much. But she hadn’t accounted for the fact that desire could be a two-way street. He’d always been an intensely handsome man. She wasn’t too proud to admit she’d had a crush on him for a couple years when she’d first started riding at the rodeos, until it became clear that he would never view her as anything more than an obstacle to regaining his rodeo.
But the way he was looking at her right now, naked lust in his eyes instead of sneering contempt?
He wanted her. And that?
That took everything handsome about him and made him almost unbearably gorgeous. Her pulse began to pound and, as she skimmed her fingers up her chest to ostensibly reach for the next button, she had to fight back a moan.
“There,” she said as she fastened the last button, and dammit, her voice came out breathy. “Is that decent enough for you?”
Pete’s gaze lingered on her body for another two seconds before he wrenched his whole head up. His eyes were glazed. She probably couldn’t have stunned him any better than if she’d hit him on the head with a two-by-four. Chloe had to bite her lower lip to keep from saying something wildly inappropriate, like I’ll undo all of those buttons while you watch or maybe just a simple, effective your turn.
Talk about wildly inappropriate. Instead, she said, “What do you want?” because that was the question she needed the answer to.
His presence wasn’t an accident and he was plotting something. But her words didn’t come out as an accusation. At least, it didn’t sound like one to her. It almost sounded like...an invitation.
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. The look in his eyes said one word and one word only—you. “We, uh, have to talk. About the job.”
Right, right. The job. The rodeo. The feud between their families, going back over thirteen years. The way she knew he was here to undermine her but she wasn’t sure how supporting her was going to help with that.
None of that had a damned thing to do with the way his eyes devoured her.
She turned and bent at the waist to check her makeup in the small travel mirror. Pete made a noise behind her that sounded suspiciously like a groan. She glanced back at him in the reflection and saw that he was, predictably, staring at her behind. “Yes, the job. The one you volunteered yourself for?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed again. “That job.”
She reached over and picked up her chaps. They were show chaps, bright white leather that had never seen a speck of dirt or a spot of cow manure. With supple fringe at the edges, the chaps had “All-Stars” worked in beads running vertically down each of her thighs and then, at the widest part of the chaps at the bottom, “Princess of the Rodeo” had been spelled out in eye-popping gems of pink and silver. Nothing about these chaps were subtle and everything was designed to catch the eye. She always wore the white outfit on the first night of the rodeo. The second night, she had another matching outfit in patriotic red, white and blue. Those chaps were so covered with rhinestones she needed help mounting up in the saddle.
“What I’m trying to figure out,” she said, propping one leg up on the chair and strapping the chap around her upper thigh, “is why you want the job, Pete. By all accounts, you don’t need the money. I know Marie’s ranch does well, too.”
Chloe had done her research—he was quite well off. He wasn’t at the same level the Lawrence family was, but his net worth meant he didn’t need this job. Gorgeous, wealthy, rugged—Pete Wellington was a hell of a catch no matter how she looked at him.
And she was looking at him right now. He stared at her with naked desire and she could feel her traitorous body reacting. If it weren’t for his hell-bent vendetta, she’d be tempted.
A shudder worked through her body as she went on, “And you haven’t exactly shown a willingness to work beneath a woman in general or me in specific.”
He had his thumbs hooked into his belt, but he was gripping the leather so hard his knuckles were white. She’d put a lot of money on the fact that he wouldn’t be able to tell her what she’d just said.
But this man was just full of surprises, wasn’t he? “I never said I have any problem working under you,” he said in a low voice that made that tight coil of desire in her stomach painfully tighter. “In fact, I’m beginning to think it’s a good idea to have you over me.”
Her fingers fumbled with the strap and she had to stop before the heavy leather fell off her leg entirely. Her hands were shaking again, but this time it wasn’t with rage.
Damn this man. Even when he pissed the hell out of her, he still had the capacity to make her want him. At least this time, she knew she’d made him want her, too.
It wasn’t so much cold comfort as it was outright torture, however.
She took a deep breath, hoping to clear her head—but it didn’t work because now his scent was filling this tiny space. Leather and dirt and musk. He smelled exactly like a cowboy should, rough and maybe a little dirty but so, so right.
“Good,” she managed to get out, but she didn’t sound in charge by any stretch of the imagination. “I’m glad you’re coming to your senses.” There. She managed to get the straps on the first chap done and turned her attention to the second chap. Which required her to switch legs. She leaned into the mild stretch and this time, Pete definitely groaned.
She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t come out as “Could you help me with this?” and no matter how hot he was making her, she was absolutely not about to have sex with Pete Wellington in a glorified broom closet.
Or anywhere else, she mentally corrected.
Sex with Pete Wellington was completely off the table. Or any other flat surface. That was final.
So she kept her mouth shut as she worked at the buckle. When she had that one done, she belted the chaps at her waist, which finished the whole look off with the giant belt buckle that had Princess worked in Swarovski crystals. Her dad had commissioned it for her when she’d turned eighteen.
She turned back to the mirror, trying not to look at the man behind her, but it wasn’t easy. He must’ve taken a step forward at some point because he loomed over her now. She could feel his breath messing up her carefully curled hair and it was tempting—so damned tempting—to lean back into that broad chest, just to see what he’d do. Would he push her hair to the side and press his lips against the little bit of skin right below her ear? Cup her breasts through the sequins? Run his hands down her waist and around to her denim-clad butt?
She physically shook as these thoughts tumbled through her mind. She never hooked up at any of the All-Stars events—which was both company policy and her own personal rule. Cowboys were off-limits. But she lived out of a suitcase seven months of the year, which didn’t make it easy to have relationships, either.
It’d been too long since a man had gotten this close to her.
Why, oh why did it have to be Pete freaking Wellington? He might be turning her on and she might be driving him crazy, but a little raw sexual attraction didn’t change anything. He wasn’t here by accident and she couldn’t give him any more leverage over her. For all she knew, this attraction was part of whatever con he was running. Get her in a compromising position and blackmail her
