The Cowboy's Pride and Joy

He seemed to think about it for a long minute. Then he said, “Storm’s over, you know. The road out should be cleared in a day or two.”

Another sharp stab of pain, regret, poked at her insides, but she ignored it. “Then in a day or two, I’ll be gone and we can both go back to our lives. Good enough?”

His arm around her tightened, and for one heartbeat, Cass thought that he didn’t like the idea of her leaving. She’d like to tell herself that he wanted her to stay. But the moment passed and she grimly reminded herself not to build illusions that would only shatter her later. Take what’s here, she thought. Take it and treasure it, then let it go. It was the only way.

“I think we’ve talked enough,” was all he said and then he dipped his head to take one pebbled nipple into his mouth.

Cass groaned and sighed all at once. Satisfaction and need curled together into a tangled knot until she didn’t know which was the stronger. She held his head to her breast, sliding her fingers through his hair as his mouth tormented her with gentle torture designed to have her quivering into a puddle of goo.

Take it. Treasure it.

Then let it go.

* * *

A few hours later, Jake lay quietly in the dark with Cass curled up into his side. She slept, her breathing deep and even, her arm draped across his chest, her legs entwined with his.

His body was, for the moment, at peace. But his mind wouldn’t shut off. The plain and simple truth was, he’d had his world rocked and he still wasn’t sure how he’d allowed it to happen.

She was in his bed. Nestled up next to him. And he should be jumping to his feet and making tracks. Yet instead, he stayed here, next to her, feeling her breath brush across his chest. Inhaling the scent of her, drawing it deep inside him. He felt her heartbeat, soft against him, and felt invisible manacles snap closed around his wrists.

Well, that mental image got him moving.

Carefully, he eased out from under her. She whispered in her sleep, then curled up in the warmth his body had left behind on the sheets. In the moonlight drifting through the windows, he looked at her, that soft spill of dark blond hair, her creamy smooth skin, the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the quilt they’d been sharing. And the view shook him to his bones.

Deliberately, he turned his back on the bed and the woman in it and stalked to the adjoining bathroom. He hit the wall switch and winced as the lights jumped to life. Black and white tiles, black granite and black sinks gleamed in the harsh light, but when he looked in the mirror, Jake saw a man on the edge.

He curled his fingers around the end of that cold granite and leaned into the mirror. “What the hell?”

He’d wanted her for days and had assumed, naturally, that the minute he’d had Cass, the need for her would wane. It always had before. Every woman who’d come through his life—including his ex-wife—had left absolutely zero impression on him. If they were there, he was with them, but when they were gone, he didn’t miss them. Hell, even when Lisa left him while he was still serving overseas, he’d been more pissed than hurt.

And when he’d come home, he’d easily gone on with his life without her.

Jake had always assumed that the lack was his. That there was just something missing within him that kept him from forming any kind of attachment to the women he encountered. But maybe, he thought now, it wasn’t him. Maybe it was the women he’d chosen in the past.

Because he had new evidence. Cass was asleep in his bed.

And he wanted her all over again.

He turned from the mirror and the questions he saw in his own eyes. Walking into the shower, he turned the faucets and purposely stood beneath a fall of icy water. He didn’t need more heat. Hell, he felt as if his blood were still boiling.

What he needed was cold. And distance. And some damn logic.

Lathering up the soap, he scrubbed his skin as if he could wash away her scent, but even as he tried, he had the feeling that he’d never be able to accomplish that. Cassidy Moore was a complication he hadn’t figured on. He had to mitigate the danger to himself by getting her off his mountain and back to Boston as fast as he could manage it.

Just because he’d taken her into his bed for the night didn’t mean that there was room in his life for her.

He was better off alone.

Six

Fourteen months later...

Cass’s world was imploding and all she could do was stand there and watch it go.