His Ring, Her Baby / His Bride for the Taking: His Ring, Her Baby / His Bride for the Taking

His eyes caught and held hers, and suddenly she was imagining having his strong arms around her, his warm kisses.

“Want some help?” he said, his voice thickening, a pulse ticking in the strong cord of his neck.

She could feel herself blush. “Er … no. I can manage.” She willed her hands to move, only they wouldn’t.

A few seconds went by.

“Sure?”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

The blue of his eyes darkened like a midnight sky. “Can’t make up your mind?” he asked huskily.

“No. I mean, yes.”

He made a guttural sound, his expression stilling. All at once there was nothing more serious than this moment. Nothing more serious than them.

She watched, mesmerized in the mirror, as his hand came to rest on her good shoulder … rested then tiptoed along her collarbone to her throat.

She moistened her lips. “Er … what are you doing?”

His blue eyes said it all. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I just don’t bloody know.”

Her heartbeat slammed against her ribs. She had to bring back some sense of sanity. “Don’t touch, remember?” she tried to remind him, tried to take charge, only her voice merely dropped into the whirlpool of sensuality in the room.

“I remember. But … if I were to touch I’d do it like.” His index finger touched the sensitive hollows of her neck. “This.”

She moaned silently, her breath entering her lungs in short spurts.

His finger slipped inside the collar of her blouse. “And touching’s not always the same as … caressing.” He stroked the top of one breast.

Oh, God.

“It’s not?”

“No. There’s a difference.” Another pass over the top of her breast. “Feel it?”

She moistened her lips. She could feel nothing else. Closing her eyes, she gave in for a moment, all soft and pliable and very much a woman. “Oh, yes.”

And he was very much a man.

An aroused man. She only had to turn her head and she’d be able to press her cheek against him, inhale him and—

Her eyes burst open and she jumped to her feet, shaken by how easily things had gotten out of control. “Um … it’ll be okay. Don’t worry about the cut. It won’t get infected. I know it won’t. It—”

His face closed up. The moment had passed. “Sit down, Vanessa.”

She shook her head. “No. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” She leaped the distance to the open doorway.

“Vanessa?”

She turned. “Look, it’s okay. I’ll just stick a plaster over it or something.”

His eyes pierced the distance between them. “You know, Vanessa, sometimes a plaster isn’t enough.”

Unable to stand the tension of being cooped up in the house with Vanessa any longer, Kirk ate a quick lunch then took off for the cattle yards to see how his men were going with fixing a broken water pipe. He had to keep busy.

What the hell was he thinking bringing her here to Deverill Downs? Damn him for letting himself be coerced into this. She hadn’t fooled him, of course. She may fool herself into believing that using him was acceptable, but any respect he afforded her was only as she wanted—as an employee. And even that was going to be difficult for him at times when every instinct inside him warred between wanting her and trying to keep perspective.

God, she’d looked bloody magnificent when she’d flared up at him though. She was lucky he hadn’t swept her up in his arms, carried her to his room and made love to her until dawn.

He’d known it was going to be difficult keeping his hands off her. So the last thing he’d needed today was to apply first aid to her back.

Her lovely, sexy back.

Just the thought of touching her soft skin … of being in a confined space with her … her scent … drove him wild.

He had to stop thinking about it.

He had to stop thinking about her.

He even managed to do that during dinner that evening but only because she was right there in front of him and he didn’t have to think. Not when he could see her.

Josh ate dinner with them, and that helped, though Kirk suspected Vanessa deliberately kept her son up past his bedtime. Not that he minded. He had to admit he was growing to like the kid. Josh had a charm that snuck up on a person.

Like the boy’s mother.

Only, Vanessa’s charm wasn’t pure and innocent like her son’s. There was danger in her charms. A man could drown in them. Drown and not even care.

Thankfully tonight there was a lifesaver in the vicinity in the form of Josh. He was a welcome distraction and Kirk couldn’t help but be mildly amused at his antics. Every time Vanessa turned away from him to eat her dinner, Josh babbled something and dropped his spoon over the side of the high chair.

Kirk looked at her son and felt something kick him inside. Josh was like the son he would have loved to have had one day.

The son he would never have.

He forced away his inner pain. “He’s doing that deliberately, you know,” he felt obligated to point out as she mildly scolded Josh and gave him a new spoon.

“I know,” she said, her mouth curving with tenderness.

Careful, he told himself. “You do?”

“It’s a game, Kirk, that’s all.” Josh babbled and dropped the spoon again and she gave a soft chuckle. “See.” She bent to pick it up but this time didn’t replace the spoon. “No more, young man. That’s enough.”

Kirk’s brows drew together. All that bending over wasn’t good for her back.

Her lovely, sexy back.

The image returned. Both of them in the bathroom. The scent of her. “How’s the cut?” he all but growled.