cooling her skin yet somehow warming the night.
Or maybe it was the fear of falling off the horse that made her so warm. More likely it was the prospect of what the evil twin had in mind. Cletus proved to be a real gentleman as he plodded along beneath the stars. So far Jake had been a gentleman, too. Despite the temperature of the night, despite the blanket of stars shining down, she shivered in anticipation of what he had in mind for lesson number two. In all likelihood, being a gentleman was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Greenhorns,” Jake sputtered good-naturedly an hour later when he helped Christine down out of the saddle. “How can you live in Texas and be such a greenhorn?”
“Not all of Texas is yippee-yi-yo-ki-yay land, you know,” she grumbled. “I grew up in Houston. We had cars.”
Cute. She was too cute. And a little sore, if Jake didn’t miss his guess. But she was game, he’d give her that. Once she’d found her seat, she’d taken to the midnight ride like a trooper.
Of course, he never would have paired her with a horse that would have placed her in any danger. Old Cle-tus was pushing twenty-five, and if a random thought of bucking ever did cross the old boy’s mind, Jake was confident it would get lost somewhere between Cle-tus’s head and the execution. So, no, Christine had never been in any danger.
At least, not from the horse.
Not for the first time he told himself that what he had planned was not a good idea. But it would work, if it didn’t backfire on him.
“So, is this like a rest stop?” she asked, tugging down on the thighs of her jeans as if they’d crept up and into places they didn’t belong.
Places he’d noticed. Places he’d been thinking about way too much as he’d ridden in relative silence beside her, a silence broken only by his limited advice on the finer points of riding and his reassurances that no, Cle-tus had no intentions of bucking.
He’d noticed other things, as well. Like the way the starlight shined on her silver-gold hair. Like how cute she looked in those ridiculous boots and how tiny her waist was with her white tank top tucked into her jeans.
Who knew that Miss Chrissie was the complete package? Who could have possibly known? If he hadn’t seen her dressed to kill Saturday night, if he hadn’t felt all those sexy curves against him when they’d kissed—twice now—he never would have guessed it. She’d seemed to make it a mission to disguise that she was even remotely feminine—even though he’d seen glimpses of the china doll lurking beneath all that starch.
Hell, it had crossed his mind a time or two that, as prickly as she was toward him, maybe she played for the other team. He’d never seen her with a guy, never heard of her dating. In fact, when he did see her, she was either alone or with a friend. So, yeah, it had crossed his mind that maybe it wasn’t just him that turned her off but that women turned her on. Not that there was anything wrong with that. But, man, what a waste, he thought, watching her now as she stretched her arms above her head and worked out some of the kinks.
Now he knew for sure that she definitely liked the opposite sex. No woman could kiss him the way she had and not be totally into it. It shouldn’t have made him so happy because tonight, after all, wasn’t about seducing her. Tonight was about scaring her back to where she didn’t want to come within ten feet of him except to hurl insults.
Yeah. Tonight was about reestablishing distance, because distance was the best thing he could give her.
“Come on,” he said, leading his gelding by the reins. “Let’s walk over this rise.”
“Oh,” she said when she saw what was on the other side of the small hill. “It’s beautiful.”
The little man-made lake was, for a fact, pretty in the moonlight. But Jake had confidence that what he was about to suggest was going to put the prissy back in Chrissie and that there wasn’t enough “pretty” in the world to entice her to do it.
And then life, as he knew it where she was concerned, could get back to normal.
“So, Chrissie,” he said oh-so casually, “let’s lose the duds. We’re going skinny-dipping.”
He could have sworn he heard a teeny, tiny “Help” from her as he hung his hat on a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.
And when he reached for his belt buckle, he knew he heard one.
Her eyes were as big as dinner plates when he turned toward her.
“Skinny-dipping?”
“As you ordered,” he said, undoing the buckle and the metal button on his waistband. “Lesson number two.”
He almost felt sorry for her—almost—as he slid down his zipper then tugged his shirttails free. “Any walk on the wild side has to include a midnight dip.”
“N-n-nude?” she squeaked out as he shucked his shirt and tossed it to the ground.
“Naturally,” he said, sitting on the ground to tug off his boots and socks. When he stood again, he was wearing nothing but his jeans and a smile. “You’re falling behind, sweet cheeks,” he said and dropped the jeans.
Her little gasp was punctuated by a small, lingering “Oh” that escaped like a sigh.
He gave her a good eyeful, liking a little too much the way her nervous gaze flitted from his face to his chest to his face again, then to his groin—which was liking the way she looked at him a little too much, too. Mixed in with the fear and surprise in her expression was a very female appreciation.
“Time’s a-wastin’,” he said and showed her his back—just a little too late to hide what her hot looks had done to him. He walked to the bank, waded to midthigh before executing a shallow dive. Like it or not, he needed cooling off. The look in her eyes had heated him to the point of boiling.
When he surfaced, she was still standing on shore, looking exactly the way he thought she’d look—ready to bolt. Which was exactly what he wanted her to do. Nip this nonsense in the bud, that’s what he planned on. A little more goading ought to do the trick.
“How come you’ve still got your clothes on?”
“I…um…isn’t it cold?”
“Nah.” He wiped his wet hair out of his eyes. “Just right.”
She glanced toward Cletus and he thought, Go for it. You know you want to.
“Tell you what,” he said, standing chest-deep in the water. “I’ll count to three, then you make your choice. Either ditch the duds and join me, honey, or hightail it on back to the house and we’ll forget this ever happened. Cletus knows his way back to the barn.”
“One,” he said and watched her bite her lower lip between her teeth.
“Two.” Go ahead, darlin’. Get out of here.
“Three.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and he thought, Bye-bye. Until she reached for the hem of her top.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered when the shirt came off. And then
