The Secret Affair(23)

                She placed her hands on her hips and leaned in, glaring at him. “How is it cheapening it when the whole thing meant nothing to you anyway?”

                * * *

                Jillian’s question stunned Aidan. For a moment he couldn’t say anything. She had definitely asked a good question, and it was one he wasn’t sure he could answer. The only response he could come up with was that the kisses should not have meant anything to him, but they had. Hell, he had spent the past twenty-four hours thinking about nothing else. And hadn’t he changed his plans so that he could stay another day just to spend more time with her?

                She was standing there, glaring at him, with her arms crossed over her chest in a way that placed emphasis on a nice pair of breasts. Full and perfectly shaped. He could just imagine running his hands over them, teasing the nipples before drawing them in his mouth to...

                “Well?”

                She wanted an explanation and all he wanted to do was erase the distance separating them, take her into his arms and kiss that glare right off her face. Unfortunately, he knew he wouldn’t stop there. Whether she knew it or not, Jillian Novak’s taste only made him want more.

                “Let’s ride,” he said, moving toward his horse. Otherwise, he would be tempted to do something he might later regret.

                “Ride?” she hissed. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

                He glanced back over at her as he mounted his horse. “For now.”

                “None of this makes any sense, Aidan,” she said, mounting her own horse.

                She was right about that, he thought. None of it made any sense. Why was she like a magnet pulling him in? And why was he letting her?

                They had ridden a few moments side by side in total silence when she finally broke it by asking, “Where are we going?”

                “Bane’s Ponderosa.”

                She nodded. “Has he built anything on it?”

                “No, because legally it’s not his yet. He can’t claim it until he’s twenty-five.”

                “Like Bailey. She told me about the age requirement.”

                “Yes, like Bailey.”

                He wished they could go back to not talking. He needed the silence to figure out what in the hell was happening to him. She must have deciphered that he was not in a talkative mood because she went silent again.

                Aidan glanced over at her, admiring how well she handled a horse. He couldn’t help admiring other things, as well. Such as how she looked today in her jeans and western shirt, and how the breasts he had fantasized about earlier moved erotically in rhythm with the horse’s prance.

                “There is a building here,” Jillian said, bringing her horse to a stop.

                He forced his eyes off her breasts to follow her gaze to the wooden cabin. He brought his horse to a stop, as well. “If you want to call it that, then yes. Bane built it a while back. It became his and Crystal’s secret lovers’ hideaway.”

                “Crystal?”

                “Yes. Crystal Newsome. Bane’s one and only.”

                Jillian nodded. “She’s the reason he had to leave and join the navy, right?”