Redneck Romeo (Rough Riders 15)

Rory had to stop herself from jumping away from Dalton like a guilty teen. “That would be great, Glennis.”

“If you wanna take Mr…?”

“McKay,” Rory inserted.

“Mr. McKay to your office, I’ll bring the vase to you.”

“Thanks.” Her gaze hooked Dalton’s. “If you’ll follow me.” She turned down the hallway. A few of her female coworkers poked their heads out as they passed by. Word spread fast in this office.

Dalton probably did that whole cowboy hat tip-nod thing that made women swoon.

I’ve changed.

Yeah, right. Rory whipped around to try and catch him in his charm-the-pants-off-every-woman-within-range act, but Dalton’s gaze was firmly on her ass. Nowhere else.

That shouldn’t have made her feel better, but it did.

Those big blue eyes met hers. “You caught me lookin’.”

No apology. No surprise. “Because you can’t keep your eyes off this sexy uniform?”

“It’s not clothes that make a woman sexy, Rory.”

She spun back around and cut through the copy center to reach her office. She’d intended to sit behind her desk, putting some space between them, but Glennis followed them in.

Talk about speedy.

Glennis set a vase already half-filled with water on the desk and handily plucked the flowers from Dalton.

Rory gave her an arch look at her uber-efficiency.

“I saw him with those and figured someone in this office was getting flowers. It’s my job to be prepared.” She left and shut the door.

She started to open the door, but Dalton intercepted her. “Leave it closed.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you in private.”

Before she could ask what he wanted to discuss, the ooh pretty! side of her brain focused on the hunky man flesh within touching distance. Almost without thinking, she placed her hands on his face. His skin was so warm and smooth. And he smelled amazing.

“Damn you, McKay. You should’ve kept this good-looking mug of yours covered up under that ugly fur.”

“What? I shaved it because you said you didn’t like it.”

He’d shaved it off for her? Her fingers traced the edge of his strong jaw. His cheekbones. The dimple in his right cheek.

Dalton made a growling noise and Rory found herself pressed against the door by two hundred pounds of cowboy. “Deal is, you touch me, I get to touch you.”

“Hey. I didn’t agree to that deal.”

“It’s unspoken.” Dalton angled his head and placed a kiss on the side of her neck.

She should’ve demanded he stop after that first soft kiss. Or the second, placed on her neck below the first. She really shouldn’t have let him string hot kisses down one side of her throat and up the other side. She probably should’ve moved away instead of leaning closer when he started rubbing his smooth face against hers.

But it felt so good.

“Rory,” he murmured in her ear. “Have me for lunch.”

That snapped her out of it. “What?”

“Have lunch with me.”

Jesus. This man muddled her brain to the point he could make her hear things she wanted to hear. “Dalton. I can’t.”

“Too short of notice, huh?”

“It’s not that.”

Dalton eased back but his hands remained braced beside her head on the door. “Then what?”

“This is going way too fast for me. You show up at the Twin Pines and bully-kiss me into giving you my phone number.”

“Bully-kiss? Never heard that one before.”

“The night before last when we had supper at your place you used that bully-kiss tactic on me then too.”

“I didn’t use the bully-kiss tactic yesterday,” he pointed out.

“Only because you went to visit your mom and we didn’t see each other,” she retorted.

“I haven’t used the bully-kiss tactic today.” He grinned at her. “Not yet anyway.”

Her eyes searched his. “I’m serious. You just blow into town after three years and I’m supposed to take it on faith that you want to be with me? Especially after we hadn’t been on the best terms for several years before that? It’s only been three days.”

A fierce look entered his eyes. “If I’d known you were back after breaking your engagement I’d been here six months ago.”

Rory stilled. Dalton hadn’t brought up her broken engagement the other night so she wasn’t sure he’d known about it. “How’d you find out?”

“That you kicked that douche-fucker—who wasn’t good enough to date you, let alone marry you—to the curb? Sierra told me four hours after I left Montana. And I let her have it for keeping such a big f**king secret from me.”

Rory ducked under his arm and put distance between them. “I didn’t know you were so tight with Sierra.”

“I keep in touch with her because she’s the only McKay who never knew me during my growing up years, so she doesn’t hold a fixed opinion about me.”

“So you could keep in touch with her, but not me?” Crap. Why had she said that? “Did Sierra blab all about me?”

Dalton crowded her again. “Only if I asked. So I knew about your engagement. You were seriously gonna marry a guy named Dillon Doland?”

“He goes by Dil. Besides, it’s not the person’s name you fall in love with, but the person.”

He grabbed her upper arms and pulled her closer. “Were you in love with him?”

Given the jealous fire flashing in Dalton’s eyes, she was surprised how easily she manipulated the truth. “We had a lot in common.”

“Did. You. Love. Him.”

“Why does it matter now?”

“Dammit Rory, I can’t stand the thought…” Then Dalton’s hands slid up, framing her face as his mouth took possession of hers.

The kiss started out red-hot and spiraled higher from there. Every slide of his tongue against hers, every tiny suck, every nibble, every time he pulled back he made a low groan and dove into the kiss again. He read her reactions and adjusted accordingly with the perfect combination of passion and temptation. Making her crave more body-to-body contact, more…everything.

He slowed the kiss and backed off. “Didn’t mean to do that here, but I just wanted you to know.”

She rested her backside against the desk because her legs were jelly. “You wanted me to know that you intend to romance the hell out of me?”