Stripped Down

“And?” She glares at me as if I’d kicked her puppy. Maybe she really did want to keep her control of her bag. I think about that for a second, and then decide fuck that. She needed help. I gave it.

She’s just gonna have to get over it—because it’ll happen again. First, we need to establish a few rules. My rules.

“Bad girls get spankings,” I say roughly. I can practically hear Mitch’s ears twitching—this conversation will be all over Lonesome by mid-afternoon—so I step between her and the lawyer. I’m big enough that he can’t see around me as I plant a hand on the wall beside her head, moving closer until she’s good and trapped. Her glare gets stronger, but I don’t miss the pretty pink flush on her cheeks. A man has to wonder where else she blushes, so I make a mental note to find out. Soon. I can think of at least a half-dozen ways to shock her in bed.

“It’s not caveman day,” she announces. See, her problem is that she thinks I care. I lean down, until my mouth is by her ear. She shoves at my chest, and I gather her wrists in my free hand. Carefully. The last thing I want to do is break her.

I’m about to say something that will push her, something that will give her a hint about my plan to fuck the ever-living daylights out of her (on my schedule not hers, although making her wait for it sounds like a plan too) when I get a good look at her face. I don’t know where she spent the night, but the skin beneath her eyes is kind of lilac-colored, bruised and tired. She’s still the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen, but I suspect she once again failed to plan ahead. I didn’t ask if she had a place to stay when she came to Lonesome, and I should have. Should have made it clear that there’s always room for her on my ranch. She’s had me off-balance, though, from the moment she surfaced in my swimming hole six months ago. The whole naked thing hadn’t helped my focus then.

Apparently it leads to impulsive comments now, because I promptly say the wrong thing. “Where did you spend the night?”

What I mean is You look tired. Is everything okay? What comes out, though, sounds like an accusation. Everything would be so much simpler if I could simply pick her up and carry her off to bed with me. Plus, she looks as if she could use the sleep.

Naturally, she glares harder and shoves at my chest as if she can actually make me move. I outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds, so there’s no way she forces me to do anything.

“Are you saying I look like shit?” Since I’m immoveable, she settles for stepping forward, her body slamming into mine. This can’t possibly have the effect she planned. She’s way too tiny to actually hurt me, and I enjoy every second her boobs are pressed against my chest.

“I like your dress,” I tell her. “Especially this ribbon thing.”

The skinny ribbons of her sundress crisscross her shoulders and tie in bows. The dress makes her look fragile and more than a little sweet, which is completely deceptive. Rose is many things, but she’s got a backbone of steel. She’s also devious, more than a bit mean, and resilient. These are all good things.

She backs up, removing her boobs from my chest. Too bad. “You’re into women’s fashions?”

Given the way her eyes skip my face and go straight to my arms caging her in place, she’s contemplating step two in her prison break.

“I’m into you.” She sucks in a breath at my words, and maybe not because I drag my thumb over the some of the ribbon in question. Which happens to be decorating the front of her dress in the best kind of X-marks-the-spot over her cleavage.

Since I like having her off-balance, I step back and motion her to the chair. I can’t sit while she’s standing.

Mitch promptly launches into a hasty reading of the will. Either he thinks we might kill each other, or he wants to finish up here so he can share the news of our attraction with the rest of Lonesome. I already know the contents, but they’re gonna surprise the hell out of Rose because Auntie Dee’s made sure Rose can’t get rid of me.

Auntie Dee left her ranch to Rose and I in a fifty-fifty split.

Rose is still gaping at Mitch, when the lawyer produces a handwritten addendum. It’s more of a note really, in which Auntie Dee mentions that she knows how much Rose loved the house and that she hopes this means that Rose knows she’ll always have a home now. She adds a totally unnecessary message for me, asking me to look after Rose and keep everything safe. I’m not gonna let Rose get hurt and she should have known that. Or maybe she thought Rose needed the reminder. It’s hard to ask a dead woman what she meant. Rose starts blinking fast, holding back tears. Fuck. It’s not like I carry Kleenex on me.