Kathie DeNosky – The Millionaires' Club: David, Clint & Travis: Entangled with a Texan / Locked up with a Lawman / Remembering One Wild Night (страница 17)
In seconds, he tugged his sweater over his head and tossed it away, pulling her close against him while he continued to kiss her.
She caressed his smooth back, wanting to touch and be touched, unable to believe that this was David who was kissing her and wanting her to go out with him. How many dreams had been spun around him, how many nights of fantasy! Now he was here, his strong arms around her, and he wanted her. He was wicked temptation and irresistible desire.
His hands were at the belt of her jeans when she realized where they were headed. She caught his wrists in her grasp, twisting slightly to look up at him.
“David, you have to stop. You’re going way too fast,” she gasped, melting under his gaze.
“You’re beautiful, Rissa,” he whispered, stepping away slightly.
Quickly, she picked up her T-shirt, yanking it over her head. As soon as she pulled it down, she again met his smoldering gaze, which was as potent as a caress.
His jeans bulged with his evident arousal, and he reached out to stroke her cheek. He stepped close and pulled her into his arms to kiss her again.
Even though Marissa intended to push him away, she wrapped her arms around his neck. David leaned back to look down at her. “Come out with me Saturday night,” he rumbled. “Say you’ll go.”
“I’ll go,” Marissa said finally. “But let me catch my breath. You go far too fast for me, David.”
Suddenly he grinned, an infectious, white-toothed grin that dazzled her.
“Yee-ha!” he exclaimed, throwing back his head and letting out another whoop. “We’ve got a Saturday night date!”
She couldn’t keep from laughing. “You browbeat me into it.”
“You call that browbeating?” he asked. “I have another name for it.”
“Seduction,” she said. “Watch out, David. You’re playing with fire.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I guess with a Special Ops background, you like risks and life on the wild side, but I don’t. I don’t want more hurt.”
He tilted her chin up, lifting long strands of dark blond hair away from her face. “My last intention is to hurt you,” he said, and his voice held such an unmistakable note of tenderness that it made her knees weak.
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” she replied. “And slow down with the seductive kisses, because I have no intention of finding myself in your bed.”
“Is that right? I’ll remember that. At the same time,” he drawled, letting his hands slide down her arms and settle on her waist while his gaze drifted leisurely over her, “maybe my goal is to get you into my bed.”
Marissa sighed. “Half of me thinks you’re teasing and half of me thinks you’re serious and both halves are right.” She leaned over to snatch up her lacy bra and jam it into her jeans pocket. She turned to find him still watching her.
“Sit over there, and I’ll sit over here and we can talk,” she announced, trying to summon as much force into her voice as possible, knowing she was failing and he wouldn’t care, anyway.
“Darlin’, how about a compromise?” he asked, sweeping her into his arms and going to the sofa to set her down in one corner. He turned and sat in the other corner, twisting to face her and smile at her. “How’s this? There’s space between us, but I can still touch you a little.” Stretching out his long arm, he caught tendrils of her hair and twirled them in his fingers.
He was too close if he was in the same room with her, but at least she had slowed him down enough that she could gather her wits. She tried to ignore the fact that her body ached and tingled and burned for more. She could happily drown in his kisses for the rest of the night, but she knew where that would lead and that wasn’t what wisdom indicated she should do.
And that magnificent chest was still bare and still in touching distance. And far too distracting for a regular conversation. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked him, giving his chest a once-over again.
His brows arched. “You want me to put on my sweater? My chest disturbs you?” he asked with great innocence.
“You know what you’re doing,” Marissa snapped. “Go without your sweater. I can resist your chest,” she added, and he grinned, snaking out his long arm to grab his sweater and pull it over his head. He raked his fingers through his hair and it sprang back in thick waves. Marissa knew it didn’t matter a whole lot whether he had on his sweater or not because everything about him stirred her hormones.
“So if we go out—” she said.
“You said yes.
“When we go out, who is taking care of Autumn?”
“I have that all worked out,” he replied smoothly, his fingers caressing her nape as he shifted a few inches closer to her. “I have a neighbor and fellow Texas Cattleman’s Club member and friend, Jason Windover, and his wife, Meredith. They have a little boy who was born in June of this year. We’ll take Autumn to their house. Meredith is great, and Jason is ex-FBI so Autumn will be safe. How’s that?”
“Ex-FBI? Autumn needs an FBI or Special Ops person around? Is she in danger?”
“She could be. No one knows because we don’t know anything about the mother,” he replied, letting strands of Marissa’s hair slide through his fingers. She found it difficult to keep her focus on their conversation. Tingles and aches tormented her while her attention was drawn like a magnet to David, and even though his chest was covered by his sweater, she knew it was there, temptingly close to touch and kiss.
“But you do know something,” she pressed.
“Yes, a little,” he replied, and related all the incidents of the night Autumn and her mother came to town.
“Half a million dollars! David, someone is probably after that money!” Marissa tilted her head to study him. “Out of the goodness of your hearts, you guys are guarding her, caring for her baby, safeguarding the money and trying to find out her identity?”
“Something like that,” he answered solemnly.
Memories flitted to mind, dredged up from the past as she studied him. “I remember some rumors about Texas Cattleman’s Club guys helping people in trouble. It’s true, isn’t it, David?”
“That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
“You don’t have any idea how much danger Autumn is in?”
“No, we don’t. Chances are, someone is after the mother and the money. Unless she kidnapped the child and took the money. Then that’s different. But I think it’s probably the mother who is in the greatest danger.”
“Well, I’m glad you told me,” Marissa said, wondering what she had gotten herself into.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re safe here on the ranch. I have alarms all around the house and the outbuildings. I have dogs.”
“I met two of the dogs last week, and they’re as ferocious as pudding,” Marissa pointed out.
“They bark and they’re good about strangers,” David replied. “And I have six dogs on the place. The guys who work here have been alerted and Gertie is always cautious. My Dad wanted this ranch to be a shelter from the world and he started all this security stuff. Then, when I was in the military, I added to it.”
“You might have warned me.”
“You’re not in danger, or I would have. Besides, I’m close at hand.”
“
“I’m no threat to you,” he replied blandly. “Wait until Saturday night and you’ll see that all your fears were for naught.”
“Right,” she replied, suspecting she was going to regret her Saturday night date with him for a long time. “And regarding Saturday night. Will we pick Autumn up on the way home?”
“Yes,” he replied, leaning a little closer and letting his fingers skim across her back and shoulders as he twirled long strands of her hair in his hand. “Or, Meredith said we can leave Autumn all night.”
“No way. We pick her up,” Marissa said firmly, trying to ignore the effect he was having just playing with her hair and lightly touching her. She was aware of each little tug and pull, aware when his hand stroked her. “Autumn is too little. I want to bring her back here.” She did not add that she also didn’t want the temptation of being alone with David.
He smiled. “I think I picked the best nanny in all of Texas. You’d think you were her mother.”
“She’s too little to leave with someone else all night long.”
“I won’t argue about it. As long as we have Saturday night, I’ll be happy to pick her up. As far as leaving Autumn with someone else—she’s here with us, instead of being with her mother, and she spent one night with just me, a totally inexperienced male, which was not the greatest for her. But if you want to bring her home Saturday night, that’s what we’ll do,” he said, and smiled at her.
“Thank you. It’s definitely what I want to do.”
“She’ll be in good hands, I assure you.”
Marissa stood and picked up the black dress and held it up. “This is beautiful,” she said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”