One Night Scandal. Joanne Rock
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Название: One Night Scandal
Автор: Joanne Rock
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Desire
isbn: 9781474076753
isbn:
“So I have no one to blame but myself for my hair getting stepped on? Are you saying that if I’d been a worse actress, you would have come to the rescue sooner?” Her gray eyes twinkled with mischief.
Teasing. Flirtation.
It wasn’t a game Brock had played often. Or well. But he damned well recognized it.
He let the new flames crackle through him, stunned that a total stranger could stir that level of heat. What was it about her? Hell, what was it about him that he was letting it draw him in?
“I’m saying, Hannah Ryder, that you’re not an easy woman to look away from.”
He heard the tone of his voice; it was all wrong for the moment. It brought the teasing and flirtation to a halt. The air around them changed. Got warmer.
He saw the confusion in her gaze. The surprise. A whole host of emotions flickered through her expression that he couldn’t identify.
But there was one that he knew. Because he felt it, too.
Desire.
It pulsed in the charged air like a heartbeat. For a moment, he thought she might take a step toward him. Until, outside the barn, his horse whinnied softly. Breaking the moment and the connection.
“I’d better go.” She tucked her chin into her chest and stalked past him. Out of the barn and into the night.
Brock watched her leave, knowing he shouldn’t follow. She’d made her decision. He respected that. He needed to check in with his family anyhow, see if their investigator had any updates on the blackmailer.
Taking a deep, cooling breath to ward off the lingering hunger for Hannah, he took his time stepping outside. Only to glimpse her outline in the moonlight.
With her back to him, he could see clearly the image that she’d pulled up on her phone.
A map of the ranch.
Walking directions back to her cabin.
Brock closed his eyes for a long moment, knowing he couldn’t let her make the long trek in the dark by herself. He would give his own sisters a hard time about navigating those woods on foot alone at night, and they’d been raised here, fully aware of what to look out for. How much did a West Coast visitor understand about the potential dangers of the Wyoming land?
Steeling himself against the inevitable draw of the woman, Brock stepped closer to make an offer that was going to be hell on his restraint.
“How about I give you a ride home?”
The cowboy’s voice smoked through her, heating her insides and sending a shiver of awareness over Hannah’s skin.
Did she want a ride?
Her subconscious was going to have way too much fun tormenting her with that image in her dreams tonight. For now, she needed to stop fantasizing about sexy Brock, the rancher who turned her inside out with just a handful of words and a smoldering gaze.
Her legs were still unsteady after whatever it was that had passed between them inside the barn. She’d had meaningful relationships in her past. Men she’d loved. And yet no one had ever given her the sizzling shock to the system that she felt from being around this stranger. Swallowing hard, she braced herself as she turned around to refuse his offer.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind walking.” Her voice was soft and breathless when she needed it to be firm and sure. “I, um, could use the fresh air.”
She could also use a new libido. One that wasn’t quite so susceptible to tall, muscular cowboys. It must be because of all the stress she was under with her sister. She’d latched on to a pleasurable distraction and now she couldn’t quite let go.
Brock folded his arms across his impressive chest. God, his arms were amazing, too. She wanted to skim her hands up the triceps and over his shoulders. Instead, she jammed her restless fingers in the back pockets of her jeans along with her phone.
“You’d probably be fine,” he acknowledged. “You must have walked over here in the dark in the first place, although the moon was higher at that hour, making the path a lot easier to follow than it will be now.”
She had been thinking the same thing since she didn’t remember exactly where she’d broken through the brush to find the barn. Nightfall in this part of Wyoming was nothing like it was in Southern California. Here, there was no ambient light of any kind. Just deep blackness and stars.
“I’ve got my phone,” she argued, although she was beginning to wonder what else might be out there in the wilderness surrounding the ranch lands. She’d heard wolves—or some kind of wild dogs—baying in the distance on the walk over here. “The cabin I’m staying in is just through there.”
She pointed vaguely, trying to see any kind of trail.
“I’m not sure calling someone will do you any good if you meet up with a bear. Or an elk. Or some other wild animal that wasn’t expecting company at this hour.”
She didn’t want to be foolish. So, in spite of the out-of-control attraction, she figured the best thing to do would be to accept the ride and get home as fast as possible.
And put this encounter out of her mind.
“Is your truck nearby?” she asked, peering around the barn. During the shoot, there’d been a couple of golf carts and two trucks parked there.
A smile curved that hard mouth of his. Nodding, he relaxed his arms and walked past her, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his body, close enough for his sleeve to brush hers.
“My horse is right this way.”
“Horse?” Her belly flipped.
Not because she minded riding a horse. Only because it implied a proximity that...
A shiver stole over her skin. Her nerve endings danced in anticipation of touching him. Something her brain knew was a very, very bad idea.
“I—” Her voice wasn’t even there. She licked her lips. Tried again. “I’m not sure—”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, holding a hand out for her while he stood next to a dark horse with a glossy coat. “I’ll help you up.” He flipped the ring for her foot so it was easier for her to see. “Step into the stirrup and you’ll be home in no time.”
Her heart pounded a chaotic, fast beat. But stalling wasn’t going to get her home any faster. She understood that much. Willing herself to remain calm, she stabbed the toe of her tennis shoe through the foothold.
Brock’s hands were quick and efficient as he boosted her up onto the saddle. He didn’t linger. But he might as well have been massaging her naked body for how her skin reacted under her clothes. Her thigh tingled. Her waist...
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