Page 4 of On His Ranch

He’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen.Piper felt her mouth go dry as she gazed up at him, his body hovering over hers as she lay flattened on the barn floor.He might be the rudest I’ve ever met, too. Anyone having gone through such a brush with danger would have shaky nerves, but her tummy was doing somersaults that had nothing to do with her near brush with a bullet.

When Piper saw his eyes, she was taken aback. They were dark and something of an anomaly because even this close she couldn’t quite discern their color. Gray? Brown? Deep blue? She couldn’t tell for certain, and the thought crossed her mind that they only added to his mystery. While she thought about this, her thighs began to quiver. She was tired not having slept much the night before, and adrenaline was pumping through her body. Add to that the fact she hadn’t gotten laid in exactly sixteen months and three days and the desire that showed first in her thighs became a wave of longing that moved across her entire body.

Think about something else, damn it!

But she couldn’t. His face loomed mere centimeters from her own. She could feel every breath he took, could see his heaving chest, the tendrils of dark hair peeking out beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.

Then, without warning, his gaze shifted and locked onto hers.

Shit.She’d been caught staring and her cheeks blazed instantly.

He grinned at her.

It was an arrogant smile of a man who knew she wanted him. Under normal circumstances, that would have killed any attraction she’d felt, but this was far from normal.

Still holding himself in perfect plank, he lifted a hand and put a finger to his lips.

Wordlessly, she nodded.

In one quick movement he rolled into a crouching position beside her.

Maybe I’m still asleep. Did I dream myself into ‘The Matrix’?Piper used his shifting movement to take a better look. If she’d been turned on by the masculine beauty of his face, it was nothing in comparison to the tightening in her belly when she got a better look at his broad shoulders, strong chest, and a six-pack so well defined she could see it through his flannel shirt.

“You alright?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“I… I think so…” Her heart was pounding against the wall of her chest so hard she wondered if it might break through. It wasn’t every day she had such a commanding, stern man astride her in a way that, albeit completely nonsexual, still made her panties damp. Oh, and then there was the fact that there was a bullet embedded in the wall barely an inch from where she’d been standing.

The cowboy moved and crouched beside her, his mouth hot on her ear. “Stay down, y’hear me?”

His authoritative tone and hard expression saidor else.

Piper had no idea whator elseeven meant, but she felt his unspoken warning in every inch of her body. Wordlessly, she nodded.

He pressed a finger to his lips again, his dark eyes burrowing into hers until she couldn’t take the intensity for another second and was forced to look away. He must have felt that his message had been delivered, because he nodded before turning away and slinking out of the barn without so much as a sound.

As soon as she dared—which wasn’t until he was out of sight—Piper sat up and rocked back on her heels, trying to process what had just happened. Her mind was spinning. She turned her palms up to examine them, grimacing when she saw the scrapes in the center of her palms. They stung like hell, but somehow only fueled the fire that was coursing through her. Was it pure sexual attraction to the stern man who had rousted her from her hiding place, or adrenaline from nearly getting shot? Or a strange combination?

A plaintive whinny followed by a sharp stamp to the ground captured her attention.

She glanced toward the open barn door and seeing no one there, decided to risk going to the horse. After all, wouldn’t noise attract whoever had been shooting? She would be doing her currently nameless cowboy a favor by keeping things quiet. Piper crawled toward the animal, marveling at how much her life had changed in twenty-four hours. Yesterday morning she had woken up in the bedroom of her studio apartment not imagining in the next twenty-four hours she would be startled awake by a severe, scowling man.

Piper wondered what he must have thought seeing her without a bit of makeup, rumpled hair with bits of hay in her honey-blonde hair. She cringed at the mental image. Not her best look, that was for sure.

And now, to make matters worse, she had been shot at and was crawling on the floor. Awesome. Could it get much worse? She didn’t think so.

“Hey, girl,” she whispered, reaching up to pat the horse’s flank. “Well, at least I think you’re a girl. Are you?”

The horse in question snorted and stamped her foot again.

Whether in agreement or denial, Piper couldn’t be sure. She glanced around the barn, suddenly self-conscious. Well she felt assured she was quite alone, she turned back to the horse, but kept her voice in a whisper, just in case. “Shh, it’s okay, girl. You can’t be having a worse day than I am, I promise.”

The horse let out a soft whinny.

“Don’t believe me? Well, for one thing, you have this nice stall of hay, which, you know, I don’t think is very comfortable, but horses seem to like it, right? Whereas I’m homeless at the moment, so…” She continued to stroke the horse’s flank, finding it strangely comforting. As she did, she allowed her mind to drift back to the day before.

She’d been jolted awake yesterday morning, too…

Piper bolted upright in her bed, rubbing her eyes as she tried to figure out where the pounding was coming from. Annoyed at being roused from the first good night’s sleep she’d had in forever, when she realized it was someone at the door she was less than gracious as she bellowed, “Coming! I hear you, knock it off already!” She threw back the covers and stomped to the door, not caring that she was in nothing but an oversize T-shirt.

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