from that fire wasn’t some clichéd romantic gesture.”
He nodded in agreement. “More like a caretaker helping an invalid get from point A to point B. So?”
“That is exactly my point. You’re blunt, reckless, arrogant, and…frankly, a little conceited, which is something I’m not.”
“Just spit it out already. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
I hesitated to tell him the God’s honest truth, but I had to say something to get him to leave me alone. “I don’t do short-term love affairs,” I blurted out.
Clearly caught off guard by my admission, he blinked rapidly before a smile tugged at the sides of his mouth. “You mean sex?”
I closed my eyes and sighed, embarrassment flooding my cheeks. “Yes, of course I’m talking about sex.”
“So what about long-term love affairs?” The inflection in his tone made his voice deeper, sexier.
I cracked one eye open and saw him grinning at me with a hand propped leisurely on the shelf beside me and the other at his waist, his thumb snagged in the loophole of his jeans. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“Darlin’, I’m not making fun of you. I’m only suggesting something a little longer than what you were expecting.” Then he shrugged his brows.
His cockiness pushed my buttons. “Okay, enough. Obviously you’re used to flirty women throwing their wishful hearts at your feet and their willing bodies into your bed without you barely lifting a finger. But I’m…well, I’m not interested.”
Wearing a sexy little grin, he stepped forward, forcing me to inch away from him until my back hit the bookshelf behind me. “Oh, really?” He actually sounded surprised. Arrogant jerk.
“Yes, really. I guess you find that hard to believe?”
“Sweetheart, as jumpy as you are around me, I don’t see you doing either.” His hands framed my face and his thumbs tipped my chin up. My breath hitched as his lips neared mine. “But the adorable way you’re blushing and stammering all over yourself… Well, darlin’, I’d say you have more interest than you’re letting on.” His emerald eyes twinkled with intimate knowledge of women’s desires and a blatant invitation for me to test him on it.
An easy victim of wishful thinking, I licked my lips nervously and felt his breath warm them. A pulse developed between my legs as sexual undercurrents flowed rapidly through my veins. But lucky for me, it also heightened my sense of reality. Because a man like him wouldn’t go for someone like me. Not unless he was getting something in return. Cowboy always wanted something he couldn’t have. It was just the way he was.
That argument alone persuaded me to put an end to the standoff. It was self-sabotaging, I knew, but my heart and my mind threatened to form a conspiracy against me by sending me off to dangerous, Cowboy-infested waters. And that wasn’t a depth I was willing to go.
I shied away farther, my back digging into the bookshelf, as I tried to put more distance between us. “I’m not a trophy, nor do I aspire to become a notch on someone’s belt. I’m not the kind of girl who rolls out of a man’s bed after one meaningless night of sleeping together.”
He laughed softly. “I don’t know about meaningless, sweetheart, but the sleeping part is not usually the way I do things.”
I rolled my eyes. “You just don’t get it, do you? I’m not looking for a fling.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, settling his hands on the bookcase behind me, effectively caging me in. His masculine frame towered over me, forcing me to look up to see his eyes. “Because it’d be hot as hell watching you come unwound.”
He brought one hand around and removed the glasses from my face, then reached up with the other and let my red hair fall out of my clip.
Again? Seriously?
It was nerve-wracking the way his gaze roamed aimlessly over my face and body. As if he were imagining me naked in his arms, writhing beneath him while he thrust into me. And that thought alone horrified me as much as it delighted me. God, help me.
I didn’t stamp my foot, but I wanted to. “Are you done, yet?”
“Nope. Not even close. I want to know the real reason why you won’t go out with me.”
“Okay, fine.” I crossed my arms to show my exasperation, but mostly to hide my body’s response to his proximity. “You’re someone who appreciates bluntness, right? You like to call a spade a spade?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He was still smiling.
“The reason I won’t go out