Page 32 of Misadventures Of A Single Mom

He was going to kiss me!

He lifted his hands to hold my head. To pull my hair from the ponytail and run his fingers through the silky tresses. Yes!

But, instead, he lifted his hands to pull the little ear plugs from my ears. Crap. I held out my hand and stuffed them embarrassingly in my jeans pockets. “Thanks,” I grumbled.

“So, that guy from the auction.”

Holy crap. Goldie was right. Replace First Guy with Second Guy and First Guy would be jealous. Regardless of the fact thatSecond Guy was way too kinky/creepy for me to be cool. That didn’t matter. The fact that he had a penis was enough to make Ty strut around like a rooster.

“What about him?” I tried to sound nonchalant. I wasn’t very good at it, so hopefully I seemed way more confident in my feminine wiles than I felt.

“He looked at you like you were a piece of meat.” Ty didn’t need glasses, that was for sure. To Dex, I was nothing more than an object. “I swear I saw him wipe drool.”

“And?”

Ty ran a hand through his hair. “And? Jesus, Jane.”

I wouldn’t put the man out of his misery. He had to come to me. “What are you doing here?” I lifted my hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “You walked away from me the other day at the convenience store. Said I’m a…what was it? Oh, right, a ‘magnet for disaster’. You have no say in who I see or what I do.”

Ty didn’t like being told off. His jaw clenched tight and his face reddened. Clearly, he was angry, although I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or himself for being such a dumbass.

“Look, Goldie came over to say hello to me and the Colonel in the stands and asked how we were enjoying the derby. She said you were leaving and told me to give you a ride.”

Ah, Goldie-the-Meddler. She obviously didn’t say why I wasleaving. The old omit-the-important-parts trick.

“Why didn’t you just tell her no?”

Ty lifted an eyebrow. “Have you ever told that woman no?”

He had a point.

“Besides, she gave us the tickets to the derby so it was the least I could do.”

“So you’re going to give me a ride because Goldie is making you, not because you want to?”

Ty opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it, smart enough to recognize he couldn’t answer that question without stepping in a pile of horse poop.

“It was nice of Goldie to give you the tickets,” I commented.

That woman. I swear I’d strangle her one of these days. Or kiss her. I wasn’t sure which at the moment. She’d planned the whole thing! First, she probably bought extra derby tickets so Ty could be in the same place as me. That was even before Ty walked away and at that point, she just wanted us to be around each other as much as possible.

Only an hour ago, she’d put the bee in my bonnet about making Ty jealous. She must have seen him at the horse auction watching me with Dex. With Ty at the derby, it would have been child’s play for her to have him follow me. Goldie had a twisted, devious mind when it came to matchmaking, even more so at making men suffer. The least I could do was to keep the pain going for the man. All of Goldie’s hard work demanded it.

“So who was that guy?” Ty asked, venturing back into Jealousy Territory.

I shrugged. “Just a guy I met the other day.”

“I didn’t think you went for cowboys.”

“You never know who you’re going to be attracted to.”

“Yeah.” Ty looked at my mouth with longing, as if he couldn’t help himself. I almost succumbed to making the first move. I remembered his taste, how his was a mixture of gentle and demanding all at the same time.

I ran my tongue over my lower lip, wetting it. Right then, I wanted him to kiss me so badly I couldn’t stand it. I felt heat flare beneath my skin. Who could blame me? Any single woman would shoot me dead for not giving in to the obvious want I saw in his gorgeous, blue eyes. I was a piece of meat and he wanted to eat me up. That was the look on his face, not Dex’s. That was A-OK with me.

I didn’t mind ifTywanted to eat me.He can eat me all he wants. Oh God! Did I just think that? That meant I’d feel his stubble on my thighs, his face buried…No! Stop! Don’t think about him nibbling there!

“You never know who you’ll be attracted to,” he repeated, eyes now on my breasts. My nipples hardened involuntarily.

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