The Risks We Take Duet Box Set

7. Cooper

COOPER

“ B reathe, man.”

I watch Axel disappearing down the sand and fight to contain my anger.

Trick’s watching me with knowing eyes as everyone else clears out of the backyard and onto the beach. Everyone but Rook, him, and me. “I’m breathing.”

“Are ya? Cause you look like you’re about to kill Axel, brother.” Rook stretches his arms along the back of the couch, wearing the same indifferent expression he always wears if we’re not on an op. “He’s pushing your buttons on purpose, you know?”

Of course, I fucking know. Telling Axel that Carys was off-limits was like waving a blood-red cape in front of an amped-up bull. I clench my jaw, fury simmering just below the surface like a pot boiling over. “She doesn’t like the ocean at night.”

“She’s a big girl. She can tell him that.” Trick drops into the chair across from me and runs his hand over Wanda’s head when she comes to stand at his feet.

Rook raises his brow. “What’s really pissing you off, Sinclair? Because you’re fucking angry. Is it with him or yourself?”

“She’s my stepsister. I’m just looking out for her. She doesn’t need to get mixed up with Axe’s shit.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re a fucking lie.

“You make it a habit of looking at all your sisters that way?” Trick kicks his feet up on the table and leans back while Rook and he wait for an answer.

Fuckers.

This woman is not my sister. She never was. Our parents are married, but I’ve never been able to look at her the way I look at Nattie, no matter how hard I’ve tried.

Trick knows he’s gotten to me when I don’t say anything. “Yeah. I didn’t think so. Be careful, man. You’re swimming in dangerous waters.”

It’s a good thing I know how to swim. “I’m gonna go see what’s going on down there. You coming with?”

Trick shrugs and lays his head back against the couch. “Nope.”

Rook stands and grabs his keys from his pocket. “I’m out, but try not to kill Axe. It’d be a bitch to train someone else on comms. See you assholes later.”

As I walk down the sand toward the dark ocean, Linc passes me with Emerson tossed over his shoulder, looking every bit a man on a mission to get back to the house. Her arms dangle down, and she squeezes his ass.

“Hey, Cooper...” she calls out on a laugh.

I turn around and watch her lift her head as she blows her thick, black hair out of her face. “I think our girl is gonna need a place to sleep or a ride home tonight.” Linc smacks her ass, and she yelps. “Just saying.”

Aw hell.

A little further down the beach, Carys sits in the sand, her arms tucked around her knees, and a white feather twisting in her hand. Her pale skin glows under the full moon, and her soft brown hair is blowing in the breeze. She’s beautiful in a way I shouldn’t notice. But there’s no way to miss it.

When she tilts her chin up to look at me, there’s something about her smile that seems forced. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I can see why you like these guys. The way they rib each other reminds me of home.” The sadness in her voice pulls on a heartstring I didn’t know I had. I want to fix it for her. But I can’t.

Instead, I squat down next to the beauty beside me, balancing on the balls of my feet, not in the mood for a sandy ass. “Yeah. I can see that. Axel definitely reminds me of your brother when he’s trying to be a dick.” And maybe I want to put that thought in her brain, in case she ever gets the urge to think about Axe as more than a ridiculous flirt.

“Oh, ew. You had to go there?”

Mission accomplished.

“He’s nothing like Aiden.” She reaches out and tries to shove me off balance with a push to my shoulder, but it would take a hell of a lot more than that.

“If that’s what you’ve got to tell yourself.” I stand to my full height and offer her my hand. An electric current sparks between us when I tug her to her feet.

Carys’s head barely reaches my chest.

She twists the feather between her fingers. “My grandmother used to say feathers brought you luck. That they were a sign that someone was watching over you, keeping you safe.” She places it in my hand. “For luck, Coop.” Then she reaches down, grabs her discarded flip-flops, and walks ahead of me before peeking over her shoulder to see if I’m following. “Come on, Coop. Walk with me. I’m pretty sure I’ve got time to kill before Em’s ready to go home.”

“Yeah... about that.” I look down, momentarily captivated by the sway of Carys’s hips in her short shorts. She’s tiny and delicate in a way that brings all my protective instincts roaring to life.

“Your girl sounds like she’s planning on spending the night.” In two strides, I catch up to the woman before me and try to stuff that thought back to the far edges of my mind. Keeping her locked in any kind of friend zone seems more difficult now than it does back home in Kroydon Hills.

“Great. She drove.” Carys kicks the warm sand in front of her, seemingly annoyed. “I guess I’ll grab an Uber when we get back to the house.”

“I’ll take you home.” Dad would kill me if I let her Uber instead of offering her a ride.

She turns around to face me and walks backward. “You got a car in Cali, Coop? I thought you gave Nattie your Jeep.”

“I did give Nat the Jeep. But I bought an older one about a year ago. I needed something out here when I wasn’t deployed.”

“Do you like it? Being out here, so far away from home? Is being a SEAL everything you wanted it to be?” She’s still walking backward when she trips over something hidden in the sand.

I catch her, tugging her close before she goes down.

Carys’s wild, emerald-green eyes dart to mine as I hold her against my chest.

She grabs my arms, steadying herself as her fingertips singe my skin.

Damn it. What is it about this girl?

She’s everything I’m not allowed to want.

“You can let go, Coop.” She presses up on her toes, leaning into me. Her warm breath skates over my skin as she whispers, “I’m okay.”

“Yeah. Be careful. I don’t need to call Dad and Katherine and tell them that you got hurt on my watch.” I reach down and smooth her hair away from both sides of her face, trying to remind myself that she’s my stepsister and this can’t happen, but failing miserably.

“It’s a good thing I’m not on your watch.” She takes a step back, and I drop my arms.

Right. She’s not my responsibility.

Then why does it feel like she should be?

L ater, once Carys has accepted that Emerson and Linc aren’t coming out of his room any time soon, she says her goodbyes, and I walk her to my Jeep. “You okay with the top off?”

Her eyes light up. “Can I blast the radio as loud as I want?”

I nod, and her responding smile could light up the whole damn street. Who knew control of the radio could make her so happy? Once we’re in the Jeep, she starts playing with the buttons on the old unit until the first few notes of “Crash Into Me” by the Dave Matthews Band play through the speakers. Then, content with her find, she leans back in the seat and places her feet flat against the dashboard as she starts to hum, and I back out of the driveway.

She sings the song in a higher pitch than Dave does, and it changes its feel completely as her voice effortlessly harmonizes with his.

It’s sexy as fuck.

And every time I look her way, her smile grows as she sings along, and her hair whips around both of us. She’s swaying in her seat like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Relaxed. It’s the look of someone who’s completely comfortable in her own skin. Which leaves me with more questions than answers.

I wait until the song she’s clearly loving is over before turning the radio down. “Why don’t you want to sing anymore?”

“Umm... I was just singing.” She throws her hair up into a bun on the top of her head.

“Earlier, you told Axel you didn’t want to be a rock star. But you didn’t say what you wanted to do. Why don’t you want to sing anymore?”

The first time I ever saw Carys, she was next to a piano in the auditorium of our old high school. It was my first week of school, and I’d gotten lost looking for the chem lab. I walked into the room, thinking I was in the right place. Instead, I found this beautiful girl standing on stage, singing that song from A Star Is Born like a fucking angel. She had this huge voice that I couldn’t believe was coming out of such a tiny body.

She leans her head back against the seat and turns to look at me. “I don’t want to sing for a living. That doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop singing or writing music. I love it. But if I had to do it every day... if my career depended on it... I don’t think I’d enjoy it anymore. I think that would ruin it for me.”

“Okay, I can understand that. But where did the design part of your degree come from?” I slow for a yellow light and look at her quickly as her cheeks turn pink. “I don’t remember you ever mentioning that before.”

She grabs my forearm, and I warm at her touch. “Promise not to laugh?”

“Sure,” I answer, desperate to know more, completely captivated by the woman next to me. “Now shoot.”

“I’ve always been good at making things. Mom got me a sewing machine as a kid, and I used to make clothes for all my dolls. That eventually turned into me making my costumes for the plays. Doesn’t exactly sound cool, so it wasn’t something I ever really talked about.” She brings her feet down from the dash and tucks them under her legs, like she’s self-consciously curling into herself.

“But my junior year,” she continues, “Chloe and I started hanging out more, once all you guys were gone, and I found out that she’d been sketching designs for years. We kinda started playing around, and it didn’t take long to see how well we work together. Things have grown from there.”

The pink blush covering Carys’s face has spread down her neck and chest by the time she’s done talking, and she stares out the windshield, avoiding my gaze. I want to kill whoever made her feel uncomfortable with this.

“Why do you look embarrassed? That sounds awesome. Do you like making clothes? Do you think it’s something you’ll do when you’re done with school?”

“Well... we actually already started working on designs for our own line and just sold a few pieces from it to a boutique back home. We just haven’t told many people yet.” She tugs her hand off me as the light changes to green, and I miss the warmth of her skin on mine.

“Why not?” That’s impressive as hell. I’d be telling the whole world if I could do something like that. “You should be proud of yourself. You found something you’re good at that you want to turn into a career. Why keep it quiet?”

Carys takes a deep breath and then turns to watch the streets of San Diego pass us by. “We’ve been working on it for two years, and we’ve made all sorts of clothes. Some good and others, not so much. But we’ve figured out we’ve got a great eye for lingerie. So we’ve been focusing on that for the past few months. I haven’t exactly decided how to tell my mother that after years and years of voice lessons, I don’t want to sing. I want to design lingerie meant to make a woman feel beautiful and sexy. Lingerie that should be appreciated before it’s ripped off a woman’s body.”

Holy fucking shit.

Carys wearing lingerie meant to be torn off her body might be the image that gets me through my next deployment.

And I’m officially going to hell.