Page 9 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

And all she wanted was more.

She wanted to get closer, to lose herself completely. So Cat went with that, riding that flash fire so when he straightened, he lifted her with him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Then he tilted her back against the nearest wall and they both groaned.

He had one hand on her bottom, but better yet, more of them was pressed against each other.

And she could feel what she assumed was the enduring appeal of Wilder Carey, pressing hard against her belly.

It was too much. It wasn’t enough.

He taught her what to do with her mouth, and she mimicked it with the rest of her body, rocking herself against him until the next groan he let out sounded almost like anguish.

Wilder pulled away, tensing, but he didn’t put her down.

She didn’t like it the not kissing, but she was in no position to argue. She wasn’t sure she could speak. For a moment, everything was a wild storm of sensation and the rough sound of their breathing.

His hat was tipped back, so there was no pretending she couldn’t see his face. And the shattered look, hot and stunned, in his gaze.

She imagined she looked the same. Maybe even more wrecked.

And they were still pressed together. She could feel the wild racket of his heartbeat. She could feel how strong he was, how easily he held her.

He blew out a breath, and that look in his gaze changed.

But she wasn’t ready for whatever he was about to say, so she lifted one of her hands from around his neck and leaned back a little, so she could trace that devastating mouth with her fingers. And then, following some strange urge, as if her secret wish had always been to make sculptures, she traced the shape of his unfairly high cheekbones. The panes of his face and each dark eyebrow.

“How did you get down here tonight?” he asked, his voice so gruff and torn up that she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

Wilder frowned back and set her down on her feet. But he held her for a moment, as if he thought she might topple over. That was a good call, because her knees felt as if someone had confiscated them and good luck to her finding balance without them.

She sagged back against the wall and it was only when his frown deepened that she remembered he had asked her a question.

“Some friends of mine were driving over to Bozeman and they dropped me off.” His frown was definitely taking on a disapproving cast, but if he thought that he was going to shame her, he was wrong. “Not only that, I told my brothers and my mother that I’d probably be staying in town overnight. So no one’s expecting me.”

“You lied to your entire family to come down here and get in trouble.”

“I think that a lot of people call that a regular Saturday night.”

“It’s the lie part that I’m having trouble getting my head around,” Wilder said in that dark voice, but she hadtastedhim. She knew what hetastedlike and that really did take the edge off what sounded like an oncoming lecture. “Because you talk a big game about wanting to change your life and live the way you want, but it turns out that what you mean by that is lying like a teenager, sneaking out and breaking curfew.”

That, she could admit, got under her skin. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “That’s a lot of big talk from someone who had his tongue down my throat five seconds ago.”

“The difference between you and me is that I don’t lie about the things I do,” Wilder said, and that drawl of his seemed to crack over her like a whip. He stared at her a moment longer, and then shook his head. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

Cat didn’t particularly want to go home. But she could also admit that having just kissed Wilder like that, and definitely not having processed it at all, the prospect of traipsing back into the bar held very little appeal.

But he didn’t have to know that.

“Are you volunteering to babysit me?” she asked him sweetly. “Is this what we’re going to do with our weekends from now on? I’ll sneak into bars and you’ll haul me out, then punish me by kissing me silly? Oh no. What a nightmare. Will I ever learn my lesson?”

“I keep forgetting you’re drunk,” he muttered.

“I’m not drunk at all.”

“You forget that I was there when you tossed back your drink.” He reached over and took her wrist, then tugged her along with them as he headed back out onto the street, down the block, and she could see the courthouse rising up down the way. But she couldn’t concentrate on landmarks. “And who knows what you had to drink to get up the courage to walk in there in the first place.”

“A fun fact about my mother is that she is under the impression that girls, particularly, need to learn how to drink. She thinks it’s a skill and that it can be taught. She made sure that I can handle myself.” He looked back at her over his shoulder and Cat shrugged. “No, I’m not drunk, Wilder. You didn’t take advantage of me. Does that make it worse or better?”

His expression darkened, but he didn’t let go of her wrist. And he kept walking. So she had no choice but to admire the form of the man as he led her alone. He was tall, and she had already thought that he was perfectly formed before she’d gotten such a close, personal experience of that form. Now she knew that the way he looked was no joke. That T-shirt wasn’t confusing the issue.

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