Page 24 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
To hell with it. Some part of his brain disagreed with him, pushed him over the edge and shattered all the willpower he thought he had.
Sam reached out and unclasped her helmet with one hand, taking it carefully off her head. She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face, and when she wasdone, when she looked back up at him, he bent low and kissed Mia, one hand still holding her helmet, the other around her, his palm flat to the small of her back. His lips moved softly across hers, their mouths slow, gentle, tasting her and wishing to hell he hadn’t gone there. When she let out a little moan, the faintest of noises, it was all the encouragement he needed. Sam dropped her helmet and raised his hand, stroking down her long braid and then settling on her cheek.
He kissed her again, this time less sweet and more urgent. When her tongue touched his, he responded, pushing his lower body against her as he fought to get closer to her, to feel her hard up against him.
It was Mia who broke the kiss, pulling back, palm to his chest as she smiled and then wobbled straight back into him.
“I’m still on one foot,” she whispered, laughing when he caught hold of her elbow. “And you’re kind of making it hard for me to keep my balance.”
Sam laughed too, bending to help her with her footwear. Her hands rested on his shoulders, and he listened to her sigh when he stood up.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, looking embarrassed.
Sam touched her shoulder and studied her, wondering what she was thinking, what she expected from him. He should have told her first, before kissing her, that he had nothing to give. Not emotionally, anyway.
“Thank you.” Her voice was low as she pushed away and leaned into her horse instead, holding onto the reins and giving him a look he couldn’t decipher.
“For the lesson?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing, don’t worry. I’d better get this one back to his stable for a brush down.”
Sam stood and watched her go. He couldn’t figure women out, never had been able to, maybe never would. He just hoped Mia didn’t have any expectations where he was concerned after one kiss, no matter how good it had been.
***
Mia watched Sam’s vehicle disappear in a cloud of dust as he headed down the drive for home. She raised her hand, touched her fingers across her lips and smiled thinking about the way she’d felt when he’d kissed her. She should have said something,anythingother than ‘thank you’ to the man who’d kissed her and made her feel like a breathing, feeling, sensual woman again, but instead she’d lost all power to speak and had fled the scene. What she should have done was wrap her arms around his neck and kiss the hell out of him again until he’d been the one to pull away.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she picked it up. It was Kat.
“Hey,” she said, smiling when she heard her friend’s cheerful voice.
“How’s your day been? Any progress with the Handsome Horseman today?”
“Ha-ha, very funny.” Mia wasn’t about to breathe a word of what had happened—Kat would never let her live it down if she knew.
“Look, I know you’ll want to kill me, but my cousin is arriving in from L.A. in the morning, and I might have promised that we’d double date. Is there any way you could go out for dinner with him tomorrow night?” she laughed. “I’ll be there too but…”
Mia groaned. She hated when Kat tried to set her up with anyone. “I’m not going on a blind date with your pretend cousin. You know I hate that sort of thing!”
“First of all, he’s not a pretend cousin. For the record, he’s cute and single and charming, so you’ll have a great night with us,” Kat said, as if she were talking to a petulant child. “Secondly, I have a dog being flown in for a specialist surgery. He’s going to be one of the first dogs in the state that receives the new prosthetic elbow joint that we’ve been trialing. I’ve been waiting a long time to find the right large canine candidate, so my cousin will pick you up and I’ll come along later with Matt. He’s the other vet consulting on the case, so we’ll all be kind of new to each other. It’ll be great!”
Kat knew all she had to do was play on her animal heartstrings and she’d have her in the bag, but a date? Seriously? Going out with someone she’d never even spoken to or met before was her idea of a disaster.
“Fine, but you need to make it clear that I’m not some desperate single and that I’m doingyoua favor. This is just a group of people having dinner, not a double date, okay?”
“Of course! I promised him a fun night out, so I just don’t want to let him down.”
Mia wished she wasn’t such a pushover when it came to Kat, but it was what she’d said the other night that was playing on her mind. She didn’t get out enough, and she hadn’t dated in such a long time. Was it really that hard to meet a decent guy and have some fun along the way?
She chatted to her friend for a while then said goodbye, and her stomach did a little jump when she thought about going out with a man. Only it wasn’t Kat’s mystery cousin that was making her stomach flip and her heart race; it wasSam. She doubted she’d ever be able to look at his lips the same way again.
Groaning and pushing all thoughts of Sam away, she walked up to the main house and went around back, kicking off her boots and heading inside.
“Dad?” she called out, knowing he was in there somewhere. “Dad?” she said again, wandering down the long hallway and heading toward his office. He liked to work from home whenever he wasn’t traveling, and when she paused outside to knock on the doorframe, he finally called back out to her.
“Come in, just finishing up some paperwork.”
