Read Online Embraced by Love by Suzanne Brockmann - Free Book Online Page A

laughed, pulling her back toward him. “That game was over hours ago,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”
    “It was a big enough deal for you to blow off your client,” she said.
    “You,” he said, kissing her, “are not a client.”
    His hands slipped around her waist, and then lower. After five years, he knew just how to touch her to make her crazy. But she pulled away from him.
    “Cooper, you’re distracting me, and I want to talk,” she said.
    He stared at her in mock disbelief. “Talk? We talked all morning,” he complained with an exaggerated sigh of despair. “All you ever want to do is talk.”
    Josie laughed. “And all
you
ever want to do is . . .
not
talk.”
    Cooper grabbed her and pinned her to the bed as his mouth roved over her breasts, his tongue teasing her nipples to life. “I come in here and find my gorgeous wife all naked and refreshed from a nap,” he said, his blue eyes lit with amusement after she begged for mercy. “Can you blame me if the first thing that comes to mind doesn’t involve much spoken communication?”
    “Talk to me first,” Josie pleaded.
    “What do you want to talk about?” he asked, leaving a trail of kisses as his mouth journeyed down toward her belly button.
    “Yesterday, when you were so angry . . .” Josie said.
    The kisses stopped. Cooper pulled his head out from under the covers. He pushed his hair out of his face as he looked at her. “Let’s not talk about that,” he said.
    “I want to know what you said to me in Spanish,” she said.
    Cooper closed his eyes and collapsed back onto the pillows. “I don’t remember,” he said.
    “You do, too,” she said. “What, was it so awful . . . ? You called me terrible names, didn’t you?”
    “No!”
    “Then what?”
    Cooper sighed and propped himself up on one elbow so that he was facing her. “See, when you first said that we had to talk,” he said, “I thought you wanted to talk about starting a family.”
    “Starting a . . .
babies,”
she said suddenly, with realization in her voice.
“That’s
why you said that about babies. Lord, and I thought you were losing your marbles.”
    He smiled ruefully. “I was,” he said. “That’s what I was shouting about when you couldn’t understand me. I was yelling about the injustice of . . . um, an emasculating woman who . . . uh, took away her husband’s right to propagate.”
    “Wow,” Josie said. This was a side of Cooper that she hadn’t had a clue existed. He’d never mentioned children or having a family, and she’d just assumed that he was as content to wait as she was. It was a decision that didn’t need to be made right now, and she was just as happy putting it off. The thought of having children didn’t particularly appeal to her, but then again, the thought of
not
having children didn’t appeal to her either. But if having a family was something Cooper wanted . . .
    “I went a little crazy,” he said. “I don’t know why I said that.”
    “Maybe you said it because you meant it,” Josie said slowly.
    He met her steady gaze, and his blue eyes were serious. “You know, I thought about that,” he said. “But, to tell you the truth, Joze, I really don’t see how we’ll be able to fit kids into our lifestyle. I mean, thinking realistically.”
    “Wanting something has nothing to do with thinking realistically,” Josie said.
    But Cooper shook his head. “No, babe, I really don’t think I want children.” He smiled. “Certainly not during the next thirteen months.”
    Josie wasn’t sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. “What about some day?” she asked.
    Cooper kissed her. “I’m happy when you’re with me,” he said simply. “Start adding other people to the equation—people who want your time and attention, including and maybe in particular short people who can’t do things for themselves—and I start getting less and less happy. No, I don’t think I want the hassle. But hey, I’m willing to talk