Cowboy Crush. Liz Talley

right in front of her.

      Could he hear her heart beating? Or maybe smell how turned on she was? Because she was. Like a light switch flicked. “You’re defining sexy now?”

      “I think we should,” he said, shifting even closer. She could see the buttons on his polo had four holes. He smelled vaguely of lemon and, yeah, some kind of liniment. Even that turned her on.

      He dragged one finger across her lips. And just like that, the smiles were gone. Because that was the single sexiest move she’d ever experienced. “These lips.”

      Maggie swallowed hard. “Uh...”

      “No, don’t say it,” he said, running his finger lightly back across her bottom lip. “I know you think it’s a bad idea to mix business and pleasure, Maggie. Thing is, I don’t really care.”

      He slid his hand across her jaw and cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the hair pulled tight in the ponytail. Tilting her head back, he studied her face.

      And she studied his. Long dark eyelashes totally wasted on a man framed eyes the color of a Caribbean surf. His broad cheeks angled down and she bet his nose had been broken more than once. Lean jaw, firm chin and those damn lips she wanted to feel on her body...everywhere.

      “I don’t need this job, Maggie.”

      She inhaled deeply. “So why did you take it?”

      “For this,” he said, lowering his head, his lips covering hers.

       4

      HE HADN’T MEANT to kiss her.

      But after .008 seconds he was happy as hell he did. Because kissing Maggie was like raindrops falling on the parched earth. Exactly what he needed.

      She tasted like spearmint gum and sweat—an oddly potent combination.

      He held her firmly, but there was no need because she didn’t pull away. A soft sigh escaped against his lips as if she’d been waiting for him to do exactly what he’d done—take control of the situation. And that thought stoked his ego.

      So he reached for her with his bad arm and hauled her against him, ignoring the pain because her soft body against his overshadowed the twinge in his shoulder. His hand cupped her ass, pulling her hard against him and she opened her mouth, letting him inside.

      Make no mistake, Maggie could hold her own, but after a few seconds of heaven, he pulled back.

      Her topaz eyes widened. “You kissed me.”

      He grinned. “Couldn’t help myself. Those sexy lips begged me to.”

      “You’re blaming my lips?” She swiped her hand over her mouth and stepped back. “We can’t do this...uh, that. I’m your boss. You can’t go around kissing your boss.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because we have to work together. That’s the first thing you learn in the corporate world.”

      “Do you see a corporation out here?”

      “Look, I need this ranch completed so I can list it and move on with my life. I can’t have you running out on me because we screw up by getting...physical.”

      “I wasn’t planning on screwing anything up except maybe y—”

      “No,” she interrupted holding up a finger. “We’re not going there.”

      But they already had. Her breathing was labored, her eyes slightly dilated and the nipples beneath the tank were hard. Her body said yes no matter what her mouth said. Her body’s reaction told him all he needed to know. This would take patience. “Okay.”

      “Okay?” She sounded surprised.

      “Yeah, okay. Now, how about that sandwich? I’m going for the turkey. No, the ham.”

      Maggie stared at him for a few seconds. “You can have both.”

      He slapped his hands together, hung his cowboy hat on the hooks inside the door and headed toward the kitchen. The living area of the Triple J had been cleared of the junk the teenagers or cats or whatever had busted windows had brought in. The furniture looked worn and stained and the whole place needed scrubbing. But it could be really nice. The fireplace was a native stone with a rustic mantel and the flooring was wood, and according to HGTV—which his mother watched with religious fervor—was desirable. All the dark molding looked intact and the horrid red paint could be changed to something tamer.

      He walked into the kitchen and winced.

      This would need to be gutted. Or not. Cabinets looked in good shape. Good coat of white paint would lighten them up and he could drive into the McKinney Home Depot and pick out some new stainless-steel appliances that seemed to be popular. He looked at the ugly black and white tile. That would need to go.

      “The floor is ugly,” Maggie said behind him.

      “Just what I was thinking,” he said, turning when she came inside the kitchen, looking calm and not so turned on. He was good with that because he’d tucked her earlier response to him in his back pocket. Now wasn’t the time for seduction. But it would come. Maggie needed to know him better, trust him a little, before she let herself go. Cal was a patient man in many ways. It was an attribute on the tour. Be hungry but be patient. Bull riders knew timing was everything.

      “I hate the idea of ripping up floors, but it will have to go. And there’re some broken tiles in the master bathroom along with a cracked shower door. Whoever came here to party threw beer bottles. Not to mention the carpets in one bedroom are soiled,” Maggie said.

      “Soiled?”

      “Someone couldn’t handle his liquor.”

      Cal made a face. “I don’t get kids these days.”

      Maggie snapped her finger. “You just did it.”

      “What?”

      “Officially became old.” She smiled and moved toward the refrigerator. “When you start complaining about ‘kids these days,’ that’s when it happens. Wrinkles appear and gray hairs start pushing toward the surface.”

      Cal smiled. “I already have some gray.” He pointed to his temples and smoothed his hair down. Definitely had hat hair.

      “But that’s sexy on a guy. On women?” She shook her head and started pulling out packages of lunch meat.

      “I knew you thought it was sexy,” he said, reaching for the paper sack sitting on the counter by the sink and pulling out the loaf of bread.

      Maggie pulled out a butter knife. “You’re not supposed to mention that word.”

      “What word?”

      “Sexy.”

      “I never agreed to avoid it,” he said, unwinding the bread tie. “I like that word ’cause it has one of my favorite things in it.”

      She grabbed a jar of mayonnaise from the depths of the bag along with cheese puffs and a package of Oreo cookies. “I don’t see much gray.”

      “I’m thirty-five years old. It’s there.”

      “You’re thirty-five?”

      “I’ll be thirty-six in August.”

      “You don’t look that old,” she said, narrowing her eyes as if she could figure out his secret. There was no secret. He had good genes. His mother still looked like she was in her thirties and she’d turned fifty-four a few months ago. “I’m twenty-seven.”

      “And I thought you were older,” he joked.

      She narrowed her eyes at him again. This time it was in mock aggravation. “Just what a woman wants to