The Virgin Cowboy Billionaire’s Secret Baby(28)

Dara tilted her head, and her lips encouraged his to move, so he followed her lead. His heart was pounding now, his senses zeroing in on that soft point of contact. Arms were moving, and he didn’t bother trying to keep track of whose were going where, only that her body was closer to his now, and he liked it. A lot. His head spun, and he felt weightless, like when there was suddenly nothing but air beneath his snowboard.

Oh.

So that’s what chemistry feels like.

Dara drew back, and she gazed up at him. Her eyes were wide, and she blinked a few times as if she were as startled as he was. When she sucked her lower lip into her mouth, he couldn’t help doing the same, searching for one last taste.

“So, um…” She ran a hand through his hair, and his hat tumbled off, but neither of them made any attempt to catch it. “Does that…does that answer your question?”

“About us having chemistry?”

She nodded.

So did he.

They locked eyes but didn’t speak. Neither moved in for another kiss, and he wondered if her heart was thumping as hard as his.

After God only knew how long, she loosened her embrace and stepped back. “You okay?”

“I’m…”

She gave him a little more breathing room, though they were still nearly touching.

He shook his head, and when she stepped back, he picked up his hat off the ground but didn’t put it back on. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure about this.”

“You don’t have to be. Think about it, and if it’s a no, then it’s a no. No harm, no foul.”

He held his hat in front of him, not sure why he was so worried about her noticing his hard-on—she had to have felt it. But the hat was also an implicit barrier of sorts. Which felt weird. He didn’t want to ward her off. Quite the contrary.

But he was too overwhelmed, and he didn’t know if he really wanted to kiss her again—and more—or if he was just turned on because he hadn’t been touched in too damned long. The idea of sleeping with Dara made a lot more sense now. The idea of using her? Not so much.

“I don’t know if it’s a yes or a no.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled, though her eyes were as uncertain as he felt. “Maybe it was a bad idea to suggest—”

“No, it wasn’t. To be honest, I appreciate the gesture. I just…”

“Need to think about it?”

Matt nodded.

“Then think about it.” She shrugged. “The offer’s open if you want it, and if not, we can forget about it.”

Except he wasn’t so sure he could forget about that kiss. What few times in his life he’d been kissed, it hadn’t felt anything like that.

He cleared his throat. “Do you, um, still want me to come by tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Definitely. If you still—”

“Sure. Yeah. Um. What time?”

“Let’s make it afternoon. Mornings are, uh, not great right now.”

“Okay. Sure. I’ll see you at two?”

“Perfect.” She smiled, throwing his pulse out of whack. “I’ll see you then.”

They exchanged a long look, and he thought for a moment she might come back for another kiss, but after whispered good-byes, they got into their respective vehicles.

As Dara’s taillights faded into the night, Matt slumped back against the driver’s seat.

What the hell had just happened?

He’d never thought of Dara in a sexual way before. Sure, he’d noticed that she was gorgeous, that few girls in their high school had held a candle to her back then, but she was…Dara. His childhood partner in crime and college drinking buddy. Sex had simply never factored into the equation.

Not until tonight, anyway.





Chapter Eight


Where the hell was that silverware tray?

Dara glared at the stacks of boxes—some open, some not—in her otherwise bare kitchen. She’d found the silverware, but the tray had apparently grown legs. Had she packed it in the wrong box? Or, hell, left it in the drawer back at the house in Los Angeles?

Shit. Apparently the silverware was going to remain in a shoebox or loose in a drawer until she made yet another run to Walmart.

Cursing under her breath, she added “silverware tray” to the ever-growing list of crap she’d forgotten, lost or broken between California and Aspen Mill. Chances were, most of it would turn up after she’d bought replacements. And she’d added several things today—a whole set of Tupperware, the canisters she usually kept on the kitchen counter, her electric mixer. There was a good possibility they were all right there in front of her face, but her distracted, sleep-deprived brain wasn’t registering a damned thing.