The Rancher's Rules

The only consolation she could take from that night was the fact that Grant had not known her plans, or of the love that had been burning inside her for most of her life.

She would never give him the opportunity to stomp on her heart that way again.

Even knowing that the friendship they shared was as close to intimacy as they should ever get, she still desired him—and now it was getting worse. Like that summer four years ago, she sensed that Grant had become aware of the air sizzling between them as well. His breathing had turned shallow and his heartbeat thundered in her ear.

Zoe pulled back and looked into his eyes. Their normal blue lights had darkened with unmistakable desire. Zoe’s lips parted involuntarily. His gaze zeroed in on her mouth and it tingled as if he’d touched it. The sound of tinny laughter came from the TV screen, but he didn’t look away from her mouth and she couldn’t look away from him. In a gesture born of nervousness, she flicked her tongue out to wet her suddenly dry lips.

Grant made a growling sound deep in his throat.

“Grant?” Her head was screaming, Not again, but her body was refusing to listen as she leaned just one centimeter closer.

“This is not a good idea.” He said the words even as he cupped the back of Zoe’s head and pulled her forward to receive his kiss.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE feel of Grant’s lips against hers was so overpowering Zoe almost forgot to respond. Her body knew what it wanted, however, and she found herself arched against him, kissing him back for all she was worth. Her hands dug into the flannel covering his chest and she tried to eat his lips. He groaned and dragged her onto his lap, deepening the kiss.

At the first touch of his tongue Zoe lost whatever sense of reality she’d had left. Her mouth opened and she invited him in with little flicks of her tongue against his. His mouth was hot, his taste utterly masculine. How had she gone so long, forgetting how this felt?

Grant’s body shuddered under her, and Zoe felt more than just his hard thighs against her backside. A responding wetness warmed her inner thighs and she clamped them tightly together in an effort to assuage the ache in her most feminine place. She squirmed against him, exultant when he bucked under her.

She licked the salt and butter from the popcorn off his lips, tunneling her fingers into his hair, awed by the feel of its silkiness against her skin. His hands were locked on her hips and she desperately wanted to feel them move. Then they did. Right up her body to her breasts that longed for his touch.

He brushed her already erect nipples as they strained against her top. She wanted more. She wanted to rip off every layer of cloth between her burning skin and his hands, and she wanted those talented lips that were wreaking havoc with her mouth to do the same to the needy little buds jutting against his palms.

She rocked harder against him and he groaned deep in his throat. He bucked upward, pressing his hardened penis against the juncture of her thighs, and she almost came apart.

It was too much.

It was too wonderful.

It was over.

Grant had torn his mouth from hers and yanked his hands away from her breasts. She kept her eyes shut and waited for him to resume the kiss, to go on to something better.

Seconds moved in slow succession.

She opened her eyes and could have screamed at the look of horror on Grant’s face. He stood abruptly and she fell on the floor, landing hard on her bottom.

So much for their first kiss in four years.

He moved to stand near the recliner.

Zoe climbed up off the floor. “Ouch.” She rubbed her backside. “What was that for?”

Grant ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. I…”

She waited, but Grant never finished his sentence. He just stared at her, like she had grown a couple of antlers…or worse. Her body ached from wanting, not to mention her unceremonious trip to the floor. Grant’s dismayed features were not helping.

“Stop looking like that. It was just a kiss.”

“Just a kiss? Zoe, you’re my best friend. A man does not kiss his best friend.”

This was getting out of hand. “Grant, I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but your best friend happens to be female. There is no cardinal rule against kissing me.”

“I have a rule against it.”

Had he written that rule before or after their hot and heavy session in his barn when she was nineteen? She felt her face crease in a frown. “Well, you broke it.”

“I know.”

He looked so genuinely dismayed that she fought with dual desires. One to comfort him and the other to smack him. What was his problem? Being his best friend, she decided on comfort and leaned forward to pat his arm. He jumped back.

She glared at him. “Stop acting like kissing me was tantamount to cattle rustling.” She was the one with all the reasons to keep their relationship platonic. He’d walked away from their last encounter with mutual passion heart-whole.