Page 36 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Yeah,” he says simply, as if it costs him nothing. “She’s a right cute little thing. Fun to poke at. I like the way her eyes flash fire.” His mouth tips at one corner. “And she’s comely. Makes a body notice her, is all.”

Makes a body notice her.

The words settle heavier than they ought to. Above us, the loft gives one soft creak.

Boone’s eyes flick upward, then back to me with that slow grin. “Ain’t like I’m losin’ sleep over it. You’re the one been staring holes through her all night.”

“I have not.”

“No?” He props himself on one elbow. “Standing behind her when she shoots, fixing her elbows just so? Teaching her how to hold that Colt all sensual-like?”

I force air through my teeth. “She needed instruction.”

“Well, you gave her plenty.”

I shift onto my knees and hook my fingers beneath the hem of his shirt, shoving it upward until his stomach is bare to the firelight. “This is what has occupied my mind.”

His abdomen tightens beneath my mouth when I kiss the sharp jut of his hip. The same patch of skin where I caught Lula looking earlier.

Mine.

How terribly I have missed this. Him beneath my hands. The hidden parts of his body I know better than my own. The parts of him that belong only to me.

“She’s more fuss than I’m used to,” Boone says, his voice roughening slightly. “Sweet when she ain’t sharp-tongued, though.”

I trace my mouth along the faint trail of hair below his navel, but my mind betrays me and wanders upstairs.

To her.

My mouth is inches from his cock when Boone asks, “You reckon she’ll stay long?”

I stop near the buttons of his trousers. “She will go when she chooses.”

He watches me for a beat, then lays one hand over his chest in mock astonishment. “Well, I’ll be. Are you jealous, Mr. Collins?”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Turn around and ask proper.”

I sit back on my heels. “There is nothing here to be jealous of.”

“Funny. Weren’t a problem when you had your hands all over her.”

“So that is why you were being a damn nuisance.”

“I weren’t a nuisance.” His dimple appears. “I was courtin’.”

“I noticed.”

“She looked cute as sin out there too. Squintin’ at that target like it slapped her granny.”

Something changes in his voice on the last words. Not much. Enough.

His gaze drifts toward the loft, then back to the fire, and I see her again despite myself. Not her mouth or her hair or any other foolish thing a man might admire from across a room, but the flash of pride she tried to hide when the can flew from the rail.

It would be simpler if only Boone had noticed.

I move over him before he can say anything else, one hand sliding down his stomach to work open the buttons of his trousers.