Page 23 of Her Boss, Her Rancher: Sunrise On The Ranch

He could have given her no more than half a dozen strokes or as many as a hundred. Emma had no idea. All she knew was that between heartbeats, her orgasm crashed through her, wave after wave. Heat poured through her as every muscle she owned seized, tightened and refused to let go. She threw her head back, banging it against the shower wall, but she didn’t care. Nothing could override the pleasure washing through every cell in her body. Nothing could stop the second orgasm that followed fast on the heels of the first.

Never. Never had this happened to her.

Cade stiffened with a groan, the tendons in his neck standing out in stark relief. The movements of his hips were no longer sure and powerful but instead unpredictable and jerky.

She watched his face as he came. It struck her that she’d never seen anything so raw, so powerful, so uninhibited in another human being as what this man was sharing with her right now.

When his hips finally stilled, he pulled away and settled her under the steaming water. He retrieved her washrag and resumed bathing her.

“You don’t have to do that, Cade.”

“Just one more chance to touch you,” he answered, his breath hotter against the shell of her ear than even the steam. “And I’m not finished touching you.”

“Regrettably, you are for the night.”

His hand stilled over her belly button. “Pardon?”

“I still want to go over our PR plans tonight. Tomorrow’s going to be a hell of a day without us staying up all night shaking the sheets.”

He chuckled. “Heard it called a lot of things, but never that.”

“Pays to be creative in my business.” She finished rinsing off and got out of the shower, leaving him to finish up. When he emerged, she handed him a towel and met his bright eyes with what she was sure was a somber stare. “We have to talk about how this is going to happen with me working for you. I want you to understand I don’t sleep with clients.”

“Want me to fire you?” he asked with nonchalance as he toweled his hair dry.

“Not so much,” she responded, a cold void dropping into her middle.Would it be that easy for him?“What I meant is that we have to establish some basic boundaries.”

He looked up, grinning, until he seemed to realize she was serious. “What do you mean, ‘boundaries’?”

“Your contractors and vendors won’t deal with me if they evensuspectI’m sleeping with you. You have to give me space to work during the day. Treat me like the hired help I am.” At his blank face, the first pangs of fear resonated through her. “You said yourself that my company’s finances have been rocky. If word gets around that I’m messing around with a client, it could ruin me.”

“Messing around with any client or messing around with someone like me?” His voice was flat, devoid of any and all emotion.

“Yes. No.” She clutched her towel tighter. “Yes in that you’re a client.”

“And no?”

“In that...” She raked her fingers through her wet hair. “It’s that you and I are so different, from different backgrounds, different values systems, different long-term goals and expectations. That I’m city to your country, I suppose.” The steam-filled bathroom muffled the words, but not enough.

Cade propped a hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Of all the things I considered you might say, that hadn’t even really made the list. I suppose it should have.” He folded his towel and hung it on the towel bar on what was apparently his side of the bathroom. Naked as the day he was born, he stepped through the doorway into his room. He paused and gave her his profile. “I figured you for a lot of things, but never someone who’d be scared to own her actions.”

“I’m not scared to own whatever it is between us.”

“Could’ve fooled me. Wait. You just did.” He chuckled humorlessly. “Good night, Ms. Graystone.”

“Don’t do this, Cade,” she said, starting toward his door.

“I’m not doing anything, darlin’. This is just me expressing to you that I have no intention of abiding by your ‘boundaries.’” He shut the door to his bedroom and turned the lock.

CADESLIPPEDOUTof the house at about five-thirty the next morning. He hadn’t slept a wink and was so tired he could hardly function. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be anywhere near the group when the 7:00 a.m. meeting hit. Where she was concerned, he couldn’t take much more. Every man had a breaking point, and he was ashamed he’d nearly reached his last night.

They’d all look on Emma with absolute delight. Eli would beam because it was his connection that had scored her taking on the event, no matter that the true reason she’d taken it was in an effort to generate more immediate revenue. She’d said so yesterday. Whatever was going on behind closed doors where her business was concerned hadn’t hit the news. But they were clearly bleeding out on paper. Her credit rating had suffered, which meant her reputation wasn’t far behind.

But her business wasn’t the issue for him. She’d made him feel like a country hick, as if his values were too simple and his vision of home and hearth too pedantic compared to her high-rise, five-star-dining lifestyle.

That part wasn’t what chapped his ass so badly, though. It was that she seemed ashamed of him for who he was. She knew where he’d come from. What’s more, his family had opened their home to her at the last minute to ensure she had a clean, safe place to stay. And she’d called him “country to her city.”

“Right,” he huffed, digging his heels into the dirt and pulling against the broken fence post. “Might as well have called it ‘crass versus class.’”