“Sorry. Christ, what you must think of me. I just hadn’t realized how much I’ve been aching for Brittany to be home with me. And yes, Felicity, my God, you did more than okay. You gave family back to me. This is the greatest gift anyone could have given me. So you proved me wrong.” She met Felicity’s eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You really do get me, don’t you? You knew what I most wanted.”

Felicity tightened her arm around her. “I hoped I did. And I’m hoping I’ll have an opportunity to get to know you a lot better. So if you could stop saying ridiculous things like ‘I’ll dump you as soon as I get bored with you being a lowly vet as I climb higher’ or whatever, that’d be good. Because for a start, I’m already at the top now; and second, where on earth am I going to find anyone kinder or more decent than you in my cutthroat world of corporate media?”

“Flatterer.” Cooper smiled through her tears.

Felicity gently wiped them away with her finger. She met Cooper’s eyes. “I’m serious, Sandy,” she said, using her first name with great care. “I want to be with you. I also have no intention of going anywhere, in case you’re afraid you’d be left behind and I’ll be jet-setting the globe. I know that, thanks to your childhood, you aren’t interested in moving around. So FYI, aside from occasional travel for work, I have this wicked power called delegation.”

“You’re really not going anywhere?” The question was laced with something painful.

Felicity understood the question wasn’t just about geography. It went a lot deeper. “I’d really like to hang around and get to know you properly. Please say that’s what you want, too. More of us together.”

Cooper looked down at the legal agreement Felicity had given her, the typing now splotched with tears, then looked back up.

“Well, I can’t have Brittany moping around without you. I swear all this past month she kept looking for you behind me every day I arrived at work.”

“Well, yes, quite right. We can’t let your dog down.” Felicity leaned over and gave Brittany a blissful scratch behind those floppy ears.

In return, Brittany’s soft eyes gave her an adoring look that melted her heart into a puddle.

Oh lord, Felicity was in trouble now between these two. Don’t break my heart, please.

Cooper smiled. “Hey, I have a confession.”

“Yes?”

“It’s not just Brittany who’s been missing you.”

“No?”

“I admit I might have been so frustrated with those evil flowers and so much damned food that the office still smells like a food market. But it was impossible to forget you. You made everything interesting. I can’t stop thinking of this powerful, impossible woman who blew into my life and seemed to think nothing of upending my world.”

“To be fair,” Felicity protested, “I didn’t think nothing of it when I did it.”

“Christ, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?” Cooper said, leaning in close inside Felicity’s personal space. “You and me? What do we even have in common? Aside from a shared desire to snuggle Brittany?” Her hand buried deep into her dog’s fur.

“A shared desire to snuggle each other?”

“Aside from that?” Cooper asked.

Felicity thought about it seriously. “A shared desire for a fairer world?”

“All right,” Cooper said. “That I’ll take.”

Brittany suddenly barked, jumped up, and ran over to a window and stared at the skies.

Felicity turned, curious.

“Brit’s a passionate bird spotter. Where she’s sitting is her favorite view of the pigeons that land on the neighbor’s window ledge.”

Felicity couldn’t see any pigeons.

Cooper’s fingers slid under her chin, turning Felicity to face her. “Forget the birds,” she said, lips curling, “because for someone who claimed to be in the business of wooing me, you seem pretty slow on the uptake. I’ve had my lips next to yours for a good minute now.”

“Please, it’s called foreplay,” Felicity said archly, secretly appalled she’d missed an obvious invitation. “I’ve looked into it. It’s apparently good for increasing sexual tension.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.” Felicity leaned in, kissed her quickly, and pulled away. Her plans of teasing Cooper more flew out the window when the other woman tugged their heads together and kissed Felicity properly. Her limbs went limp and useless, and arousal flared sharp in her lower stomach. Oh God.

Cooper smiled against her mouth. “I missed that, too. You’re a superb kisser. Because you go from hard-ass to melty in ten seconds.”

“Okay, first, I don’t do melty, so enough of that,” Felicity said, trying not to sound too out of breath. “And second, foreplay is over.”

Chuckling, Cooper said, “Yes, I can see it is.”

* * *

Felicity woke up the next day, naked and sore—in the best possible sense—with Cooper’s fingers stroking her most intimate area. “More?” Felicity said with a mutter. “Insatiable.”

“More,” Cooper confirmed. “I have plans. You have the prettiest little clit that I’d hate to neglect. It’s so cute the way it peeks out. I think it’s smiling at me.”

“Oh, my God.” Felicity’s cheeks flooded with heat. “You can’t just say that out loud.”

“No?” Cooper smiled. “What about ‘I have a strap-on’? Would you like me to fuck you hard and fast and just mmph—”

Felicity silenced her by hauling her down for a crushing kiss. She then pulled back slightly to make room to growl, “Enough talking. Start doing.”

* * *

The next time Felicity woke up, just as naked and a little sorer—in an even more pleasant sense—Cooper looked smug.

Felicity closed her barely open eye and rolled over onto her stomach. “Lord, I swear, if you’re up for round five or whatever this is, I’m going to need a raincheck.”

“Nope.” Cooper beamed. “I’m just appreciating you.” Her fingertips ran along Felicity’s spine to where the sheet bunched. “I love your ass. It’s gorgeous. And the way you were up on all fours a few hours ago letting me take you from behind was the hottest damn thing.”

Felicity groaned as her pussy clenched at the reminder. “Don’t get me all worked up again. I’m just a humble lawyer, not a powerhouse vet with energy reserves up the yin-yang.”

Cooper laughed. “You? A humble lawyer?”

“Whatever,” Felicity muttered into her pillow. “Compared to you, I feel like a weakling. I am a weakling! The way you flung me around and had your way with me? I think you might well have literally fucked me senseless at one point.” Arousal sparked again at the reminder. “Oh God. I can’t go again, even though the mind is willing. It’s so-o-o willing.”

“Relax, weakling,” Cooper teased. Her fingers did a little twirl across the small of Felicity’s back. “While you’ve been sleeping away the day, I’ve fed and walked Brittany, explained to her in-depth how she lives with me now once more and that’s not changing, but pine and pout as much as she likes, she still doesn’t have bedroom access.”

“Good. No dogs in beds,” Felicity mumbled. “Fur. Shedding. Bad.”

“So articulate. It’s astonishing this is the same woman who sweet-talked my building owner into new rules.”

“Well, sweet-talked, terrified. Tomahtoes, tomaytoes.”