Page 7 of Overdue for a Cowboy

Dodge raced down the hall and into Maisie’s bedroom, then pulled up short at the sight of her standing next to her bed. One of her arms was bare and caught up in her T-shirt, which was pulled halfway over her head, as if she’d tried to pull it off and gotten it stuck on the sling. The fabric covered her face, but completely exposed her torso and gave Dodge an excellent view of a sexy-as-hell black lacy push-up bra.

“Hold on,” he said, struggling to reconcile the sin-sexy underwear with the normally demure librarian as he hurried to her side. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Let me help.”

He gently took hold of the T-shirt while trying to avoid staring down at the impressive amount of cleavage on display. And struggling to keep his thoughts from racing with images of filling his hands with her lush breasts.

This was new.

He liked Maisie. They’d known each other and been friends for a long time. And if he were being honest, he might even admit to having a bit of a crush on her in high school. And maybe stillan attraction now. He wasn’t interested in dating anyone, but he had to admit that the sweet librarian made him smile more than usual when he was around her.

Butthis—this was a new image of Maisie that made him do more than smile. This image had his heart pounding as blood surged through his veins, and his mouth went dry as he reached to help her and was suddenly all too aware of her lavish curves and creamy skin.

“I was just trying to put my pajamas on.” Her voice was muffled as it came through the fabric of the T-shirt. “I think I got my hair stuck in my watchband.”

Her jeans were lying in a pile on the floor, and she now wore a pair of light blue cotton pajama shorts that matched the blue sleeveless top tossed on the edge of the bed. The top showed a picture of a cat holding a book and the caption read “Easily distracted by cats and books”.

This was more like the style of clothing he imagined when he thought of Maisie—cute graphic tees and little cardigan sweaters. The lacy intimates were sending his brain—and certain other parts of his body—into overdrive.

Which made him the world’s shittiest caregiverandfriend. He was supposed to behelpingher—she had a sprained wrist, for Pete’s sake—not getting hard at the sight of her half-naked body.

Gah.Now he was imagining herwhole-naked body.

Down boy.

She turned, and he saw a faint purplish bruise cutting across her shoulder where she must have slammed into the seatbelt.And all his thoughts flipped back into protector mode—or in this case,protect her, from the likes of him and his dirty mind.

“I got you,” he said, trying to untangle her arm from the T-shirt. “Dang. Your hairiscaught in your watch. How the devil did you manage this?” He carefully loosened the strands of hair hooked around the watch’s dial then undid the straps of the sling so he could tug the shirt the rest of the way over her head. “Watch your wrist,” he told her as he gently pulled the shirt sleeve over her bandaged wrist.

Her shoulders slumped as she let out a sigh. “I’m free. Thank you.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

His body reacted before his brain did, and his arms came up to hold her against him, his mind going back to all those naked thoughts as her lace-encased breasts pressed against his chest. And now all he could think about was taking his T-shirt off too.

She pulled back and looked up at him, her face inches from his as she stared up into his eyes. She tenderly touched the pads of her fingertips to his cheek as she pulled in a shaky breath.

Her eyes still held that sleepy, dreamy look from the pain medication, and her body was loose in his arms. “You are the hottest guy in this whole town. And I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy in her push-up bra and cat-lover pajama pants trying to tell him how much she likes him.” She let out a little giggle. “That didn’t sound the same as it had in the movie, but that’s okay, because this is just a dream anyway.”

“A dream?” he asked, trying to keep his focus on her words and not on the feel of her soft skin under his hands.

“Of course this is a dream,” she told him. “Otherwise, this would be pretty embarrassing, don’t you think?” She giggled again thensent a shiver running down his spine as her gaze dropped to his mouth and she grazed the edge of her thumb along his bottom lip. “But this isn’t the first time you’ve shown up in my dreams, Dodge Lassiter. Or the first time you’ve kissed me like this…”

She pushed up on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

He shouldnotbe kissing her. She thought this was a dream.

This isn’t right.

His whole body was screaming at him to untangle himself from her arms and put her back in bed.

But then she tilted her head and deepened the kiss and suddenly it feltexactlyright—like he’d been waiting years for this one moment when their lips would touch.

And he couldn’t help himself—he surrendered.

For just a moment, he lost himself in the delicious taste of her, the feel of her lush body pressed to his.

And he kissed her back.

It started out soft. Then she melted into him and made a sound like a contented kitten sigh against his lips. Her good hand clutched his back, and all sense abandoned him as he ravished her mouth.

He was keeping his hands in check, even though he wanted to fill them with every part of her, to tangle in her mass of curly hair, but he held them at her waist, his fingers digging into the soft flesh as her held her in place, still cognizant enough to try not to hurt her arm or her bruised torso.

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