CHAPTER FIVE #2
But eventually the fire caught, and I had no more excuses.
The smart thing would be to take the chair.
Keep distance between us. I sat on the opposite end of the couch like a fucking idiot.
Even with three feet between us, I could feel the heat of her.
Hear every breath. My hands curled into fists against my thighs.
“Tell me about the rodeo,” she said.
“Why?” Hell, had I forgotten how to have a civil conversation?
She just smiled as if she were used to my brand of conversation. “Because I want to know.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“So?” She tilted her head, studying me in a way that made me want to either leave the room or close the distance between us. “Humor me.”
I should have told her it was none of her business.
Instead, I started talking.
I told her about competing with Rhett and Cade.
About the circuit. About being young and stupid and thinking I was invincible.
She laughed when I told her about Cade getting thrown by a bull named Sweet Revenge.
The sound hit me straight in the chest—warm and genuine and so damn unexpected that I stopped mid-sentence.
“What?” she asked, a smile still playing at her lips.
“Nothing.” I looked away, jaw tight. “Just... Cade will never let me hear the end of it if he knows I told you that story.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” Her smile turned soft. Intimate. Like we were sharing something.
I didn’t know what to do with that. With her. With this.
“What made you stop?” she asked.
“I injured my knee and came home to heal. Our dad died a month after that, so I stayed. Someone had to run the ranch.”
“And that someone was you.”
“It wasn’t really a choice. It was my responsibility.” I looked at the fire. “Cade kept competing for about another six months, then came home.”
“Because you needed him.”
“Because he’s loyal to a fault.”
She was quiet for a moment. “What about you? What do you want?”
No one had asked me that in years. No one had cared enough to ask.
I turned to look at her, and found her closer than she’d been before. When had she moved? Or had I moved toward her without realizing it?
If I stretched out my arm, I could touch her. Wrap a strand of that silky brown hair around my fist and pull her to me. And then I could find out if she tasted as good as she smelled.
That thought should have sent me running back out into the cold.
It didn’t.
“Right now?” My voice was dark, deep. “I want things I shouldn’t want.”
Her breath caught, her lips parting slightly. “Like what?”
The logical side of my brain, the one that had drawn the circles around the date on the calendar, warned me to say something else. To end this before it started.
“Like you.”
The words hung between us, raw and honest and impossible to take back.
She didn’t pull away. Didn’t laugh. Didn’t tell me I was out of line.
She leaned closer, and I watched her do it. I watched those brown eyes go dark with want. Her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip and I snapped.
One second there was distance between us. The next, my hand was fisted in her hair and I was dragging her toward me.
“Tell me to stop.” The command tore out of me, rough and bare, like if I didn’t say it now, I never would.
“No.” She breathed the word against my mouth. A refusal. An invitation.
That was all it took.
I kissed her like a man who hadn’t kissed a woman in five years. Like I’d been thinking about doing this—about kissing her—every damn day since she’d walked into my life.
She made a sound—surprise or need, I couldn’t tell—and kissed me back. Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer.
It wasn’t enough.
It was never going to be enough.
I knew I needed to keep it controlled. Keep it to just a kiss. A taste. Proof that I could stop if I wanted to.
But then her tongue touched mine and control vanished.
I hauled her onto my lap with one arm around her waist. She came willingly, straddling me without hesitation. The weight of her, the feel of her thighs on either side of mine—it was too much and not nearly enough.
My free hand gripped her hip with a bruising force, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything except the way she rolled her hips against my cock and the soft, needy sounds she was making.
I dragged my mouth from hers, kissing down the long line of her throat. I couldn’t resist biting down on the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder.
Marking her.
“Ah—” she cried out, her back arching, offering those big, beautiful breasts without a word. My hand slid under her sweater, finding bare skin. Warm. Silky. Real. I spread my fingers across her ribs, memorizing the feel of her. My thumb brushed the underside of her breast.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” I growled against her skin. “Do you know that? Every fucking day, you’re here. In my head. In my space.”
I caught her bottom lip between my teeth and bit down gently. She whimpered, the sound going straight to my cock, and ground against me. I groaned, swelling beneath her.
Was she wet?
All I had to do was slip my hand inside her jeans to find out.
I wanted to take her right here. Right now. Strip off her clothing and taste her sweet pussy. Feel her come apart under my mouth and then around my cock. I wanted to hear every sound she’d make when I filled her, wanted to erase every other man who’d ever touched her from her memory.
The possessiveness of that thought crashed over me like cold water.
What the hell was I doing?
This was Amber. My employee. A woman who would be gone soon.
A woman who’d already told me she didn’t trust promises any more than I did.
And I was seconds away from breaking every rule I’d ever made for myself.
I pulled back, breathing hard. Forced my hands to release her even though everything in me screamed to hold on tighter.
“We have to stop.” The words were dragged from somewhere deep inside me.
Lie. We didn’t need to stop. Everything about her felt right. Her weight in my lap. The taste of her on my tongue. The way she fit against me like she was made for this.
Made for me.
But I’d thought that before. About Sarah. And I’d been wrong.
Her expression shifted—confusion, hurt, then something shuttering closed. She scrambled off my lap, putting distance between us.
“Right.” Her voice was carefully neutral.
I stood, needing to move. Needing to not see the way her hands were shaking as she straightened her sweater. “Amber—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You made yourself clear from the beginning. You’re a cold-hearted cowboy not looking for love.” Her laugh was bitter. “I should have listened.”
She headed for the stairs, and I wanted to call her back and tell her this had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me being a coward.
But the words stuck in my throat.
I watched her disappear up the stairs, then turned back to the dying fire.
My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. And for the first time in five years, the ice around it felt like it was cracking.