Page 60 of Cowboy Under Siege

“And this.” He couldn’t stop himself from taking her lips. The sweet moan she uttered tore away even more of his ability to think clearly where she was concerned.

After a dizzying minute, she broke the kiss. Her gleaming eyes fixed on his face. “I made up my mind.”

“About what?”God, he loved her like this, all loose and free. The way she was born to be.

“I want a tattoo. Here.” She drew a line down the side of her ribs.

“That’ll hurt like hell. Sensitive spot.”

“I don’t care. We can’t delete it like a photo.”

He wasn’t going to delete that photo of them anytime soon. In fact, his throat closed off at the very thought of it.

“I don’t want to delete this experience from my life, Jaren.” Her forceful tone rattled him.

He swallowed hard. “I have a friend.”

Bending rules seemed to be his thing right now.

Excitement crept over her beautiful face. “Will he ask questions about me?”

“Hell no. Any friend of mine who’d talk would lose every one of his teeth.”

She sucked in sharply.

“Damn. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that. I shouldn’t go punching people or starting fights in front of you either.”

She cradled his face in both hands. “I love the man you are, Jaren. You’re rough and rugged and…dangerous. And you wouldn’t be you without those traits, and I…” She stopped.

“You what, doll?”

She sat up, stamping his mouth with a kiss. “I could use a drink after all those orgasms.”

When she glided to her feet and sashayed away from him, he tucked his arm under his head and watched her go. His cock twitched at each sway of her hips.

But so did his heart, and thatreallyscared the hell out of him.

ChapterTwelve

Trinny shut the bathroom door, leaned against it and let out a shaky breath. Dropping her face into her palm, she fought to untwist her mind.

What was shethinking? She’d almost slipped up and spewed all the silly emotions swirling through her that she could only chalk up to…to…sexual afterglow.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was falling in love with her bodyguard. Thinking back on all the time they’d spent together, she was forced to admit he lured her in the second the idiot slapped that number on his shirt and got on the back of a bull in order to impress her.

But she had to be reasonable. Was she just latching on to the first person who showed her that he cared? After all, she was still healing from the loss of a parent she wasn’t close to, which opened a lot of other wounds that needed to heal.

Had she fallen for the man simply because he saved her life and looked after her through this ordeal?

He makes me live in a way I never have.

She went through the motions of showering and changing into clean clothes, but her mind was too shaken to focus on mundane tasks.

When she reached into her purse for her hairbrush, she removed her favorite scarf purchased in Paris a few years back. Setting it aside, she continued pulling items out of her bag—the remnants of her life. All she had in the world, and none of it had much value.

Reaching inside again, her fingers brushed against paper. Her heart stuttered.

Her mother’s photo album—the only thing Trinny took when she fled. She could have taken her mother’s favorite diamond and sapphire necklace or some other trinket from her jewelry box, but those were hard, cold objects. The photos… Well, they might be just as hard and cold.

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