his teasing had stirred her into a stew pot full of temper.
She was beyond riled at the moment and working her way toward a full-blown snit. He’d drawn a few broncs in his rodeo days sporting the same kind of attitude she was nursing right now. They’d slam-dunked him into the dirt like he’d been a wet noodle. He’d lived to ride again…but just barely.
He cleared his throat, turned the ignition and, opting for wisdom over valor, he did exactly what the lady had said. He kept his mouth shut and he drove.
“Inside. Now,” Carrie ordered when Ry pulled up in front of her house fifteen minutes later after a very silent ride.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said obediently, told Shamu to “Chill for a few minutes” and quietly followed her to her front door.
She could feel his eyes on her as she led the way up her front walk. She hoped he enjoyed the view because he wasn’t going to be seeing it again anytime soon.
After unlocking the front door, she swung it open and, with a lift of her hand, indicated he should precede her inside. Compliant to a fault, he eased past her…then stood in the middle of her living room, hands on his hips, Resistol tugged low over his brow and waited…looking for all the world like an ad for pro rodeo or Wrangler jeans or Texas tourism, she thought in disgust as she tossed her house keys on the foyer table.
Damn him for being so gorgeous and so clever and so successful in his mission…whatever it was.
Well, she was about to find out and then she was going to put the skids to it. On the ride across town, she’d made herself hold her tongue, tried to settle herself down so when the words came out, they would be forceful, rational and decisive.
“I have had it,” she said slowly, distinctively and with enough force that he actually looked a little unsettled. “I’ve had it with your meddling. With your play-acting. With the humiliation.”
When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Wisely, he held his silence.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say because there is no explanation in Texas big enough, good enough or convincing enough to excuse your actions.
“Now, I want you to listen to me, Ryan Evans,” she said, marching up and getting right in his face.
“No more good-ol’-boy grins, no more misguided protector mentality. No more showing up and sabotaging my dates with Nathan Beldon. I’m a big girl and I can handle myself.
“Now, I’ve got a pretty good idea that Trav put you up to this and I know you feel loyalty to him, but so help me, if you don’t butt out of my life and my business, I will never speak to you again as long as I live. And Trav’s on the short list of dispensable people, too, so make sure he knows it.”
“Carrie—”
“I didn’t say you could talk yet. I’m talking. You’re still listening. I want to know if you understand what I’m saying to you. A simple nod will do.”
He tugged on his hat brim, set his mouth in a hard line and settled himself with a deep breath.
“Do. You. Un. Der. Stand?” she demanded.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said, and she wasn’t at all surprised to hear an edge of anger creep into his voice.
Good, she thought. He’d brought this on. Let him have a taste of it, too. It made it that much easier to stay mad at him.
“Make that ‘Yes, ma’am, I understand that I am not to interfere with your life because it’s none of my business who you see and what you do.”’
He glared at her. “I’ve said it before. Nothing’s changed. You will always be my business.”
She ignored the dark insistence in his voice, drew on her anger to stay the course. “Say it, Ry. Promise me you will not so much as draw a breath within thirty feet of me when I’m with Nathan Beldon again.
“If I’m ever with him again,” she added with a little sinking sensation in her chest. A man could only take so much interference from testosterone-fueled protectors before he packed up his marbles for good and went home. Nathan had probably reached his limit.
“He’s not for you, Carrie.”
Her mouth dropped open at his outrageous assumption that he knew what was good for her. “That is not for you to decide!” she countered, frustration fueling the conviction in her words.
She closed her eyes and covered her face with her closed fists on a growl. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
There were tears in her eyes when she dropped her hands. “You don’t want me…so why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Oh, God.
Oh, God, oh, God. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. You don’t want me. Mortified, she turned her back to him.
Oh, man, Ry thought, his heart breaking at the defeated set of her slim shoulders.
Didn’t want her? He suppressed a groan. If only.
Look at her. She was beautiful, intelligent, caring and compassionate…and passionate as all get-out. And right now she was trembling with such an enticing mix of anger and vulnerability he ached with wanting her.
He gently cupped her shoulders and turned her back around to face him. And felt a current of longing and lust shoot through his blood like a freight train.
What sane man wouldn’t want her? What flesh-and-blood man couldn’t help but want to take her in his arms and kiss away the tear that escaped and tracked down her cheek? What man with an ounce of testosterone in his DNA wouldn’t kill to feel the fire of her passion?
He was all of those men…and out of control to boot. Suddenly he couldn’t stop himself. With his hands wrapped around her upper arms, he drew her slowly toward him, watching the emotions shift across her face as his left leg wedged between hers, and her full breasts pressed against his chest.
Her eyes shimmered with a mist of unshed tears…and a stunned and needy anticipation. And just that fast he was a goner.
There wasn’t a force in the world at that moment strong enough to keep him from lowering his head, touching his lips to hers and losing himself in her giving heat and surrendering sigh.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The words hammered out from the part of his brain that was still functioning. But function gave way to feeling as he sank into the kiss, opening his mouth over hers, coaxing her lips apart, slipping his tongue inside and diving headlong into heaven.
Sweet.
Lord above, she was so sweet. And sassy and sexy as she rose up on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered her long, lush body against him like she was a blanket and he was an unmade bed and, heaven help him…he had to stop this now.
But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
It was too good. She
