LITMIR.BIZ

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the door in that? I could’ve been anyone.”

      “It would have been a whole lot less dangerous if you had been,” she teased before she realized what she was doing. “I was expecting you.”

      Her pupils darkened with alarm, but not before her husky voice had rippled over every raw nerve ending, making his skin sting as if he was on fire the way it had that night.

      “But you have no right, no claim on me or what I wear…or don’t wear—ever again, Rancher Black.” She lifted her chin, challenging him to more verbal dueling.

      “You’re right, of course—Miss Woods!”

      No doubt she’d purchased the improbable garment somewhere in the Orient when she’d run away from him on that freighter and driven him mad with jealousy, rage and fear. When she’d finally turned up safe and sound, she’d thrown his life into turmoil all over again when she’d almost seduced him. Then she’d gone off to India.

      “I was in the shower,” she said demurely without lifting her gaze to his. “My muscles were stiff after the long drive.”

      All of a sudden he had a stiff muscle problem and a mighty keen need for a cold shower, too.

      “Would you prefer it if I’d answered the door stark naked?” she teased.

      The vision of her naked in a shower stall brought a rush of heat and made the muscle in question pull even tighter. Just for an instant he remembered her in a black lace bra and matching panties and a black velvet hat after he’d removed her blouse and jeans. For no reason at all, he was tugging at his collar.

      “Don’t worry…Bertie. If I’d known you were going to be in such a bad mood, I wouldn’t have answered the door at all.”

      “Why aren’t you in Austin where you belong?” His voice was as cold as ice.

      “Why did you say yes to my mother? This is my parents’ house. It’s your own fault if you’re not where you belong— out on your big ole ranch. Playing king, doing your big man things. Ordering everybody in your kingdom around.”

      That wasn’t how it was. Not that he let on.

      “Is that what you think of me and my business?”

      “Isn’t that what you want everybody to think?”

      “I have responsibilities.”

      “And they came before me.”

      His family hadn’t thought so. “They’re a part of who I am.”

      “And I don’t know who I am. Is that what you’re saying?”

      In bed or out of it, he almost shouted. Instead he flushed darkly. “My ranch wasn’t the problem.”

      “You give everything of yourself to that ranch.”

      “Because I have to.”

      “Why?”

      “Because my father died that’s why!” North remembered the fire. He remembered running. He remembered screaming for help.

      “Why you, Bertie?”

      “Just…just…” An emotion built and burst inside him, so he waited. “Just because,” he finished darkly, remembering his father’s funeral. “I’m his son. That’s all.”

      Her eyes seemed to see inside him, into that shadowy secret place.

      She smiled. “You can tell me.”

      He glared. “Can I? If you were me, would you trust you…after…”

      They’d hardly said hi, and already they were at it.

      Yet he preferred arguing and probably so did she—to remembering that night and what had happened in his apartment and what hadn’t.

      She was pale and yet breathing hard, every bit as agitated as he was. Those fingers with the little silver moons were tugging at her silken sash. “How can we be discussing this…like it still matters? When nothing about us matters…anymore.”

      He watched that rhythmic tugging of those little half moons at her sash as if hypnotized. “My thoughts exactly, darlin’.”

      So why was there a painful lump in his throat? Why that painful thickening lower down that stretched his jeans and made him too conscious of her easy power? Why were the memories of his childhood all mixed up with the crazy sexual frustration of that last night? Why this insane desire to yank that infernal sash loose, slide his hands inside that silk robe and pull her against his body when he knew why wanting her was so impossible?

      Why couldn’t she be normal? Why did she have to be the sexiest woman alive and not sexy at all?

      Those moving fingertips with the little moons that twinkled slid along red silk. He felt his collar tighten like it was really choking him. “Stop playing with that damned sash!”

      “Sorry.”

      “Do I come in or go?” he growled when her slim hands were still at last. “It’s been a long day.”

      “Oh, do come in, Rancher Black,” she teased, pushing the door wider.

      “Quit calling me that!”

      When she didn’t move out of his way, he was forced to sidle so close to her he almost brushed against her. Which was what she must have wanted because when he was almost past her, she reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder.

      “North, I…” Even before the panic flared in her eyes, she chopped off the end of her sentence.

      Instantly his muscles contracted beneath the liquid heat of her slim hand. His black head jerked, startling her, and for a long moment they both stared at those fingertips with the tiny silver moons. She’d scarcely touched him, but the effect on his senses was electrifying.

      He remembered that last night when her hands had been all over him. She’d been eager, as eager as he. And then suddenly, she’d gotten scared.

      “North…” Her little girl voice died in her throat as she splayed her fingers, causing the tiny little moons to twinkle.

      He felt her, remembered her in every pore. They’d lain in his bed that night, his body pressed firmly against hers, her lips against his throat, her breast against his chest, the rest of their bodies touching all the way down. She’d felt so right. She always did.

      He’d held her for a long time, stroking her hair, trying to gentle her as he might a frightened colt. But she’d gotten frightened again and gone back to the wild on him anyway.

      “Don’t start in on me again, darlin’…unless you intend to finish what you start…this time.”

      Her hand tightened and then fell away slowly, and still he couldn’t move past her any more than she seemed able to escape him.

      “I want to forget you,” he said, but his gaze was on her pink lips.

      “That does seem like the sensible solution to our problem.”

      “Your problem,” he said in a flat tone.

      “And yet—”

      “There is not going to be a yet—damn you.”

      She blushed. Her eyes remained downcast. “What if I can’t be as sensible or as rational as you? What if I—”

      “Not if you crawled—”

      She went white at that code word.

      “You broke up with me, remember?” he said in a softer tone.

      “And you’ll never be able to forgive—” Her husky voice had dropped, too—to something that sounded close to shame or regret.

      “That’s right.”

      Leave her alone. Cool off. Talk football outside with

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