Page 20 of Deceit & Desire

Roman pursed his lips and glowered down at me. “Wait for you at the house? What the hell for?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Because I have the feeling you’re going to put your foot in your mouth any second now and make this situation even more awkward than it already is.”

Miss Jackson stifled a graceless, strangled snort of laughter at that, but I chose to ignore it. Considering the amount of confusion and humiliation she’d just been through, I didn’t think it was necessary to make things worse just to drive my point home and mark my territory.

“Fine.” Roman threw his hands up in a sign of defeat and turned around, shaking his head and muttering under his breath as he strode toward the Foreman’s house, which sat roughly at the midpoint between the Bunkhouse and the main house.

I didn’t let my gaze travel as far as the barn. Too many memories haunted that barn, and I couldn’t make myself think about any of them.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I turned my full attention back to Miss Jackson, pressing my lips into a thin line before I finally sucked in a deep breath and spoke.

“I’m sorry my relationship with Roman blindsided you. He’s a very private man, but believe me when I tell you, he has his reasons for acting the way he does.”

Miss Jackson’s shoulders slumped in defeat and she stared down at the ground. Her throat bobbed as she struggled to swallow her pride. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Like he said, I should have had the good graces to respect that no means no.”

“Thank you.” Her concession threw me for a loop, but I loosed a sigh and hooked my thumbs in my belt loops. “I can keep things professional if you can. The only question is… can you?”

Heavy silence stretched between us until Miss Jackson finally cleared her throat and nodded, holding out her hand for a handshake. “Yes, ma’am... but I’m doing it for your father and for the animals, not for you, and especially not for Roman.”

“That’s fine by me.” I released the handshake and waved her off, watching her clamber into her rig and disappear down the drive before I turned toward the foreman’s house.

Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I stormed toward the oversized, two-story log cabin’s front door. By the time I shoved the door open, I was moving like a runaway train down the side of a mountain, full steam ahead, and nothing short of hitting an immovable object would stand a chance of stopping me.

“Roman!” I slammed the door shut behind me, hard enough to rattle a framed photo off the wall to my right. Glass shattered when it hit the wood floor, but I ignored it. With no one in sight in the front hall, I stalked forward and glared left into the empty kitchen, then right, raking my gaze over every inch of the living room.

Both rooms stood abandoned as ghost towns and I stormed past the stairs and down the hall toward the back of the house.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, tingling with the sensation that I was being watched. I stilled halfway down the hall, planting my hands on my hips as I yelled out for him again. “Where the hell are you hiding? I never took you for a coward.”

Out of nowhere, a hand clamped over my mouth from behind, stifling my startled screech, and an arm wound around my waist like an iron band, holding me in place.

Blind with panic, I kicked and squirmed, bucking and clawing at the arm around my waist.

“Goddamn it, Zo, calm the fuck down before the entire ranch hears you and you blow our cover story completely out of the water.” Roman growled the reprimand in my ear and I shuddered, hating myself for the molten heat that rushed straight to my core once I realized it was him.

Seething with barely controlled rage, I reached up with both hands and pried his fingers off my mouth, not caring if I dislocated or broke them in the process. “We’re alone in here, so don’t try to use us needing to keep up appearances for the public as a shield to avoid the fucking conversation we’re about to have.”

Roman spun me around and backed me up against the wall, effortlessly pinning me between the wood paneling and the impossibly hard wall of his body. “I’ve told you once to calm down. I’m not gonna tell you again.”

“Get the fuck off me,” I hissed, shoving at his heaving chest. When that didn’t work, I slapped him.

We both went utterly, deathly still as the crack of my hand hitting his cheek echoed off the hallway walls. Too late, I realized that slapping him was a big mistake.

Roman stared down at me, his pupils dilating until his dark irises were consumed entirely with inky blackness. His expression was too calm, too smooth, too still as blood rushed into his tan cheeks. Frozen with shock, I stared at the bright red handprint I’d left on his cheek, horrified by my temper and my utter lack of self-control when it came to him.

Clicking his tongue and shaking his head like he might at a disobedient child who’d disappointed him, Roman gripped my wrists and pinned them up over my head, using one big, rough hand to pin them against the wall. Dark fire blazed in his eyes as he stared down at me, his gaze devouring every micro-expression on my face.

“That wasn’t very smart, now was it?” Roman’s light, playful tone didn’t match the storm in his eyes... not by a long shot.

“No.” The word came out in a hoarse, strangled whisper.

I flinched as he reached up and gripped my throat with his other hand, nowhere near hard enough to cut off my air supply, but plenty hard enough to demonstrate that he was the one in control of this situation. My breath hitched and my mouth went dry.

The pulse in my throat throbbed against his big, work-roughened fingers as I stared into the bottomless depths of his eyes, not daring to move and barely daring to breathe. Liquid heat pooled between my thighs, answering the fluttering pulse in my neck, and I squeezed my legs together, trying to suffocate the needy ache that threatened to distract me from the issue at hand.

When Roman finally spoke, his voice was soft, and low, and slid over my skin like warm velvet, a testament to his steely self-control in the face of my hot temper.

“Miss Jackson barely swallowed the story that we’re together, and you pitching a hissy fit now will only make things worse. If that blabbermouth Cody saw you stomp in here like some kind of vengeful banshee on a mission to rip my balls off, the whole town is going to know about it before the day is over. Mark my words.”

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