Page 86 of The Rough Rider

“Yeah. But I was also supposed to protect you from me, and I did a pretty piss-poor job at that.”

She traced a circle on his chest and he grunted. “It was a really good pot roast, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I bet it was. May it rest in peace. Because I don’t want to go back for it.”

“Neither do I.”

Her legs tangled with his, and she let her hand drift down to his stomach.

“This should feel weirder,” she said.

“Should it?”

“It’s taken me some time to wrap my head around the fact that I want you. But I think I have for a while. I just didn’t know what it was. It’s not that I only like pretty boys, Angus. It’s that I didn’t know what desire was. And I thought butterflies were the same thing. It isn’t. Chemistry’s different.”

Hearing her say that satisfied him a hell of a lot more than it should.

“Well, that is the truth,” he said.

“Can we stay here tonight?”

“Alaina...whatever happens between us after this...”

“Are you going to tell me this can never happen again?”

He grunted. “I was going to.”

“It’s not realistic. Any more than us planning onneverdoing it was.”

“Alaina...”

“How about this? Tonight there’s no discussions. No plans. No baby. No marriage. No rules. Tonight, can we just pretend that I want you, and you want me, and nothing else matters?”

“Hell yeah.”

And when she leaned in to kiss him, he didn’t stop her. Because he was all out of strength to do anything but give in.

And so he did. All night long.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEAIRWASCOLD,but she was warm. That was the first thing that Alaina was aware of when she woke up. Her nose was chilly. But it felt like her body was cocooned in a furnace.

Because she was sleeping with someone’s arms around her.

With Gus’s arms around her.

And that jolted her right awake.

She opened her eyes and looked around. They were still in the cabin. Lying on the spare bed, underneath a plaid blanket. Completely naked. She could feel the insistent press of his arousal against her rear, and turned to look at him. He wasn’t awake.

She wished that he looked more carefree when he slept. But he didn’t.

Instead, he looked as stern and haunted as he ever did.

Did he ever rest?

Well, last night had been...something else.

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