A Real Cowboy. Carla Cassidy

room, where Sammy still slept soundly on the sofa. “I’ll carry him upstairs,” Lucas said. He picked up Sammy, who immediately wrapped his legs around Lucas’s waist and nestled his face into the crook of Lucas’s neck.

      The sight of her son wrapped like a baby monkey around the strong, handsome cowboy pierced Nicolette’s heart. How many times had she wished that Samuel would hug Sammy, give the little boy any kind of attention and love?

      “I’ll carry your bag,” she replied. She picked up the duffle, turned off the lights downstairs and then followed Lucas up the stairs, trying not to notice how his worn jeans fit so nicely across his backside.

      She dropped the duffle bag just inside the room that held the two twin beds and watched as Lucas placed Sammy in the bed he’d been pulled from by her scream.

      Lucas tucked the sheet around the boy and then walked back to Nicolette just outside the doorway. “You can sleep peacefully knowing that he’s safe with me,” he said.

      “You have no idea how much I appreciate what you’re doing for us.”

      He took another step closer to her, so close she could feel his body heat, and her head once again filled with his heady scent. Her mouth was unaccountably dry as she saw a flash of desire light the depths of his eyes.

      She knew he intended to kiss her. She also knew she should step back from him, but her feet refused to move her to safety. Cassie’s advice about not getting close to anyone here was forgotten as she fell into the midnight blue yearning in Lucas’s eyes.

      She didn’t see him move but found herself once again in his embrace, her breasts tight against his hard chest as his soft, warm lips claimed hers.

      The kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Initially his lips were soft as butterfly wings against hers, and then the pressure increased and she couldn’t help but open her mouth to him, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

      Shivers raced up her spine along with his slow caresses up and down her back. His tongue swirled with hers, dizzying her senses, and she leaned closer into him.

      He kissed her with mastery, stealing away her will for anything else but to acquiesce to whatever he desired from her.

      She felt as if she were on fire when his mouth left hers and trailed a blaze of nips and kisses down her jaw and in the hollow of her throat.

      More. She wanted more, and the idea snapped her back into reality. And the reality was that she had no business kissing Lucas Taylor. She had no business allowing him to kiss her until her knees were weak and she wanted more from him, of him.

      She stumbled backward and raised a hand to her lips. She stared at him with both a sense of wonder and a bit of fear...the fear of her own desire for him.

      “Sorry,” he said as he took a step back from her. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

      “We shouldn’t have done that,” she replied, dropping her hand to her side. His eyes still held a fire that tempted her closer, and it took every ounce of her willpower to stand her ground.