LITMIR.BIZ

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my dates with Nathan Beldon. I’m a big girl and I can handle myself.

      “Now, I’ve got a pretty good idea that Trav put you up to this and I know you feel loyalty to him, but so help me, if you don’t butt out of my life and my business, I will never speak to you again as long as I live. And Trav’s on the short list of dispensable people, too, so make sure he knows it.”

      “Carrie—”

      “I didn’t say you could talk yet. I’m talking. You’re still listening. I want to know if you understand what I’m saying to you. A simple nod will do.”

      He tugged on his hat brim, set his mouth in a hard line and settled himself with a deep breath.

      “Do. You. Un. Der. Stand?” she demanded.

      “Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said, and she wasn’t at all surprised to hear an edge of anger creep into his voice.

      Good, she thought. He’d brought this on. Let him have a taste of it, too. It made it that much easier to stay mad at him.

      “Make that ‘Yes, ma’am, I understand that I am not to interfere with your life because it’s none of my business who you see and what you do.”’

      He glared at her. “I’ve said it before. Nothing’s changed. You will always be my business.”

      She ignored the dark insistence in his voice, drew on her anger to stay the course. “Say it, Ry. Promise me you will not so much as draw a breath within thirty feet of me when I’m with Nathan Beldon again.

      “If I’m ever with him again,” she added with a little sinking sensation in her chest. A man could only take so much interference from testosterone-fueled protectors before he packed up his marbles for good and went home. Nathan had probably reached his limit.

      “He’s not for you, Carrie.”

      Her mouth dropped open at his outrageous assumption that he knew what was good for her. “That is not for you to decide!” she countered, frustration fueling the conviction in her words.

      She closed her eyes and covered her face with her closed fists on a growl. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

      There were tears in her eyes when she dropped her hands. “You don’t want me…so why can’t you just leave me alone?”

      Oh, God.

      Oh, God, oh, God. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. You don’t want me. Mortified, she turned her back to him.

      Oh, man, Ry thought, his heart breaking at the defeated set of her slim shoulders.

      Didn’t want her? He suppressed a groan. If only.

      Look at her. She was beautiful, intelligent, caring and compassionate…and passionate as all get-out. And right now she was trembling with such an enticing mix of anger and vulnerability he ached with wanting her.

      He gently cupped her shoulders and turned her back around to face him. And felt a current of longing and lust shoot through his blood like a freight train.

      What sane man wouldn’t want her? What flesh-and-blood man couldn’t help but want to take her in his arms and kiss away the tear that escaped and tracked down her cheek? What man with an ounce of testosterone in his DNA wouldn’t kill to feel the fire of her passion?

      He was all of those men…and out of control to boot. Suddenly he couldn’t stop himself. With his hands wrapped around her upper arms, he drew her slowly toward him, watching the emotions shift across her face as his left leg wedged between hers, and her full breasts pressed against his chest.

      Her eyes shimmered with a mist of unshed tears…and a stunned and needy anticipation. And just that fast he was a goner.

      There wasn’t a force in the world at that moment strong enough to keep him from lowering his head, touching his lips to hers and losing himself in her giving heat and surrendering sigh.

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. The words hammered out from the part of his brain that was still functioning. But function gave way to feeling as he sank into the kiss, opening his mouth over hers, coaxing her lips apart, slipping his tongue inside and diving headlong into heaven.

      Sweet.

      Lord above, she was so sweet. And sassy and sexy as she rose up on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered her long, lush body against him like she was a blanket and he was an unmade bed and, heaven help him…he had to stop this now.

      But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

      It was too good. She was too…everything. Sensual, shy, wanton, wanting. And it made him want, too—like he’d never wanted in his life.

      Against everything that was right, he took. He filled his hands with her tight, tidy behind, lifted and pressed her up and against his erection with a groan that left no question what he wanted and needed for both of them.

      He didn’t know how it happened, but the next thing he knew he had her backed up against a wall. Her hands had tangled in his hair, knocking his hat to the floor, and their kiss just kept uncovering deeper levels of sensation while his hands tunneled up under her sweater and found bare skin. Silky. Hot. And not nearly enough.

      He wanted her naked. He wanted inside of her. He wanted his mouth on her breast, his tongue between her legs. In zero-point-five seconds, she’d taken him from protector to plunderer and there wasn’t a single message his rational brain was sending to his libido that was powerful enough to break through the fog of arousal.

      So this was spontaneous combustion.

      So this was chemistry squared.

      So this was…not going to happen.

      The blood flow finally rerouted back to his brain and cognizant thought made a comeback. With a growl of frustration he lifted his head, sucked in air.

      And looked at the face he’d just ravaged.

      Her lips were wet and swollen and so pretty and pink; her eyes were glazed, her lush lashes fluttering slowly as if she, too, was trying to get her bearings and figure out what had just happened.

      Insanity. That’s what had happened. Some cosmic blip had flashed across his radar screen and short-circuited his brain, hot-wiring him straight into sensual overload.

      He wanted nothing more than to dive back in and kiss her again, strip off her clothes, lay her down on the closest horizontal surface and take this to the next level.

      And when her soft sigh and desperately whispered “Ry, please…make love to me,” drifted through his mind like a drug, he almost…almost…did it.

      But this was Carrie.

      Little Carrie-bear.

      Trav’s kid sister.

      Trav’s virgin kid sister.

      The truth hit him like a bucket of ice water. This couldn’t happen. And damn if it hadn’t just almost happened in the worst—and best—possible way.

      Very carefully, very deliberately, he forced himself to pull away from her, drop his hands and take a step backward.

      Damning himself for his lack of control, he stared into her glazed eyes and struggled with the words to set this right.

      Only, there were no words to make it right. What he’d done was inexcusable. What he’d wanted—what he still wanted—was not what she needed.

      Angry with himself, even a little angry with her for not having the instincts to protect herself from the likes of him or a predator like Beldon, he made an instant decision on how this had to be handled.

      It wasn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t going to be nice. But it would be effective. And it was necessary.

      Carrie swayed on her feet and might have toppled like a tower of children’s

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