licked her lips and closed her eyes for a second. “You taste really good, you know?”
“I think it was you.”
She walked toward him, her hips swaying with each step she took, and he groaned deep in his throat. Damn. She was hot, and she knew it. She kept eye contact with him, but he broke it, letting his gaze skim down her body. He didn’t care if she saw how much she affected him.
He wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t have him hotter than a tin roof in July.
“We’ll have to do it again and again until we figure it out,” she said. Her voice was husky with a note of teasing in it.
“Sounds like my kind of plan,” he said. “I have a town house I keep here in the Five Families neighborhood. Will that be okay?”
“Sounds good. I live out at the Caruthers Ranch and I’m pretty sure we don’t want to drive all the way out there. I don’t really want to wait that long to touch you again, Diego,” she said. Her words adding kindling to the fire that was already burning out of control in his body.
“Good,” he said, lacing their fingers together and leading her down the patio walkway toward the path around the golf course. “I hope you don’t mind walking, but I’ve had too much to drink to feel safe driving even just through this neighborhood. It’s only a ten-minute walk.”
“I don’t mind walking at all,” she said.
He held her hand in his and tried to concentrate on getting back to his place. But her perfume smelled slightly of spring and she kept humming “Save a Horse,” distracting him. Filling his mind with images of her naked, on top of him, riding him. He groaned again.
“Are you okay?”
“Sí,” he said, falling back on Spanish. His family had been in the United States for generations—their original homestead had been a land grant from the Spanish King back in the 1700s—but their family had always been multilingual.
“I know a little bit of Spanish, but it’s not the Mexican dialect that a lot of people speak here,” she said. “I had a very funny conversation with Isabella about that the other day. She’s one of the new hires that Kinley brought in to work in her wedding and event planning office in town.”
Diego didn’t really care about all that. But he liked the sound of her voice, so he just made a hmming sound and she kept on talking. Finally, he saw the cluster of townhomes and his own front door.
“This way,” he said, leading her off the path and across the street to his place. These townhomes were only about five years old and had been built from the same river rock that had been used in the country club. The path leading up to the front door was made of smaller stones but smoothed out so that it was comfortable to walk on.
He reached into his pocket for his keys, which drew his trousers tighter against his groin, and he realized that even walking and talking about nothing for ten minutes had done nothing to cool him down. But that wasn’t surprising. Pippa had had him tied in knots for the last few weeks.
“This is it,” he said. “Still want to come in? If not, I can arrange for someone to take you home.”
“Diego, I want you. I want this. I’m not going to change my mind,” she said.
“You’ve kept me at arm’s length for a while now and I know that there has to be a reason. I don’t want you to regret this,” he said. He never wanted that. This night felt like...well, a dream, and he didn’t want anything to ruin it.
She threw her arms around him and hugged him close. “Oh, Diego, I don’t deserve you, but I certainly want you.”
“Of course you deserve me,” he said, lifting her off her feet and lowering his mouth to hers. Her lips tempted him; the entire time she’d been talking, all he’d thought about was kissing her again.
He set her on her feet and led the way to his front door. He unlocked it, pushed it open and beckoned for her to enter first. They stepped into the foyer. He was a pretty traditional guy, so it was decorated with solid dark wood furniture, and the floor tile was a terra-cotta color that reminded him of the mane of his favorite stallion. He tossed his keys in the bowl on the large chest to the left of the entrance and then undid his tie, tossing it on the table, as well. In the round tile-framed mirror he caught Pippa’s gaze.
She watched him with the stark, raw need that he recognized in himself. She moved closer, putting her hand on his shoulder and walking her fingers up toward his neck to slowly pull his tuxedo jacket down his arms and off.
* * *
Pippa was glad she’d left her heels on because Diego was taller than she’d realized—at least six-one. She reached around him from behind and slowly removed the studs that held his dress shirt together. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man and she wanted to make every moment of this evening last.
“Hold out your hand,” she said, her voice huskier than she meant for it to be.
He did as she asked, and she dropped each of the studs into his upturned palm. She watched him in the mirror as her fingers moved down his chest. It was sexier than she thought to see her manicured nails so close to Diego’s tanned chest as each tiny strip of his skin was revealed. Finally, she had the shirt undone to his waistband. She deliberately rubbed her fingers over his erection. His hips jerked back for a moment and then canted forward into her touch. She undid the button that fastened his pants before tugging the tails of his shirt out. It hung open, giving her a few tantalizing glimpses of his rock-hard stomach and the muscles of his chest in the mirror.
“How are you so muscly?” she asked.
He gave a half laugh, half groan sound. “I spend all my day working with horses that I charge a lot of money for other breeders to use as studs.”
“So?” she asked.
“I want the entire operation to project strength and prosperity and success. That means I can’t look like a schlub when they show up,” he said.
“I like it.”
She bit her lip to keep from just shoving her hands underneath his clothes and touching him.
Patience.
She could do this. She’d spent years waiting to claim her inheritance. By now she should be very good at waiting.
She reached for his free hand and undid the cuff link, dropping it in his palm with the shirt studs. Then he poured them into his other hand, the small studs and cuff link making an almost musical sound as he did so. She smiled.
Then she undid the other cuff link and dropped it with the other shirt studs. He closed his hand around them and shoved them into his pants pocket. She focused all her attention on Diego’s body.
She pulled the sides of his shirt open and he rotated his shoulders, making it easier for her to take it off. His shoulder blade rubbed against her right breast, sending a hot pulse of desire through her.
He tossed his shirt on top of his jacket and she put her hands on his chest. Diego worked outdoors but didn’t have a farmer’s tan. It was clear to her that he had spent a good amount of time in
