“Well, well, well, and here I thought the saying ‘farmers like it dirty’ was just an old wives’ tale,” she said with cool mockery. “Shame on you, Jared. Just think how disappointed Daddy will be.”
He was aware of the silence of the room, the eyes that watched them. Under different circumstances, he really wouldn’t have given a damn, but this wasn’t sexual. To be honest, he felt like turning her over his knee and paddling her ass in a way that had nothing to do with pleasure, and everything to do with asserting his control over her.
“Considering my daddy helped found this little home away from home, I can’t say he would be disappointed,” he quipped as her eyes widened in surprise. “But I doubt yours would feel the same.”
Her eyes narrowed then, the dark green color sparkling with a surge of anger as he gripped her arm and began to pull her from the room. Reminding her of her father wasn’t guaranteed to garner any points in his favor, but at the moment, he didn’t give a damn. He had played her game for a year now, and it was time to change the rules, as well as the balance of power.
“I’m not one of your stupid cows,” she snarled as she tried to dig her bare heels in and fight his hold on her. “Let me go, dammit!”
“Even my stupid cows know better than to argue with the bull in charge, Kimber.” He tightened his fingers around her slender wrist and headed for the stairs. “Keep balking back there and I might show you why they know better.”
She paused for just a second but seemed to resist a little less until he crossed the threshold to her room and slammed the door behind them. God help him, he was in such a state of arousal it was all he could do to keep from throwing her to the bed and fucking the hell out of her now.
A fucking year she had danced just out of his reach, her teasing green eyes laughing at his attempts to corner her, her pouty lips curving into a smug “dare you” smile every time he warned her that he wasn’t going to let her escape him forever.
The smile was gone, the laughter in her eyes was dimmed by the anger, and the freckles across her cheeks and nose were readily apparent beneath the pale flesh of her face.
“You have no right to drag me around like that.” She faced him with her hair falling in disarray down her back, the spiral curls tempting his fingers to clench in them, to drag her to him…
Wrong direction, he chastised himself. Thoughts like that would get him zero answers and likely end up hurting his cause right now, more than helping it.
“I took the right,” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest to keep from touching her. “Like I should have taken a year ago.”
Her upper lip lifted in a silent snarl that had his cock reacting with a fierce throb of hunger. She had kept him so damned hot over the past months that the hard-on was almost constant.
“Oh, get over yourself, Jared.” She waved a hand negligently before tightening the belt of her robe with a controlled jerk. “The he-man attitude is long out of style. Didn’t you know that?”
He could see the anger trembling through her body though, the glow of it in her eyes. Just as he could see the hard little nipples beneath the silk of their covering and the flush of arousal on her face. She might be pissed, he had no doubt, but she couldn’t hide the lust now, either.
“That never goes out of style, Kimber,” he reminded her with deceptive gentleness. “Otherwise, sweet little ladies like yourself would have no place to let off all that steam.”
He locked the door slowly, watching her carefully as it clicked securely into place. The pulse beat with sudden, renewed speed in the side of her neck, as her pupils dilated just enough to assure him that she wasn’t unaffected. She wasn’t frightened in the least; he could see that in the sudden, stubborn set of her chin. She was excited though. Her breasts were rising and falling at a faster rate, her face flushing a soft, delicate blush that entranced him.
Damn if she wasn’t pretty as hell. Not really beautiful, but damned pretty with her pert little nose, slanted cat’s eyes and all that glorious red-gold hair falling around her shoulders. She faced him like a little enraged goddess, certain of her own power and her determination.
“My ‘steam’ as you call it, is my business,” she reminded him with an attempt at her past icy hauteur. “I don’t need your interference.”
Of course she didn’t. From what he had seen downstairs, he was a weakness she was determined to keep to herself. But he had seen the heat, the hunger—hell, the lust that glowed in those brilliant green eyes when he caught her unaware, fighting for her release. He had been the trigger. The hunger had been for him. The need whipping through her body had been for him.