Page 41 of Steal My Heart (Prosperity Ranch 2)

His gaze scanned her face, dipping to her lips. She had an insane urge to fish around for some Chapstick. Why was he looking at her lips?

“I don’t think you want me to answer that,” he said.

Evie’s brows popped up. “Why not?”

He lifted his other hand and ran his thumb along her cheek, then tucked some of her blowing hair behind her ear. Did he realize that his touch was giving her all kinds of thoughts? He didn’t drop his hand, but rested it on her shoulder. So now her heart was pounding, and her legs turning to water.

“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice a mere breath.

“Why haven’t you ever been kissed?”

Evie blinked, then blinked again. His body wasn’t pressed against hers, but she could feel the warmth of his body all the same. “It’s not that guys haven’t tried to kiss me, but we’ve always been interrupted, and then everything fizzled. Every time. Bad luck, I guess.”

That crease between his brows appeared again. “Interrupted, how?”

He really wanted to know this? When she was about to melt on the spot?

“Um, my only date in high school was sort of a disaster from the start,” she said. “I mean, we had fun as a group for senior prom. When Aaron dropped me off at my house, he walked me to the door. I knew he liked me, and I liked him, but my brothers had been cornering him all week at school and lecturing him. I could tell he was getting his courage up, and he grabbed my hands in his super sweaty ones. Just as he leaned in, my brothers opened the front door. Aaron jumped about a mile high and ran back to his truck. He never spoke to or even looked at me again.”

Carson was smiling.

“It’s not funny,” Evie said, slapping his chest.

He caught her hand against his chest. “It’s a little bit funny.”

Evie made a face. “That’s because it didn’t happen to you.”

“What about your next almost-kiss?”

He was still holding her hand against his chest, and she could feel the warmth of his skin coming through his shirt. “My freshman year in college, I went out with a guy in my math class. He was geeky, but in a cute way.”

Carson’s fingers wrapped around her hand, securing her even closer.

“He tried to kiss me in his car, but someone literally ran into us,” she said. “It was just a fender bender, but that kind of ruined the moment, and he never asked me out again.”

Now, Carson was grinning.

“I see that I’m your night’s entertainment,” she said.

“You are,” he said. “Who was your next victim?”

She tried to slap his chest again, but he held her hand firmly.

“Seth and I were on our second date,” she said. “We’d gotten ice cream cones and were walking across campus. He stopped me near a tree, and just before he kissed me, the sky crackled with lightning. Then the rain came, pouring like we were in a tropical storm. We ran for cover, but all he could talk about was that he’d dropped his cell phone somewhere. So we spent the next twenty minutes searching for it in the rain and mud.”

Carson chuckled. “Let me guess, he didn’t call you.”

“Nope,” she said. Carson was so close that she could practically hear his heartbeat. Could he hear hers thumping away?

“Well, the way I see it, sweetness, is that your brothers are nowhere in sight,” Carson drawled. “And we’re not sitting in a car. And it’s overcast, but no pending storm.”

“The way you see it?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I think I need to help you break your no-kissing streak.” He moved his hand to cradle her face.

“Oh, really?” she whispered, her pulse racing like a mad horse.

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