kiss.
She moaned when he flicked his tongue over hers. He tasted minty and smelled of the cologne that was driving her crazier by the second.
Heart pounding, she clung to him, her whole body quaking.
When he glided his hand upward and stopped short of closing his palm around her breast, he tore away from the kiss. His ragged breathing told her he was as affected as she was.
“Christ, Lauralee. You have no idea how you look right now.”
Her chest heaved. “How do I…look?”
“Your lips are all swollen. You’re flushed and your eyes are on fire. You’re looking all soft…like you want me to tear off this dress you hate and make this marriage official.”
Her stomach tumbled.
As he ducked his head and latched his mouth to her throat again, she curled her hand around his nape and pulled him in for more. Whatever was happening between them had no rational explanation. He barely looked her way. They’d exchanged very few words since the day she started at WEST Protection, and those they had traded were usually shots fired.
Either Black had drugged him, or he actually had been thinking about her in this dress all day, though she couldn’t fathom why. She really looked pasty and awful, and it was a bit too snug around her hips.
Her inner monologue ran to a halt as he lifted his mouth off her skin once more. “Are you on the pill, honey?”
She stilled. The brakes slammed inside her mind long before her body caught up to the momentum. She dropped her hands to his chest and pushed him away.
“We’re not going there, buddy.”
He raised his head, and though his eyes still blazed, he chuckled. “You’re right. Plenty of time for our honeymoon later.”
Chapter Five
Being in the saddle helped clear Boone’s head—but not much.
If Lauralee drew her horse ahead of his, all he could see was that sweet ass of hers bouncing in the saddle. She had him twisted up in knots, and he hadn’t puzzled out how he’d gone from indifferent to wanting her in the course of a day.
A band of platinum encircling his finger caused a chain reaction inside him—made him protective first and then hungry for something he shouldn’t want to touch.
Maybe that was the problem. That hands-off forbidden don’t-sleep-with-your-employee boundary felt like a challenge to a man like him, who lived for loopholes and would scale every barbed wire fence in Montana to get where he was going.
She gripped the reins with perfect ease and bounced with the horse’s trot as they explored the trail. They passed through high grasses and stands of white birch trees. The burble of water reached him. Sooner or later, they’d be crossing a creek.
When he spurred his mount to close the gap so Boone wasn’t staring at her ass caressing leather anymore, he caught sight of her breasts bouncing.
Not better.
His cock had never fully drained of blood, and his veins still pulsed with desire. She’d spoken in monosyllables to him as they walked out to the stables, met with Flaherty and saddled up.
Boone needed to break the tension and say something to her.
I shouldn’t have touched you.
But he wanted more. And so did she, judging by the small looks she threw him and the way she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
In simple jeans and a white blouse knotted at the waist, hair flowing down her back, she looked like the country girl he never expected her to be. Tech guru, yes. Smart beyond her years, sure. But this surprised him.
The fading afternoon sun kissed her skin, revealing even more freckles and illuminating the silver chips in her gray eyes.
She was pretty, he admitted for the first time.
Add in sexy, responsive and one hell of a kisser and no wonder he’d lost control. Without being his type at all, she actually ticked all the boxes on his mental list. He typically went for bold women because they knew how to handle his advances.
But Lauralee had risen to his demands and taken him out of the driver’s seat with a few soft moans.
Ross would kick his ass if he found out Boone toyed with her. But what the hell did his brother expect, throwing him into a marriage and then telling him to share a bed with her while keeping his hands to himself?
He grunted. His brother didn’t know him very well, did he? The WEST Protection team held enough “meetings” at the strip club that Ross should know by now that Boone liked women, and