Page 31 of Mountain Rescue
“Sat in her kennel and talked to her in a gentle voice. Moved myself closer to her each time until she let me touch her.”
“Let me give it a try.” She inched closer. “Hey, Bella Boo Baby. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt. Some people just aren’t meant to live. I promise I’ll never hurt you. I sure would love to run my fingers through your pretty black fur.”
Dallas sure would love to have her fingers on him.
“Don’t you want to smell me, Bella Boo?”
Oh, he could smell her all right. She smelled good enough to lick. He didn’t know what she used in her bath, but it had to be something with apple and vanilla scents in it. Warm apple pie had always been his favorite dessert.
Bella sniffed her fingers before hiding her face between his legs again.
“She’ll come around. She just needs a little time to get used to you.” His gaze dropped to Rachel’s lips. Had she been thinking about letting him kiss her again? “What was the stuff you needed to think about?”
Chapter Nine
“Stuff?” The way he was looking at her mouth—raw hunger in his eyes—made it hard to think. He’d kissed her, then had said it wouldn’t happen again. It shouldn’t, but man oh man, did she ever want him to kiss her again. And then some more.
Having a fling wasn’t her...or it hadn’t been her before a SEAL cowboy invaded her hideaway. Now it was all she could think about. She’d weighed the pros and cons while taking a bath, and although there were definite cons, the pros won. She was going for the fun.
Yeehaw!
“Rachel?”
“Hmm?” If he could eat up her mouth with his eyes, she could do the same to him, and oh boy, those lips of his were made for kissing. “Are you really a cowboy?”
“That’s the stuff you’ve been thinking about?”
Well, no, but having cowboy fun would require a cowboy. “In a roundabout way.”
“When I’m home, I work on the ranch alongside my family, so I guess you can call me a cowboy if you want, but we refer to ourselves as ranchers. Where are you going with this?”
“Are you still in the Navy? Still a SEAL?” She was delaying because she didn’t know how to tell him what she’d decided. What if he wasn’t interested? Maybe he’d walked out after kissing her because she sucked at it. If she put her offer out there and he turned her down, she’d die of embarrassment. But she hadn’t imagined the way he’d looked at her mouth...had she?
“I’m still a SEAL for now. Are these questions leading to something?”
“I want to have some cowboy fun.” There, she’d said it.
“Okaaay.” His lips twitched. “And this fun would involve what exactly?”
Sheesh, now she was amusing him. Not the reaction she was going for. “Um, you know.”
“How about you spell it out so I don’t go jumping to conclusions?”
She huffed an exasperated breath. Bella lifted her head and looked at her as if to say, “Just spit it out.” Why was this so hard? It was a modern world, and women had every right to express their desires. The problem was, it wasn’t her.
She loved June to death, but her grandmother was brazen and had no filter, especially when it came to men. Although she applauded June’s ability to be herself, Rachel had sometimes been embarrassed by her grandmother’s antics around men. The result was that she’d decided at a young age she would never throw herself at a man the way June did. She needed to like a man, to take the time to get to know him before she could have sex with him. Until Dallas, anyway. Well, she did like him, so that counted.
“Rachel?”
The way he said her name in that soft, intimate voice and the way his eyes had softened gave her courage. “I want to...” She waved her hand between them. “Um, sleep with you.”
“Do you now?”
She was out of words, so she nodded. Goodness, he had a lethal smile. If she was a block of ice, she’d melt right at his feet. While she waited for his answer, her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it thump in her ears.
When he didn’t say anything, only looked at her like he was trying to think of how to refuse without hurting her feelings, heat burned its way up her neck and into her cheeks. She was so stupid to think she could be someone she wasn’t.
“Forget it. It was a dumb idea.” She stood, wanting the refuge of her room. “Just so you know, I don’t go around propositioning men.”
