The Off Limits Rule: A Romantic Comedy (It Happened in Nashville Book 1)

I’m lying in bed with my window open, feeling like a kid waiting to see if Santa shows up. But that’s ridiculous, right? Cooper is not going to come through my window. That would be insane. I don’t even have a tree or a lattice or anything for him to climb up. So, unless he’s Peter Pan and can fly me off to Neverland, I don’t think he’s going to show up tonight. Maybe he really did just want me to enjoy the nice weather.

Or—

Wait…was that a sound? That was definitely a sound.

I shoot up in bed and clutch my covers against my chest. It’s dark in my room, the only light coming from the moon, and suddenly, I’m terrified. The boogie monster definitely exists, and he’s about to climb through my window.

AH! There’s a shadow looming now, and if I pee this bed, I will never forgive myself. “Cooper?” I whisper angrily. “That better be you! I swear if it’s not and whoever is coming into my room right now is an ax murderer who kills me in this bed, I’m going to come back and haunt you in terrifying ways until the day you die!”

Cooper’s familiar low-rolling chuckle washes over my skin and goosebumps surface. There’s something about hearing that chuckle in the dead of night with limited visibility that makes my body go tingly. “You got lucky this time. The ax was too heavy to carry up the ladder, so I left it in the truck.” Cooper puts a long leg over the windowsill and ducks his head through. Now he’s in my room, and I can’t catch my breath.

“You brought a ladder?!” I guess it’s a good thing my room is on the back of the house where no one will see it.

“A freaking tall one. Not gonna lie, scared me a little climbing up it.”

A pack of wild horses are all stampeding through my chest. That’s normal, right? I’m not dying?

Cooper gently closes the window, and now we’re trapped in here together. I’m not wearing enough clothes. My t-shirt and sleep shorts are too flimsy; I can feel the breeze blowing through them. And Cooper is walking toward my bed. Oh gosh, he’s walking toward my bed!

I force myself to swallow that lump in my throat as I watch his masculine silhouette approach. I scoot to the far side of the bed, but it’s only a puny little queen-sized mattress, so when Cooper and his big body sit down on the side, I roll toward him like a marble.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, pressing my back up against the headboard.

I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “You wouldn’t spend any time with me tonight in front of Drew. I wanted to talk to you more.”

“So you’re just here to talk?”

“Mmhmm,” he says, leaning forward and pressing a soft, slow kiss to my lips.

This isn’t talking.

Cooper grabs my ankles and tugs me down so my head slides from my headboard to my pillow. He then climbs on the bed and hovers over me, elbows on either side of my face. Even in the dark, I can see his beautiful smile.

“You should see how wide your eyes are right now,” he says, a chuckle in his voice. He leans on one elbow so he can run his thumb across my cheekbone. “I don’t know how you open them that wide. You’re like an owl.”

I’m basically a wooden board. My arms are superglued to my sides, and my back is so rigid. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I’m afraid if I do, Cooper will vanish into thin air, and I’ll realize this was all a glorious dream.

“Cooper…”

“Lucy…”

He dips his head down and kisses right below my earlobe. My shoulders melt, and I sigh. His lips are warm, and his body is heavy, and I feel so safe. There’s nowhere—not a single place—I’d rather be than here with this man.

Tentatively, I move my hands up his arms and over his shoulder muscles. I feel every dent and ridge and can’t believe I get to be touching him. Cooper’s arm slides under my back to curl me up close to him as his kisses move up my jaw to my mouth. He hovers there, his lips brushing tender warm sparks across mine. His restraint is unearthly, a paradox. The tight hold of his arm coiling around me is the direct polar opposite of the light touch of his mouth.

I breathe deep, smelling Cooper and letting his scent wrap around me. It’s his freshly showered, manly smell—the one where he should be sponsored and starring in a commercial, standing in a towel, chest glistening with moisture in a locker room, holding up a green body wash bottle and getting paid a million dollars to do it.

“Are you smelling me again?” he asks, lips tickling mine as he speaks.

“Busted.”

He takes his lips away from mine to bury his head in my neck, and I hear him breathe in audibly. “Mmmm. I finally figured it out,” he says as he lays a warm kiss on my collarbone.

“Figured what out?”

“What you smell like.” He pauses and breathes in one more time. “Froot Loops.” I strangle a laugh in my throat and can feel my smile touching both of my ears. “It’s Froot Loops, isn’t it? All this time I thought it was a perfume, but you just eat a lot of cereal, don’t you?”

“I had a bowl about ten minutes ago.” I’m using all of my strength to hold in my laugh so I don’t wake the whole house.

“Mmhmm, thought so.” He sounds like he’s smiling too.

He leans down and kisses me again, but this time, it’s not quite as gentle. It’s just a little more. He pulls away and pauses, staring down at me. So I lift up off my pillow and kiss him—a little bit more. It’s a tantalizing back-and-forth game of one-upping the other opponent…until it’s not a game anymore, and Cooper’s mouth is slanted over mine, and we’re lost in this deep kiss. It’s passion like I don’t think I’ve ever experienced, and yet, it’s still just kissing. His arm is still firmly wrapped around me, and his other hand is woven deep in my hair, but he’s not exploring.

Does he know how much I appreciate this? I feel safe. I feel out of control—but also still very in control. Cooper knows my history, knows I haven’t dated anyone since Levi was born, and he’s so gentle with my heart it’s making me ache. Many men would be rushing this, pushing me forward toward an end goal that’s selfish and fleeting. Cooper is set to low and slow. To have a man who’s so sexy and powerful be nothing but tender and patient is intoxicating. I wish I could send this moment back in time to my younger self, when I was hopeless and thinking the world is made up of nothing but selfish pigs, and whisper, Just hold on, there’s a good one out there.

I run my hands up Cooper’s corded back into his hair. He makes a sound that strikes a match inside me, and now I don’t think we’ll be doing much talking tonight. Our kisses turn hungry, and I think the world outside could be burning down and I wouldn’t notice. I am tuned in to nothing but Cooper and his touch and his lips and his breath. His hand moves an inch toward my stomach, and my abdomen clenches. A thought hits me like a cannonball, and I peel my lips away from Cooper’s.

Sensing my sudden distress, he stops and pulls back. “What’s wrong? Moving too fast?”

“I’m a mom, Cooper.”

He’s silent for a second, needing to process this abrupt change in…everything, then he lets out a short breathy laugh. “Yes, Lucy, I know this.” His big hand comes up to cradle my face. “I’m perfectly aware of your motherliness.”

“No, I mean…I have a mom body. Seriously. It’s not the same as the twenty-somethings you’re probably used to.”

“You’re twenty-something,” he says as a counterpoint.

I’m not deterred from trying to talk him out of this, though. “My stomach has this squishiness to it that I can never ever get rid of no matter how many sit-ups I do, and my chest is definitely not perky like it used to be—” My voice is shaking, chin wobbling. I’m completely ruining this romantic moment, but I can’t help it. The words are pouring out, and I can’t stop them. “I feel like nothing about me is the same as it used to be before I had him. I have stretch marks all over my stomach and—”

Cooper cuts me off with a simple yet forceful kiss. “Lucy.” He says my name but nothing else. Instead, his hand moves slowly from my face to my navel, where he tenderly rolls up the bottom hem of my t-shirt to expose just my stomach. My breath is frozen in my lungs as I watch Cooper lay his warm palm flat across my abdomen and spread his fingers from farthest rib to farthest rib. Even in the dark, I can make out the way his eyes are staring down at me, and I want so badly to hide, to pretend none of what I said is true and just keep my clothes on for the rest of my life. But when his thumb runs delicately across my deepest stretch mark and he smiles, I relax—I rest.

He rolls my shirt back down before hovering over me again, pinning me in so he can look me right in the eyes. “You are beautiful, Lucy. Everything about you.” He gives me a slow, lingering kiss. “Sexy.” Kiss. “Feminine.” Kiss. “Strong.” Kiss. “Everything I could ever want in a woman.”

Tears are rolling down my cheeks, and Cooper kisses them. I bury my head in his neck and let his weight and words soothe me, not realizing until tonight just how insecure I really am. He rolls over to his back and pulls me onto his chest. His hand strokes my hair, and another tear rolls down my face. For the last four years, I have been soothing Levi, tending to his needs, sacrificing my own desires and comforts so I can make sure his are met. But tonight…I am the one who is comforted.

He doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t either, because I’m not even sure what to say. Everything feels too weak, and I’m afraid if I say what my heart is really feeling, I’ll scare him away. Instead, I run my hand slowly up Cooper’s chest until my hand settles on his jaw. I play with my favorite lock of hair that flips up at the nape of his neck and smile before settling my head in the crook of his shoulder. I close my eyes, feeling the warmth of his skin against my face and listening to his quiet steady breaths. He’s good for me, and I think I’m good for him.

I don’t know how long we lie here together, my arm wrapped tightly around Cooper’s chest and his hand gently stroking my hair away from my face, but it’s bliss. Eventually, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I think, I’m never letting him go.

The sun wakes me early the next morning, and I squint my eyes open, taking in the large man-arm draped over my shoulder. I kiss it and smile against his tan skin, the hairs of his arm tickling my lips.

Cooper takes in a stirring deep breath as I roll over to look at him. Because everyone knows morning breath is a beast, I bunch up the sheets and pull them over my mouth before saying good morning.

He gives me the most adorable scrunched-nose smile and cracks an eye open. His hair is sticking up in all directions, and his bare chest is on display for all to see. Well, not all—just me. Only I get to see it, because even though we don’t have an official title yet, Cooper is mine—all mine—and I refuse to share. “Morning, beautiful.”

My smile beams because it’s cheesy lines like this that get me. I want to gather up as many as I can and dress myself in them each day, strolling all over town and flaunting them so everyone can see. Flowery words are wonderful when they’re genuine.

“Is this real?” I ask Cooper, snuggling into his chest and feeling heat radiating off his skin like he’s made of the earth’s core. My shirt is all twisted around me uncomfortably, and I don’t know how Cooper senses it, but he does. His hand reaches behind me and tugs it down so it’s sitting correctly again. It’s the little things like this he does that turn me inside out.

“I hope so,” he says in a sleepy, gravelly voice. I can’t help but smile and kiss his chest.

“You’ve got to climb out of this tower soon, Rapunzel,” I say, snuggling deeper into him.

His chuckle rumbles in his chest, and he kisses my hair before resting his chin on my head. “You’re not making a very compelling case for me leaving.”

“I know.” I wrap my arms around him and bear-hug him. “But you really do have to go. Levi will be up soon, and he does not knock before he busts in here.”

He groans and rolls over onto me playfully so he can bury his face in my neck. I can barely breathe with his weight on me like this, but to say I love it would be an understatement.

“So tired,” he grumbles. “Just want to sleep here with you all day.”

I intertwine my hands in his hair. “You. Have. To. Go,” I say between wheezing breaths. “And I have to go to work.”

He half growls, half grunts then moves back over onto his back, popping his hands behind his head and letting his smile slant as he stares at me. With my room full of wonderful, wonderful light, I’m able to see every defined, ab, oblique, pectoral, and bicep. I’m staring like muscle inspecting is my new full-time job, and my voice takes on a zombie-like quality. “Oh good gracious, you need to put on a shirt.”

His pearly white smile turns cocky. “Yeah? You like what you’re seeing?”

I poke him in the side. “Why do you always take on an Italian accent when you’re trying to come on to me?”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.” He reaches for me and tugs me up to him so he can try to convince me to let him stay with neck kisses. It would probably be highly seductive if he wasn’t saying the only Italian words he knows in between kisses. Spaghetti. Fettuccini. Parmesan.

I’m laughing and trying to push away from him half-heartedly. “Stop it—you’re just making me hungry.”

“Lasagna,” he says in his deepest bedroom voice.

I can’t stop laughing. “You are so stupid, but I love you anyway.” No sooner do the words leave my mouth than I realize what I’ve just said.

I freeze.

Cooper freezes.

His grip on my wrist loosens, and his eyes slowly cut down to me. “What did you just say?”

“Huh? Oh. Nothing. Said nothing. Did nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” I’m squirming now, trying to free myself from his grip and impending embarrassment because it’s way too soon to be saying things like I love you.

Because I’m a nimble little ninja, I wiggle away from him and dart out of the bed, racing toward the bathroom, ready to lock myself in for the rest of my life. But if I’m a ninja, Cooper is a panther. He shoots up and has his arms around my waist before I can take five steps. He tosses me back onto the bed and pins his forearms on either side of me. His eyes are twinkling dangerously. “Say it again.”

“No.”

“Why?”

I grimace. “Because it’s embarrassing to say it first.”

“Say it.” His voice is dark and passionate, and it matches the look in his exotic blue eyes.

I sigh, morning breath forgotten, and hold his gaze. Time to be brave. “I said…I love you. Because I mean it. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you so quickly, and it’s completely fine if you don’t feel the same way because it’s crazy-soon to be saying things like that, but—”

“Lucy, I absolutely love you. No question about it.” He doesn’t smile yet, and my eyes eat up every bit of his serious expression. “I think it’s probably unhealthy, but since the day I met you, you’re all I think about, and I’m helpless to do anything about it.” His lips finally form a sideways smile, and his eyes crinkle in the corners, like he knows all of this is ridiculous but doesn’t care either. “I love you. And Levi. I want to be in your life as much as you’ll let me.”

My eyes are welling up, and I wish I wasn’t the kind of person who cried when both happy and sad. I put my hands on either side of Cooper’s face as he bends down to kiss me, moving straight past soft and tender to passionate and adoring. Our lips part, and the sheets start twisting, but I put the brakes on again because I do not want to have to explain any of this to Levi.

“Okay, okay, yeah,” Cooper says, sitting up to rest his elbow on his bent knee and run his hand through his hair.

I shake my head at the sight of pure masculine perfection, silently cursing him for making it so difficult to say goodbye. “Okay, time to sneak back down that ladder now.”

His eyes catch mine, looking serious and calculating in a way that makes my heart skip. “I don’t want to.” He sighs deeply and shakes his head, falling back against the pillow to scrape both of his hands through his hair. “I don’t want to go, Luce. I don’t want to hide us. I don’t want to acclimate Drew to the idea of us before we tell him.” He rolls his head to look at me—dark lashes framing ocean eyes, bronze skin a stark contrast against my white comforter. “It feels a little crazy to do that, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re the ones who know what’s best for us.” I can see more thoughts running behind Cooper’s eyes than just the ones he’s voicing. A plan is being set in motion, and for some reason, it’s making my palms sweat.

“Well, yes…I agree that it doesn’t feel right, but—wait, what are you doing?” I ask, watching Cooper rise from the bed with a determination in his shoulders.

“It’s not right that he decided this for us. I’m not sneaking back out that window.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m staying here and having pancakes with you and Levi, because contrary to what Drew thinks, I am capable of commitment, and I do trust myself with this. I’m all in with you and Levi.” He extends his arm and points a finger at me like he’s a star quarterback and I’m going to be the one catching the ball. “And you and I start now.”

“Umm! Like now, now?!” I hop from the bed and trail after Cooper, who is headed for the door. “Wait, wait, wait! Shouldn’t we think about this for a minute?! Form a nice plan? Maybe have you go put on a button-down shirt and arrive with flowers—for Drew, of course—and then we can all talk about it over breakfast? OH GOSH, COOPER, AT LEAST PUT A SHIRT ON!” All my protesting is pointless. I’m trying to grab his belt loops to hold him back, but he’s just dragging me along like a barefoot skier.

He throws the door open with gusto, his sinewy muscles rippling with the movement. Cooper pauses for only half a second to listen for any signs of Drew until we both hear the sound of water running in the kitchen. He gives one distinct nod then starts heading for the stairs. I’m taking them in rapid succession right behind him while frantically whisper-yelling, “Cooper! Cooper! Stop. This is not going to go over like you’re hoping. GAHHHH, please go slower. Come back to bed. LET’S MAKE LOVE!”

Not the slightest pause.

I guess this is really happening.