Page 7 of Back in the Saddle

“Homer!” I snapped.

He was still looking at Eric. “Make sure she comes when it’s safer. And come with her.” He jerked his head to the men behind him. “We’ll let you in.”

With that, he and his bedraggled, improvised posse shuffled back to the tents.

No help there.

“Jessie, look at me.”

I tore my gaze from the men who were fading into the mishmash of tents and darkness and looked up at Eric.

Mistake.

There wasn’t a lot of light, but the man was so handsome, I could see every delicious angle and delightful hollow of his perfect face.

And how did he get so close without me noticing?

God, I’d never been this close to him.

He smelled like rosemary and cedarwood.

Scrumptious.

And I suddenly got the whole magnetic thing, because even if I was pissed at him and in a crappy mood, I felt the pull of his hotness, and it was almost impossible to resist.

That said, holding a sharps container and being downwind from a not-great smell (though, the rosemary and cedarwood helped) in the middle of the night with a man who wasn’t into me but was ticked at me, wasn’t conducive to me throwing myself at him.

Then again, I wasn’t a throwing-myself-at-a-man type of girl.

I was a catch-me-if-you-can one.

“If you want us to find him, we’ll find him,” he stated.

Newsflash: I wasn’t only impatient, I was stubborn.

Oh, and I could hold a grudge.

So with this shit he was pulling, which was brand-new, it meant he had a whole year before my grudge wore off.

Therefore, instead of taking this supposedly hot-shit investigator up on his offer, I shot back, “I’m no one’s obligation.”

“I see you took that wrong,” he muttered.

“Can we be done with this?” I requested.

“We can, if you promise you’ll call me if you ever come back here, so me, or one of the guys, can come with you.”

“I’ve been doing this a while and…”—I held my arms up at my sides, the sharps container dangling from one hand—“here I am, perfectly fine.”

Suddenly, the container clattered to the ground and my front was pressed to the side of my car, my legs were kicked wide apart, my arm was twisted behind me, I had a wall of muscle pressed tight to my back, and Eric’s mouth was at my ear.

“I make my point about how shit can shift in an instant?” he whispered there.

Even though I was pissed—no,insanelypissed—his smooth voice in my ear traveled down the skin of my neck, and I had to fight a shiver.

“Get off me,” I whispered.

He didn’t get off me, nor did he let me go.

---