Upside Down (Breaking the Rules #3) - A.M. Madden Page 0,44

gotten the same memo.

“Okay, I’m waving a white flag,” he said, and if I didn’t know better, there was a definite strain to his voice. “Let’s swap childhood stories.”

“Well if that isn’t a buzzkill. Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Chapter Fifteen

Cooper

I was on the phone with Ricky for hours. We had spoken about everything from childhood friendships to people we’d dated. Somehow, the conversation ended back where it started when he shamelessly shared details of the sex dream that he’d had of me. Once we hung up, I blamed him for the graphic visual I then conjured up, with the only difference being it was him on his knees.

How did I get here?

Until now, kissing and groping was as far as my imagination would go. It was as if I had some sort of mental block stopping me from picturing any real intimacy with a man. But as he gave me a play-by-play of what I had done to him in his fantasy, he also effectively opened the door that my subconscious had firmly kept shut… and now it remained wide open, allowing all sorts of salacious scenarios to slip through.

I had no way of knowing how I’d react to having a physical relationship with him. Just the thought caused a spike of nerves to hit in my gut… but on that same token, I also experienced a spike of want in my libido. The entire situation left me tossing and turning restlessly for hours. That wasn’t unusual for me… the recent subject in my thoughts most definitely was.

When I heard Antonio babbling as Rebecca prepared him breakfast, I decided to give up trying to get any sleep.

“Morning, sunshine,” Rebecca said when I dragged my sorry ass into the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Morning.” I stopped to kiss Antonio’s head as he ran one of the trucks that I’d bought him back and forth across the high chair’s tray.

“Tuck,” he said, lifting the toy to show me.

“Yes, truck,” I confirmed on a laugh before giving him another kiss. “He seems to be feeling better.”

“So far,” she said, knocking her fist on the wooden chair she sat on. “I heard you come home fairly early last night.” Ignoring the eager expression on her face, I reached for a mug that she had placed on the counter and helped myself to coffee. Releasing a thankful groan after just one sip, combined with my not acknowledging her comment, forced her to ask, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m great. Why?”

“I was worried you two came to blows last night.”

“Blows?” I repeated with an eye roll, although, her choice of the word blows caused my lips to twitch. “We didn’t come to blows.” If she only knew… but the funny look she gave me had me worrying that she did know. It wasn’t a secret that Rebecca and Ricky told each other everything. If he gave her details of our evening then I would come to blows with him, and not the kind he fantasized about. “Why would you think we fought?” I finally asked when the concerned look on her face held.

One shoulder lifted in a partial shrug. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe because you look like shit after having dinner with a man you kissed months ago, and Ricky, who usually tells me everything, said he didn’t want to talk about it when I spoke to him this morning.”

Wait… what? “You spoke to him?”

“Yeah. He called because there was an emergency on Bella Viaggi. Marco and Ricky had to take the helicopter early this morning and rendezvous with the ship.”

“What time was that?”

“Around six.” Three hours after we ended our call. “Martin, our new executive director, had a death in the family,” my sister went on to say. “Marco is probably on his way back to the port with Martin so he can then hop a flight to Chicago. Ricky stayed onboard and is taking over until Martin can come back.”

I kept my expression neutral. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I feel bad for Martin. He was just getting his feet wet.” I watched Rebecca shove another spoonful of yogurt into her son’s mouth. “So what happened last night? I really was worried about you two, especially when Ricky was grumpier than usual this morning. When I called him out, he said he welcomed getting away for a while.”

What the serious fuck?

In three hours, he went from being his cocky self to a chickenshit? What a bastard… and worse yet, what an idiot I