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He lowered his gaze to the semicircle of bone at the base of her throat, where there was a pulse throbbing erratically. “And what was that, Bliss?” Mason asked boldly, painfully aware that her body was placed squarely between his legs, should he close them. His throat was so dry he had trouble concentrating. “What did you think?”
She paused and her gaze shifted. “I was the one who rode out in the storm. You saved me.”
“Did I?” He wasn’t convinced. Too many years of carrying a load of guilt around.
She didn’t answer and through the frosted, pebbled glass of his door, he noticed the lights dim in the outer office. Edie had left. He was alone with Bliss. His palms began to sweat. His thighs, straddling the corner of the desk, began to ache.
“Just stay away from Dad and Brynnie, okay? Don’t cause trouble between them.”
“You want them to be together?” he asked. “Given all the circumstances, I would have thought—”
“I want my father to be happy,” she interrupted. “That’s all. He’s…he’s already had one heart attack.”
“Which is the reason why Brynnie sold.” He rubbed his knees with his hands and felt a tightening in his groin, the start of arousal. He should just cut the lights and escort Bliss and her air of self-righteousness out the door. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Being alone with her—so close that he could smell her skin, see the faint freckles bridging her nose, witness the sweep of her honey-brown lashes against her cheeks—was his undoing.
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “They’ve been fighting about it, you know.”
“No one twisted Brynnie’s arm.”
Her eyes locked with his, and he felt a catch in his throat. “What is it with you, Lafferty? What is it you have against my father?”
He should have been prepared for the question and been able to deal with the silent accusations in her gaze, but he wasn’t. Damn it, whenever he was near her, rational thought slipped away and he saw her as he remembered her best, naked as the day she was born, swimming in the rippling current of the river, her hair dark and damp, her skin flushed from the icy water, and her nipples round pink buttons visible beneath the shimmering surface.
“What is it you have against me?”
“What?”
“You’re not here because of ‘dear old Dad,’” he said, seeing a spark of passion and the hint of pain in her eyes. “You’re here because you wanted to see me again.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Lafferty.”
“Admit it, Bliss.”
“I came because of the ranch—”
“Bull. You just don’t know what to do with me.”
“What?”
“Strangle me or kiss me.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it?” he asked, his heart thumping, his body hard with arousal. The scent of her perfume was tantalizing. The smell of her hair damned near drove him out of his mind. “You’ve never married.”
She froze and the color in her face drained quickly. “Does it matter?” she demanded, then shook her head. “Listen, don’t answer that. It’s not important—”
“It is to me.”
His words echoed through her soul, and she reminded herself to tread carefully, that this was a man to be wary of, a man she couldn’t trust, a man who had stolen her heart years ago, only to ruthlessly toss it away.
She stepped away from him and rubbed her arms at the sudden chill in her bones, and he, as if understanding the need for distance between them, stood and walked around the edge of the desk to the window. Still, he was waiting for an answer. So why lie about being single? “Okay. Just for the record, Lafferty, I never found the right guy, okay? I’ve dated, sometimes seriously, been asked a couple of times, but never felt that I wanted to throw away my independence on some guy who…whom—”
“You didn’t love.”
Oh, God, it was as if he could read her mind, so she turned her back to him, tried to think. “Yes…I suppose that’s it.” He always had a disconcerting way of slicing right to the point. She heard him shift and leave his place at the window. His footsteps thudded dully on the carpet. She felt his hands upon her shoulders, his breath warm against the nape of her neck, and she stiffened. Her idiotic pulse had the nerve to skyrocket. Worse yet, his hands, work roughened but gentle, felt so natural as they gently rotated her to face him.
“So why didn’t you fall in love, Bliss?” he asked in a whisper that wafted through her hair and reverberated through her mind. Oh, Lord, he was too close and oh, so male.… She noticed the shadow of his beard, dark gold and rough against his square, uncompromising jaw.
