Want Me, Cowboy

“Yes,” he confirmed. “We are. We always have been. You’ve managed to make seamless transitions at every turn. From when we worked at a larger construction firm, to when we were starting our own. When we expanded, to when we merged with Jonathan Bear. You’ve followed me every step of the way, and I’ve been successful in part because of the confidence I have that you’re handling all the details that I need you to.”

“And you think I could just... Do that at your house too?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“There’s one little problem,” Poppy said, her cheeks suddenly turning a dark pink. She stood there just staring for a moment, and the color in her face deepened. It took her a long while to speak. “The problem being that a wife doesn’t just manage your kitchen. That is a housekeeper.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“A wife is supposed to...” She looked down, a pink blush continuing to bleed over her dark skin. “You don’t feel that way about me.”

“Feel what way? You know my desire to get married has nothing to do with love and romance.”

“Sex.” The word was like a mini explosion in the room. “Being a wife does have something to do with sex.”

She was right about that, and when he had made his impromptu proposal a moment earlier, he hadn’t been thinking of that. But now that he was...

He took a leisurely visual tour of her, similar to the one he had taken earlier. But this time, he didn’t just appreciate her beauty in an abstract sense. This time, he allowed it to be a slightly more heated exploration.

Her skin looked smooth. He had noticed how lovely it was earlier. But there was more than that. Her breasts looked about the right size to fit neatly into his hands, and she had an extremely enticing curve to her hips. Her skirts were never short enough to show very much of her leg, but she had nice ankles.

He could easily imagine getting down on his knees and taking those high heels off her feet. And biting one of her ankles.

That worked for him.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he said.

Poppy’s mouth dropped open and then snapped shut. “We’ve never even... We’ve never even kissed, Isaiah. We’ve never even almost kissed.”

“Yes. Because you’re my assistant.”

“Your assistant. And you’re my foster sister’s ex-fiancé.”

Isaiah gritted his teeth, an involuntary spike of anger elevating his blood pressure. Poppy knew better than to talk about Rosalind. And hell, she had nothing to do with Poppy. Not in his mind, not anymore.

Yes, she was the reason Poppy had come to work for him in the first place, but Poppy had been with him for so long her presence wasn’t connected with the other woman in any way.

He wasn’t heartbroken. He never had been, not really. He was angry. She’d made a fool of him. She’d caused him to take his focus off his business. She’d nearly destroyed not only his work, but his brother’s. And what would eventually be their sister’s too.

All of it, all the success they had now had nearly been taken out by his own idiocy. By the single time he’d allowed his heart to control him.

He would never do that again.

“Rosalind doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he said.

“She’s in my life,” Poppy pointed out.

“That’s a detail we can discuss later.” Or not at all. He didn’t see why they were coming close to discussing it now.

“You don’t want to marry me,” Poppy said.

“Are you questioning my decision-making, Poppy? How long have you known me? If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s an indecisive man. And I think you know that.”

“You’re a dick,” Poppy said in exasperation. “How dare you... Have me interviewing these women all day... And then... Is this some kind of sick test?”

“You threatened to quit. I don’t want you to quit. I would rather have you in all of my life than in none of my life.”

“I didn’t threaten to quit our friendship.”

“I mostly see you at work,” he said.

“And you value what I do at work more than what you get out of our friendship, is that it?”

That was another question he didn’t know how to answer. Because he had a feeling the honest answer would earn him a spiked heel to the forehead. “I’m not sure how the two are separate,” he said, thinking he was being quite diplomatic. “Considering we spend most of our time together at work, and my enjoyment of your company often dovetails with the fact that you’re so efficient.”

Poppy let out a howl that would not have been out of place coming from an enraged chipmunk. “You are... You are...”

Well, if her objection to the marriage was that they had never kissed, and never almost kissed, and he didn’t want to hear her talk anymore—and all those things were true—he could only see one solution to the entire situation.

He made his way over to where Poppy was standing like a brittle rose and wrapped his arms around her waist. He dragged her to him, holding her in place as he stared down at her.

“Consider this your almost-kiss,” he said.

Her brown eyes went wide, and she stared up at him, her soft lips falling open.

And then his heart was suddenly beating faster, the unsettled feeling in his gut transforming into something else. Heat. Desire. He had never looked at Poppy this way, ever.

And now he wondered if that had been deliberate. Now he wondered if he had been purposefully ignoring how beautiful she was because of all the reasons she had just mentioned for why they shouldn’t get married.

The fact she was his assistant. The fact that she was Rosalind’s foster sister.

“Isaiah...”

He moved one hand up to cup her cheek and brought his face down closer to hers. She smelled delicate, like flowers and uncertainty. And he found himself drawn to her even more.

“And this will be your kiss.”

He brought his lips down onto hers, expecting... He didn’t know what.

Usually, sexual attraction was a straightforward thing for him. That was one of the many things he liked about sex. There was no guesswork. It was honest. There was never anything shocking about it. If he saw a woman he thought was beautiful, he approached her. He never wondered if he would enjoy kissing her. Because he always wanted to kiss her before he did. But Poppy...

In the split second before their mouths touched, he wondered. Wondered what it would be like to kiss this woman he had known for so long. Who he had seen as essential to his life, but never as a sexual person.

And then, all his thoughts burned away. Because she tasted better than anything he could remember and her lips just felt right.

It felt equally right to slide his fingertips along the edge of her soft jawline and tilt her face up farther so he could angle his head in deep and gain access. It felt equally right to wrap both arms around her waist and press her body as tightly to his as he possibly could. To feel the soft swell of her breasts against his chest.

And he waited, for a moment, to see if she was going to stick her claws into him. To see if she was going to pull away or resist.