of rodeo livestock.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t confront him about it now. She couldn’t tell him how desolate she had felt without him with her or how emotionally hurt she had been when he did come home and wouldn’t talk to her about their loss. Besides, they had already had that conversation and like everything else that had taken place the past six months, he didn’t remember it.
But what excuse was she going to use to keep from going to bed with him? Tonight he wasn’t as exhausted as he had been the evening before. There was no way he would turn in for the night without her with him. What could she possibly say to explain sleeping in the bedroom down the hall?
As she tried to think of something—anything—to keep from telling him about their pending divorce, Sam got out and came around to open the driver’s door to help her from the SUV. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go upstairs so that I can hold you and make you forget about all the things that are bothering you.”
Thirty minutes later as she finished getting ready for bed, Bria spent as much time as she could changing into her nightshirt and brushing her teeth. Once she opened the bathroom door, Sam would be waiting to take her into his arms and unknowingly add to her tension, rather than help alleviate it.
“Is everything all right in there?” Sam asked from the other side of the door.
She knew she couldn’t stall any longer. She would just have to wait until he went to sleep, then try to get out of bed without waking him and go down the hall to the guest bedroom.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “I was brushing my—” She stopped short at the sight of Sam standing in front of her wearing nothing but a big smile. “Aren’t you going to wear something to sleep in?”
His smile turned to a grin. “You know I’m not a big fan of wearing anything to bed.”
“You wore your underwear last night,” she said, knowing he had been too tired to take them off.
Maybe that was the key to her dilemma. Maybe if Sam was so exhausted each night that he fell asleep as soon as he got into bed he wouldn’t question her sleeping in a separate room…
She immediately abandoned that idea. There was only one way she knew that would exhaust a man with seemingly boundless energy, and making love with him was definitely not an option.
“You look like you’re ready to drop in your tracks.” His deep baritone sent a shiver of excitement straight up her spine.
More like melt into a puddle at his feet, she thought as she stared at his magnificent physique. Well over six feet tall, Sam had the body of an athlete—lean, with well-defined muscles and not an ounce of spare flesh. When her gaze drifted lower, it took everything in her not to moan. Even relaxed, he was impressive, and she had missed being with him so very much.
“Come here,” he said, reaching for her.
The moment he pulled her to his broad, bare chest, a delicious tingling sensation raced straight up Bria’s spine and sent heat flowing through her veins. She had always loved Sam’s body, loved the contrast between them and the feel of her smoother skin pressed to his hair-roughened flesh. And it appeared that fascination hadn’t changed.
If anything, the awareness of the differences in their bodies was more acute than ever. Feeling the ridges of bulging muscle made hard by years of ranch work pressed to her from shoulders to knees caused her breath to come out on a soft sigh and a delightful tightening in the most feminine part of her. The sensations were a swift reminder of just how long it had been since Sam had held her, loved her.
“You’re shivering,” he said, lightly skimming his palms from her shoulders down her arms to catch her hands in his. “I didn’t realize how much tension and stress the accident caused you, sweetheart.”
At that moment, it wasn’t his being pummeled by the bull that was causing her to tremble. It was his raw masculinity and the temptation he posed that had put her on sensory overload.
“I may be…coming down with a cold,” she said, hoping her excuse didn’t sound as lame to him as it did to her. “Maybe I should sleep in one of the guest rooms. If I do have something contagious, I don’t think it would be