Page 25 of Moonlit Colorado

“You swear?”

“I wouldn’t have hit on you if I knew you were Ashford’s sister.” He seemed like he was telling the truth, though I’d met guys who could make a girl believe anything. “You’ve grown up a lot compared to the old photos of you Ashford showed me.”

He didn’t even try to hide it when his gaze slid down the length of me. I crossed my arms.

“You looknothinglike the photos Ashford has of you.” The snapshots of him in the Army had been in combat helmets or wraparound sunglasses. Not tuxedos and sexily tousled hair. “You weren’t supposed to be in Silver Ridge at all.”

“There are plenty of current pictures of me online. I’m not a fixture of the New York gossip pages, but I’ve been there a time or two.”

“Why would I spend my time googling my brother’s friend?”

Dane glanced at a group of teenagers walking by. When they were gone, he said, “I’m more interested in what happened to you last night. You were going to come up, then you disappeared. Why’d you ghost me?”

Ugh. I’d known he would ask that. I gripped the skin between my eyes. “I realized I was making a mistake. It’s a good thing I did. Otherwise we’d have a lot more to hide from my brother.”

“You make a habit of doing things your brothers don’t know about?”

“Do you make a habit of talking about yourself in the third person? You tricked me into gossiping about you last night.”

He smirked. “I thought that was cute. And I welcomed your opinion. I can take it.”

“But I didn’t know who I was really talking to.”

“Neither did I.”

“Clearly you preferred it that way. You invited me to your hotel room an hour after you’d met me, and you didn’t even know my name.”

“Longer than an hour, but okay. Are you saying I’m easy? Very judgmental.”

“But true.”

He edged closer, his dark-gray eyes going even darker. “You said yes to me. You wanted me.”

My chest went tight, and my stomach swooped like I’d taken a spin on a tire swing. “I wasn’t acting like myself last night.”

“Then it’s too bad I didn’t kiss you. Guess that was my one chance.”

“And there’s not going to be another one.”

His mouth was inches from mine. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. His lips were full, the lower one thicker than the top. I wondered how he kissed. Probably dominant and commanding and bossy as hell.

I pivoted and got myself out of there.

I’d wanted him last night. There was no denying it. Thank goodness I’d thought better of it.

Never happened, I repeated to myself.

Nothing had happened between us. And nothing ever would.

EIGHT

Dane

“Dane, are you listening?”My brother Kip scoffed. “I don’t think he’s even listening.”

I sat forward in the desk chair. I was in the office of my hotel suite. “I’m listening. Not my fault that you’re boring the hell out of me.”

Actually, I hadn’t been listening at all. I’d been thinking about Grace O’Neal. Ashford’s sister. Practically all I’d done for the past few days. Certainly hadn’t been doing much that was useful.

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