letting him know it.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded back to her. “I’ll see you around.”

  “‘Ma’am’ wasn’t one of the choices,” he heard her mutter as the scrape of the storm door told him she was going into the house.

  It slammed behind her as he stepped into his truck and let a low burst of laughter pass his lips. Damn if she didn’t have spirit. Maybe Miss Sarah wasn’t the timid miss everyone had grown to believe she was since moving here. Seemed to him, she just might have a little fire in her.

  Hell, he knew she had fire. Too much fire for a man to step into without giving it a hell of a lot of thought first. And for a man like Cooper, it took more than just thought on his part. More than just fire on her part.

  Too damned bad. He wouldn’t have minded sharing her bed, her pool, and anything else she wanted to give up to him. For a little while.

  Sarah closed the door to her house and leaned back against it to let out a long, slow breath. Oh Lord, that man was seriously hot. She dropped her keys onto the side table, dropped the bag of groceries to the floor, and waved her hands over her flushed face.

  Those jeans were snug. They cupped his ass. His T-shirt highlighted a six-pack that would make any woman’s eyes bug out. And those arms, serious biceps; that face, rugged and tough. He wasn’t a pretty boy. He looked dangerous and hard and so hot that he made her perspire.

  Damn.

  Just the sound of his voice had her creaming her panties. And that was so not fair, because she still just hadn’t gotten the hang of masturbation. She could get to a certain point, she’d get almost there, but only sometimes did she actually manage to go over.

  She had all the books. And she practiced. There had to be a trick to it. And she really wished she could find that trick, because her neighbor made her so hot she was changing panties several times a day and driving herself crazy with the arousal.

  She picked up her canvas bag, slid off her sandals, and padded barefoot through the house to the large, airy kitchen in the back. There were a lot of windows spaced around the room, making it seem as though the backyard was a part of the room.

  The pool had been the selling point. She loved the pool. She loved the way the sun spilled in the kitchen at dawn and how cozy and warm she felt in the house.

  And it was all hers.

  She put away the milk and eggs, the bag of coffee, the sugar and cream. A pack of cookies and some sweet rolls went on the counter, a carefully wrapped steak went in the fridge, with the wine and a baking potato on the counter.

  Dinner.

  One steak, one potato, one glass of wine, perhaps on the deck.

  She stared out at the deck, bracing her arms on the counter and watching the water in the pool as she frowned and considered her neighbor Ethan Cooper. He’d introduced himself right after she moved in. Told her if she had any problems to let him know. And if any of his friends who came over sometimes bothered her or offended her, then he definitely wanted to know. And he’d been serious.

  His friends weren’t that bad though. They were rough-looking, funny, and always joking with her. She thought perhaps they talked to her more than Ethan had over the years. But they never flirted with her, they never came on to her. She could be everyone’s kid sister for the way they treated her.

  Not that she wanted his friends. She wanted Ethan. But, she glared at the pool, it was enough to make a woman wonder if perhaps she was completely unattractive to the opposite sex.

  She pushed back from the counter, stared at the potato, and sighed again. A meal alone. On a Friday night. She’d lived here for two years and had never really noticed how little other people wanted anything to do with her, until now.

  And she went out every day, she made sure she did, if only to buy her dinner. She was friendly, wasn’t she?

  She was lonely. She trailed her fingers over the wide kitchen island, drifted through the house, and frowned at the odd feeling. She hadn’t been lonely in a very long time. She’d been too busy, too concerned with surviving to worry about loneliness.

  Her hand lifted to her chest as she stopped in the middle of the living room and stared at the floor. She rubbed the scars, almost as though she could feel the horrendous fear and pain that she had felt when they had been made.

  She shook her head. No, she wasn’t thinking about that. She had pushed it to the back of her mind and it was staying there. She had dealt with it. She had survived it. That was all that mattered. Wasn’t it?

  But had she survived it, really? She was still hiding. She was still keeping herself locked in her work as though each minute meant success or failure. And it didn’t. Not anymore.

  She had built a life for herself. In the past two years, she had picked up some great contracts within the business she was in. She didn’t have to worry about going hungry, and she didn’t have to worry about losing her home—her uncle Martin had made certain of that. She never had to worry about that again.

  So why was she standing here like a lost puppy?

  Because she didn’t know how to have fun. She’d been to the bar before, but no one even asked her to dance. She had joined the business club in town, but they only met once a month and they rarely did anything but talk about how small the community was, and how high taxes were, and how the good jobs were closer to Corpus Christi.

  Maybe a small town really was a bad idea. She had thought she would find it easier to fit in here; she hadn’t expected it to be harder.

  It was Friday night. She had a steak and a potato waiting. At least she had a few good books to go with it.

  * * *

  Cooper strode around the bar a week later, his eyes narrowed against the smoke and gloom, watching for drugs more than anything else. He had only a few hard, firm rules in his place. They fought in the parking lot if they wanted to use their fists. No one hit a woman, whether she was a lady or not. And no one, but no one, dealt in his place.

  His bartender, an ex-Ranger like himself, was holding down the bar with the help of one of the local college kids. The boy was a hard worker, eager to learn. There were two other bouncers, ex-Rangers as well, and as hard and tough as any Cooper knew, despite their medical discharges from the service. They were all termed “disabled vets.” But his men were as hard and as efficient as they had ever been in the military. Maybe just not as fast, he thought with a grin.

  The Broken Bar was one of the most popular spots in the area and the only bar. Most weekdays were busy, but the weekends could turn into a madhouse if they weren’t careful.

  The band on the other end of the cavernous building was belting a slow country tune and couples were circling the floor. There was the usual assortment of bikers, college kids, and general barhoppers.

  Motioning to the closest bouncer, he indicated the other man should take his spot as Cooper headed back toward the bar. As he did, he nearly came to a full-blown, hard stop.

  Hell. No, he didn’t need this. Not after seeing her naked, aroused, and unsatisfied.

  There, standing in the doorway like a wary angel, was his intrepid little neighbor. And she wasn’t wearing a dress. Or a skirt. She was wearing jeans that made her legs look like the best wet dream a man could have. Low on the hips, belted over a sleeveless blouse that was buttoned damned near to the neck, and over boots.

  And her hair was down.

  He felt a hard strike of jealousy at the sight of the men whose eyes found her, lusted for her, worshiped those long, wild curls.

  Shit. How the hell was he supposed to get her out of here this time? This was not the place for Miss Sarah.

  Pushing the fingers of one hand through his hair in irritation, he moved toward her, cutting through the room on a diagonal path as she headed for the bar. />
  Didn’t she know the scum she could find in a damn bar? What the hell was she doing here?

  And it should be damned illegal for a woman to move like that in a pair of jeans. Like they were loving every step she took in them. Like they were hugging her shapely little ass with possessive hands.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Hi.” She smiled at his bartender. Jake damned near dropped the bottle of whisky he was holding. “Could I have a whisky, straight?”

  Jake’s brown eyes flickered over her. Yeah, she didn’t look the whisky type.

  “I have some wine coolers back here,” Jake offered. “Fruity ones.”

  Cooper almost laughed at Jake’s floored expression.

  “No.” She shook her head and Cooper caught her expression in the mirror behind the bar. She was one determined lady. “Just the whisky, please.” Then she named her brand. “If you have it?”

  Damned expensive. Oh yeah, they had it.

  Cooper moved to the end of the bar, next to the stool she had snagged, leaned his forearms on it, and stared at her silently as she turned to him, her eyes widening just a little bit.

  “Mr. Cooper.” That little hint of a smile. A little bit of dimple.

  “Just Cooper.” His lips quirked as he stared back at her, watching as her gaze slid to the tattoo curling around his bicep.

  She let her teeth rake over her lip before meeting his eyes again. Jake chose that moment to set the shot of whisky in front of her.

  Cooper arched his brow as she lifted it, sipped as delicately as a lady would a glass of wine, then set the shot glass back on the bar without a grimace.

  “It’s a busy bar.” She looked around. “It’s been like this every time I’ve come. Even during the week.”

  Her voice lifted as she turned away. When she turned back, that little dimple peeked out again. Her smile was careful, as though she didn’t quite know what to do with those pretty lips.

  Cooper lifted his hand and propped his jaw in his palm as he just stared at her.

  She fiddled with the shot glass for a moment, then surprised him when she lifted it and took the half shot back without a single choke or cough. Her lips tightened and he imagined the burn that hit her, his body tightening as her expression took on that relaxed, slightly pleasurable look of a woman relishing the sizzle.