I breathed in her scent and growled again. My bear wanted to sink his teeth into her sweet little body. “I gotta go.”
Without hesitation, she reached out and put her hand on my chest. “Thank you. For helping me with those kids. Maybe I could repay you.”
My dick was about to explode, straining to get out of my pants, and I couldn’t help but lean into her touch. People didn’t touch me. It’d been months since anyone had. “You want to…repay me?”
Her cheeks blushed bright pink and she giggled sweetly before ducking her head and letting her hair hide her face. Then, she looked up at me through her thick eyelashes, and her blue eyes sparkled. “I could make you dinner. I’m a great cook.”
Her smell was driving me insane. Under the strawberry scent, I could smell chocolate and sugar. To a hungry bear, she was a wet dream. And I wasn’t just a hungry bear. I was the hungriest.
I couldn’t move away from her. I was using all of my physical and mental control to keep my bear placated, so the man in me could do nothing but stand there, eating up all of her attention.
She ran her hand up to my shoulder and the pads of her fingers pressed into my skin. “I’ll make you dinner tonight. Do you have a phone?”
Before I could even think about what I was doing, I’d reached into my back pocket and handed her my cellphone. Daisy kept her hand on my shoulder and used her free hand to type something. Then, she slipped the phone back into my hand and smiled at me again.
“I put my address in. Is eight good?”
I couldn’t open my mouth without releasing a growl, so I just nodded.
She let her hand drop and backed away from me with the sweetest smile on her pretty face. “I’ll see you then.”
I balled my fists at my side and struggled to keep breathing as she backed away. My chest felt like it was going to cave in as she swayed her hips away from me.
Right when I thought she was done lighting the fuse to the bomb that was my life, she looked at me over her shoulder and winked. “I didn’t add my number so if you want to cancel, you’ll have to come to my house to do it.”
CHAPTER 3: Daisy
I walked back to my kids completely astonished with myself. I didn’t understand how in the hell I’d managed to talk in complete sentences to the sexy stranger I’d just invited to my home. I’d been so busy tripping over my brain that my mouth had just moved on its own. I’d never, ever asked a guy out, much less in such a smooth way. I wanted to high-five myself, but I didn’t want to lose any cool points that I’d just acquired.
I rushed back to Maggie, uncertain of how much time I’d lost lusting after the cowboy. The cowboy, whose name I hadn’t bothered to catch. Darn.
Maggie was standing in the same spot, a frown on her face as she watched a few of her kids playing. She glanced up at me and gave me a concerned look. “Are you okay, Daisy? You look all flushed.”
I nodded, too quickly for it to be considered normal. “I’m fine. I didn’t keep you waiting too long, did I?”
“Not at all. I was enjoying watching your kiddos play, until mine came closer and I remembered my misery.”
I forced a smile and took a quick stock of my class. “Were they any trouble?”
“Well, one of my boys peed on one of my little girls. That’s my trouble, though, isn’t it?” She shot me a look. “Let’s switch grades.”
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
Just then, I caught a flash of my cowboy stalking around the crowd and into the main house. I quickly pointed him out to Maggie. “Who is that?”
She followed my finger and grunted. “Michael Long. He’s the middle brother.”
“What’s with the grunt?”
“He’s a little weird, I guess.”
I turned to face her. “Weird?”
Maggie’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Yeah. He was in some sort of accident when he was younger and it left him all scarred up. He stays to himself, mostly.”
I watched as she hesitated and wanted to shake her to get more information from her. “Tell me.”
She looked around and leaned in close. “There are rumors about him. People are tightlipped here, but if you listen, you can overhear little snippets here and there. There’s talk that he killed a man.”
I gasped and tried to find him. “Surely, that’s just some vicious rumor.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that he gives me the creeps when I see him. He always looks pissed off. Plus, that scar running through his lips is too intense for me.”
I thought of the man who’d come to my rescue against a mild group of teenagers. He wasn’t a murderer. His scar wasn’t too intense, either. It took the feminine edge away from his otherwise too pretty lips. It made him different, rugged and mysterious.