don’t, not if it concerns having anyone else guess about your private life.”
“I told you about my private life,” he replied. He took a slow breath. “I’ve never told anyone else about my child.”
“I have that kind of face,” she said with a tender smile.
“Yes, you do.” He touched her cheek lightly. “I’ve got more emotional scars than you have, and that’s saying something. We’re both damaged people. That being the case, it would be insane of us to get involved with one another. So that’s not going to happen.”
Her eyes became shy, curious. “You would… You’ve thought about…getting involved with me?” She asked the question as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard.
That it flattered her was obvious. He was surprised. He hadn’t thought she felt attracted to him. It would be difficult for her, with her past.
“With your past…” he murmured aloud.
She moved a step closer to him. It made her breathless. “You’re forgetting something. You’re a cop.”
“And that’s why you’re not afraid of me?” he murmured. He was feeling a little breathless himself at her proximity. She smelled like flowers.
One perfect shoulder lifted nervously. “Judd Dunn was a Texas Ranger. I felt safe with him.”
“Are you making a point?”
She nibbled her lower lip and her high cheekbones flushed a little. “I don’t feel…safe…with you, exactly. You stir me up inside. I feel…shaky. I feel swollen all over. I think about touching you, all the time. I keep wondering,” she whispered while they were briefly isolated from the other visitors, “how it would feel if you kissed me.”
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. But her eyes were saying it, too. She seemed almost dazed.
His lean hands contracted a little roughly, pulling her up closer to the long, heated, muscular length of his fit body. He felt her breath catch. His dark eyes dropped to her full lips. “I think about touching you, too, Tippy,” he said deep in his throat. His thumbs edged out under her arms, tracing just at the curve of her full breasts. His mouth hovered inches from hers. His breath was warm, minty. “I think about the silky feel of your skin against my chest. I think about breaking your mouth open under mine and tasting you, inside, with my tongue.”
Tippy gasped. Her body trembling. She leaned her forehead against his chest while she tried to breathe normally. Her nails bit into his chest. “Cash,” she groaned.
His thumbs became insistent. Desire coursed through him like a great flood. He felt himself going rigid, losing control. He thought about stepping back, but her hips moved just faintly and he shuddered at the lash of pleasure he felt.
She looked up, surprised by the immediate response of his body. She knew why men’s bodies grew hard like that, but it had always been repugnant to her before. Now, it was fascinating, glorious. Her lips parted as she searched his stormy eyes. He wanted her!
She started to move again, desperate to please him, but his hands suddenly dropped to her slender hips and grasped them roughly.
“If you do that again,” he said through his teeth, “there’s going to be a whole new definition of public exhibition, and we’re both going to figure in it prominently.”
“Oh. Oh!” She swallowed hard, looking around with embarrassing color. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be watching.
He put her completely away and straightened, reciting multiplication tables in his head to divert his thoughts. It had been a long dry spell, but even so, his reaction to Tippy was unsettling.
She was feeling something similar. She’d gone from frigid apprehension to passionate anticipation in the space of seconds. Suddenly, all she could think about was a bed, with Cash in the middle of it. She could al most picture that powerful body without clothes…
She made a faint sound and couldn’t have looked at Cash to save her life.
He couldn’t help the soft chuckle that escaped his tight throat. She was an open book. It was flattering to know that he could arouse her with such innocent love play. She stirred him up, too, but he didn’t trust her. Or did he? He’d never told another living soul about his wife.
As if seeking comfort, her beautifully manicured hands went to his shirt and pressed there, unsteadily. She kept a discreet distance between her body and his. She didn’t dare look up at him. She’d never felt so insecure, so shy. She’d never felt so happy or so…stimulated.
His big hands caught her tiny waist and pressed there. Around them, people were moving, talking, laughing. But they were alone in the world. It was a sensation Cash could never remember feeling in his life.
“I could hurt you,” he bit off. “And I don’t mean physically. I’m a bad risk. I’m too used to my own space. I don’t share. I don’t…feel much emotion any more.”
He sounded vulnerable. She was fascinated. Her soft green eyes looked up into his turbulent dark ones and it was like lightning striking. She actually caught her breath, and it was audible. “I’m feeling things I never dreamed I could.”
His hands jerked on her waist. His teeth clenched. “It would be suicide!” he said roughly.
She remembered a line from a book, and her eyes were brilliant as she whispered, with faint amusement, “Well, do you want to live forever?”
It broke the tension. He laughed.
Her face was radiant. “I didn’t know if I could be with a man, even a few days ago,” she confessed huskily. “But I’m almost sure I could be with you. I know I could!”
Now he looked fascinated, too. He studied her in a rapt silence. “To what end, Tippy?” he asked after a minute.
Her mind wasn’t working. Her body felt bruised with need.
“End?” she said blankly.
His chest rose and fell. “I do not want to get married again,” he said flatly. “Period.”
Her eyes widened and she realized what she’d been insinuating. She had just enough wit left to spare her self any more embarrassment. “Now, just you wait a minute, buster,” she said, “that was not a proposal of marriage. I hardly know you. Can you cook and clean house? Do you know how to keep a checkbook? Can you darn a sock? And what about shopping in the mall? I absolutely could never think seriously about a man who didn’t like to shop!”
He blinked twice, deliberately, and twisted his ear. “Could you say that again?” he asked politely. “I think my brain took a brief recess…”
“Besides all that, I have high standards for a prospective husband, and you aren’t even in the running yet,” she continued, unabashed. “Stop rushing your fences, Grier. You’re only on probation here.”
His dark eyes twinkled. “Ooookay,” he drawled.
She pulled away from him with a toss of her head. “Don’t get a swelled head just because I agreed to go out with you. And remember
