Cowboy at Midnight. Ann Major

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СКАЧАТЬ told me to ask, but you didn’t answer. Do you sleep around or not? Am I just tonight’s flavor?”

      His mouth thinned. He spun her in an intricate turn and then snapped her back into his arms. “If I have in the past, I had my reasons,” he growled.

      “A man either has character when it comes to women or he doesn’t,” she said.

      “So, things are black-and-white with you, no shades of gray? Good or bad? Evil or virtuous?”

      His words sliced her like a knife through soft tissue. She notched her chin up so high, she felt her neck muscles tighten.

      “Which are you, then?” he asked. “A saint or a sinner?”

      His question stung her like a whip. “You’re evading my question,” she persisted, her tone sharp.” Why is that, I wonder?”

      “Maybe because I want you to think well of me.” He dragged her closer and bent his dark head down to hers. “What the hell are you running from?”

      “You at the moment.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      When his mouth was less than an inch from hers, she touched his lips with a fingertip.

      He sucked the tip into his mouth and suckled it, sending hot, thrilling shivers through her. “You don’t have to run from me. I won’t hurt you.” His voice was husky and his eyes unfocused as he pulled her against him. “I—”

      “Wait. Not so fast,” she whispered huskily. “I want to know more about you first.”

      “Okay. So, maybe I’ve had a few women. They were casual affairs.”

      “One-night stands?”

      “Uncomplicated fun.”

      “I learned there’s no such thing.” The weight of her guilt crushed her heart. Why had she said that? Told him anything?

      “Really? Then why are you here?”

      “I don’t know what you mean.”

      When he lifted her hair back from her hot face, she tried to stop him. She was a little sensitive about her ears, thinking they stuck out too much. Then his mouth brushed her earlobe, and she felt another unwanted rush of heat fire the length of her spine.

      “Are you so different from me? Isn’t this what you came here for?” He kissed her other earlobe.

      “This?” she whispered.

      “Sex?” he said.

      “I for one don’t sleep around,” she said primly, pulling her hair back over her ears. “I don’t go to bars to pick up—”

      “You’re here. What did you come here for, if not for this?” His lips nibbled her cheek. “You were giving me a look.”

      The warmth he aroused was so delicious, she gasped. “Don’t. I feel faint.”

      “Has it been that long?”

      “Yes.”

      “Or is it just me?”

      “Maybe a little of both,” she admitted shyly.

      He laughed.

      “Don’t get conceited.”

      He kissed her throat above the chunky coral necklace, and she shivered when more heated sensations flared in her stomach. Then she hugged herself with her arms.

      “You smell good,” he said. “Like flowers.”

      “Violets,” she replied. “Soap and perfume. It was a Christmas gift.”

      “From a man?”

      “From my mother.”

      He kissed her again, harder than before, and she felt herself responding. Why shouldn’t she let him kiss her? Was it so wrong? He’d asked her if she was a saint or a sinner. She was definitely the latter. What would he say if she told him that because of her, her best friend had died and that now she lay in a cold, dark grave Amy couldn’t bear to look at?

      His mouth made her feel like she was burning up. It wasn’t as if she was a virgin, either—although she was, if not technically, a kind of virgin. What was the modern term for it? A born-again virgin. It had been years since that wild time in her life that had ended in disaster. Years. And yet, in a way, that awful time felt like yesterday.

      Because she didn’t want to think about the cemetery or the past, because she wanted to use him to blot it all out, she arched her left eyebrow flirtatiously. “So, what’s your name, cowboy?”

      “Steve.” With blunt, expert fingers, he cupped her triangular chin. His warm breath fanned tendrils of her hair against her ear.

      She relaxed a little as the western music, which was a mournful lament about lost love and death, ebbed and flowed around them.

      “Steve,” she murmured huskily. “Steve. I’ve never known a Steve.”

      “What’s yours?”

      “Sally, er, Jones.”

      “Sally?” He bent to kiss her again, and this time she parted her lips. For a long moment his mouth clung to hers. When he fused his body to hers, her heart clamored for even more.

      “Take it home, you two. If it’s that good, save it for the bedroom,” a cowboy quipped as he and his partner glided past them on the dance floor.

      “You want to?” Steve asked her. “I’ve got a hotel room.”

      “Uncomplicated sex?”

      “Maybe, but I wouldn’t have called it that.”

      There’s no such thing as uncomplicated sex when two people feel as passionately about each other as we do. Somebody always has an agenda.

      “Kiss me first,” she murmured, “and I’ll decide.”

      “So this is a test?”

      “Of sorts. Scared you won’t pass?” She stared teasingly into his dark eyes. “You are scared, aren’t you? In spite of all your practice with other women?”

      “There haven’t been all that many, really,” he muttered, looking slightly offended.

      He was a lot more arrogant when he was scared, she thought as he nuzzled the side of her throat with his mouth.

      “A test, huh? All or nothing? I like that. So you’re a risk taker.”

      “Not a good trait really.” She smiled nervously. “And you could decide you don’t want me.”

      “Not a chance, darlin’.” His grip СКАЧАТЬ