The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

He chuckled. “They ain’t gonna hate you. You’re a natural with kids.”

She wrung her fingers at her waist. “Ty, I know this isn’t what you want.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.” He ripped his hat off again, letting it drop, and raked his fingers through his hair, exhaled, and shook his head as he glanced to the distance, then spat out, “Screw rule two.”

He rammed his fingers through her hair and his mouth crashed to hers. Her phone tumbled from her grip onto the gravel. His fingers clenched her roots, his tongue plundering roughly. There was no gentleness, no seduction. He had a target: her. And he was trained on it. His body came flush with hers, towered over hers, filling all her personal space and backing her against the tailgate. He released her face, found her hands between them and wrenched them open, pulling them around his body so her palms rested upon his back, and leaned into her, pinning her against the hot metal. The way he was unleashing, it was as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders.

“What does that mean?” she breathed, gripping his neck and arching into him, begging him to keep going, to keep taking. “Rule number two.”

“It means you’re my girl,” he growled as she melted into him, then chuckled. “And that I got a plus-one for the wedding.”

She couldn’t help her smile. He was awfully presumptuous.

“But isn’t this too fast? Are you sure?”

His head pulled up, but he dipped it so his eyes took her in, his grip still upon the sides of her head and his hips pinning her to the truck. He let go and raked a hand through his hair again, exasperated. “It’s hard for me to talk about my kids and their mother. But…” He turned back to her. Slid his hands onto her hips to hold her. “We’ll take it slow. How am I ever gonna know if this is right if I never take a chance? I just don’t wanna run you off.”

Her eyes searched his again, filled with pain… Your momma left because of me. He wasn’t so tough beneath this muscular exterior. No. He was vulnerable.

His thumb brushed over her lips.

“I froze like a deer in high beams back at the house, and I’m sorry for that, but it’s not because I didn’t like what you were asking. It was because I liked it so damn much it kept bouncing around my head, and it’s the first time I’ve considered having a woman here,” he confessed on a gruff whisper. “It’s a new thing for me.”

“Heart? Heart, did you break up?” That was Bill.

“Oh my God, Bill!” She scrambled for her phone but Tyler held her upright. Elation, nerves, they tumbled inside her like a laundromat dryer. Tyler’s lips resumed their kiss, trailing over her cheeks as Bill once more asked if he’d lost her, as Tyler kissed a burning path down her neck, her jaw, her chest, between the valley of her breasts.

“Tell him you’re good for the job,” he said, kissing his way down her belly, shifting to his knee to lift her shirt and kiss her navel, her scar, hand anchoring her hip as the other fished on the ground and plucked up her phone.

He shoved to standing and put it to her ear, now that he’s sufficiently buttered me up, and thumbing unmute, her lips parting on shallow breaths, knees shaking.

God, did she sound as ragged as she felt? Her chest heaved up and down. “Yeah, Bill.”

“Everything all right?”

“Just fine.” Suck in air. “I changed my mind.”

“You sound out of breath.”

“I’m in the field.” Tyler’s hand crept beneath her shirt, sliding around her waist to the small of her back, calluses snagging her flesh, making her jump with anticipation, as he leaned in to suckle her other earlobe, his cedar and salty sweat filling her nose, smelling as delicious as the pastries her avó made.

“You changed your mind? This another one of those Heart Carvalho 180s?”

Tyler’s lips smiled against her skin as he dusted kisses to her neck as if he’d heard. Yeah, he wasn’t the only one who’d teased her for making their head spin. She had a habit of doing that.

“Yup. I’ll get it done.”

“Are you…involved with the landowner in some way?” She froze. Tyler slowed. Still intoxicating her with his scent. She was a horrible liar!

“No. I mean, we’re…acquainted now, uh, but, nothing major—” Stop it! She admonished Tyler silently, swatting at his roving hands as he grinned unapologetically.

“Okay then, you scared me,” Bill said. “I’ll look for your report to come in—”

Tyler tapped off the cell and set it in the truck bed. “Where were we?”

“I think you were at the part where you turn our conflict of interest into a breach of contract,” she teased, earning a chuckle from him.

He dragged up her shirt, pulling it over her head, quickly vanquishing all disconcerting thoughts about Bill’s unusual tone, and tossed it unceremoniously into the truck bed. His hands slid over her breasts, squeezing the orange fabric as his mouth descended to them and paid them surprisingly gentle homage considering the animalistic way he was groping her, as her head fell back on the tailgate ledge. His fingers were electricity, his thumbs, spark plugs flicking over her nipples as his tongue soothed the sting.