LITMIR.BIZ

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day, every minute, for just a taste of all the things he turned away in his old life.

      There was no abundance in his days right now. Every bone was rubbing up against another bone, his stomach growled, his body hurt, and he went to bed every damn night hungering for what he used to take for granted. And now he had the current superstar, Reese, on his couch reminding him of everything he no longer had.

      If this beautiful, sexy woman wanted to kiss him, he wasn’t going to say no. When maybe he should.

      He should.

      There was no maybe about it.

      He was too old for one-night stands. And these days with his three nephews inside and the work involved in running this ranch, he had nothing left over. There was no time, no energy, no feeling, to give Lucy except whatever she was going to take.

      But there was no way in hell he was going to open his mouth and tell her all of that. Not when she was about to kiss him and he hadn’t been kissed in months.

      When he last saw her, Lucy Alatore had been a skinny girl on the edge of womanhood. But the sparkle, the dare, in her eyes was still there—that was what he could not resist.

      Her long, elegant arms twined around his neck and the sensation of her soft wrists made him ravenous for more. Ravenous for something sweet and soft and tender, just for him. Something he didn’t have to share or reject or postpone because three boys needed him.

      That beer on her breath went right to his head and he waited, patient but burning for the silken graze of her lips over his. When it came, it was like the chute had been thrown open and he was holding on for dear life.

      The kiss rocketed up out of control and ran whole hog into the wild in two seconds. She gasped against his mouth as if she was just as surprised.

      Trying for gentle, but falling miles short, he pulled her closer, the rough calluses of his fingers catching on the soft material of her fancy shirt.

      She opened her mouth under his and pulled him as tight as she could into her body until he was curved over her, holding her against the curl of his body so that not even a breeze could pass between them.

      It was wild. Hot. The lush curve of her hips under the tight black leggings she wore was too much a temptation to resist and he slid both palms over her, squeezing as he went, listening to her groan.

      Her fingers tugged on his hair, the pain an electric bliss down his back, across his skin, through his blood, waking him up. Bringing him back to life.

      The growl, like the lust, the fire, rolled up through his gut, obliterating his brain, and he spun slightly, ready to drag her into the house, ready to do whatever it took to take off her clothes, to find the secrets of her skin.

      “Yes,” she groaned, lifting herself into him, the sweetest arch, the sweetest capitulation. He grasped his hands over her hips, taking all her weight and, like every teenage fantasy of what a woman should do, she slipped those long legs around his waist.

      Ready to take her into the house, he turned toward the screen door, but immediately tripped over Casey’s scooter and then backed into Ben’s baseball bat—both of which clattered to the ground. The sound was like gunshot in the quiet night.

      He tore his lips from Lucy’s and focused his gaze on Casey’s window just above them. He held his breath, waiting for the light to come on, for the five-year-old to come looking for him like he did every night.

      But the window stayed dark.

      Thank God.

      He sighed, resting his head against Lucy’s.

      Under the relief that Casey hadn’t woken up, he felt something awful, a black tidal wave of anger. A tsunami of resentment.

      A kiss. One goddamned kiss in the moonlight! Couldn’t he just have that? Couldn’t he just have this one thing for himself?

      He didn’t ask for any of this—the ranch, the work and the boys who stared at him with their hearts in their eyes.

      I don’t want it! I don’t want any of it!

      The scream gagged him. His miserliness shamed him. Those boys didn’t ask for him, either. In a heartbeat they’d take their mom and he’d give Annie back to them if only he could.

      Lucy pressed her lips to his and he wanted—more than anything in the world right now—to get right where he’d been in that kiss. But the moment was gone.

      There were three kids in that house. A drunk cowboy. And three days’ worth of work to get done all before he could go to bed.

      That was his life and the truth was he was terrified of what would happen if he forgot that, even for an hour. How much of his resentment and anger would slip through the cracks of the control he’d had to build up over the past year. How many days would it take for him to look those kids in the eyes again? How many nights of staring up at the ceiling and forcing himself not to run away?

      The answer was too many.

      He kissed her, a tender, reluctant goodbye kiss. And she must have read it in his lips because she unwrapped her legs from around his waist and slipped her arms from his neck.

      “Well.” She patted his chest, her fingers so hot through his T-shirt he had to step back to get some distance. Some clarity. She blinked at him, her fingers suspended in the distance between them, and he had to look away. He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but he didn’t look at her to find out and he sure as hell didn’t ask, because he was such a mess. Everything was a mess.

      Looking at her was like looking at everything he once had and could no longer have again.

      “Thanks, cowboy,” she said.

      “Sorry.”

      “No sorry about it.” The teasing, the sauciness, in her voice made him smile, allowed him to look up at her. Allowed him to breathe.

      “Thanks,” he said. “For Reese and for…”

      “Rocking your world?”

      He laughed. “It needed rocking.” Which was a lie. His life had been taken by its heels and shaken until everything he knew and recognized had vanished. He’d been rocked enough and what he needed was to be left alone so he could figure out how to handle it.

      “Good night,” she said, and then she walked across his porch.

      It was rude. Bad-mannered in the extreme but he did not follow. He did not yank open the sliding glass door for her, even though he knew it stuck. He just stood on that porch and stared up at the moon until he was numb enough to go back inside.

      * * *

      LUCY TOOK THE LONG WAY back to the Rocky M. Opening up Reese’s car over the pass, the engine roared and the world slipped by like a ribbon. The wind blasting through her open window wasn’t enough to cool her fevered skin and her damaged pride, so she hit the controls to roll down every window until it was a cyclone inside the car. Her hair whipped around her head and still her skin burned, her heart ached.

      Stupidly, she felt like crying.

      Don’t care, she told herself, slowing down to take the first curve down the mountain toward the ranch. You’ve got enough shit to worry about, without worrying about Jeremiah Stone.

      The smart move would be to leave. To pack up her mother and face the mess in Los Angeles.

      But the thought made her panic and a cold sweat formed around her hairline. She wasn’t ready. It had only been three weeks since she’d let go of her employees and closed up the shop.

      Couldn’t she have some time to grieve? To lick her wounds? To hide?

      Such a coward.

      The Rocky M ranch slipped in and out of view through the pine trees until she turned left up the long driveway. The brown ranch house sat under a granite overhang. As a kid she’d prayed more than once that the mountain would fall down on that house.

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