Rich, Rugged Rancher

He’d always preferred the ranching side of his inheritance so he’d leased his oil fields. Years later, he was still happy for someone else to deal with that side of the business.

“I like your house,” Fee said, and he frowned at the note of surprise in her voice. “It’s big, obviously, like everything else in Texas, but it’s not ostentatious. I don’t do ostentatious.”

“Says the girl driving another fast, expensive convertible,” he drawled.

Fee looked back at the car and her husky laughter surprised him. “Touché. But I’m a real gearhead and I don’t get to drive as often as I’d like to.”

“I’m sure all the residents of New York City are eternally grateful for that fact, because you have a lead foot,” Clint said. “And how did you charm the rental company into trusting you with another fast car after your crash yesterday?”

“I apologized sincerely and asked them nicely,” Fee retorted, her eyes flashing with irritation.

“You didn’t apologize to me,” Clint pointed out.

“I tried to! But then you started barking orders and tossing me into hay bales!”

Clint lifted his index finger. “One. One hay bale.”

Fee rolled her eyes. “Whatever… Anyway, you should try this thing called charm or, this is a radical idea so beware, a smile. Oh, your face might crack but I think you’ll survive the experience.”

Clint felt the corner of his mouth twitch with amusement. He loved her sassy mouth and now rather liked the fact that he didn’t intimidate her. He walked up onto the porch and gestured to a cluster of outdoor furniture to the left of the door.

“Take a seat.”

Fee’s winged eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, manners. There’s hope for you yet.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Clint replied, putting his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He watched as she sat on the arm of one wicker chair, casually draping one gorgeous leg over the other and tucking her foot behind her calf. Such a female, sexy movement, full of grace and charm.

Clint waited her out, knowing silence was usually a good way to hurry the conversation along by forcing the other person to talk. But Fee confounded him again by ignoring his scowl and silence, seemingly content to watch the mares frolicking in the paddock closest to the house.

Why couldn’t this woman do what he expected her to?

Clint rocked on his heels, his eyes constantly dropping to her lips, wondering whether she tasted as spicy as she sounded. He eventually broke their silence. “Why are you here, Seraphina?”

Fee flashed a smile and leaned down to tuck her hand into her very large leather bag—big enough to carry a change of clothes, a bag of groceries and a saddle or two—and pulled out a couple of rolls of cash. He saw a fifty-dollar bill under the rubber band of one and a hundred-dollar bill around the other. He sucked in his breath.

He’d been annoyed yesterday and tossed out twenty thousand as a figure, hoping to annoy her. But, judging by the cash she’d brought along, she’d taken him seriously.

He couldn’t take her money, not now and not ever.

Clint was about to tell her to put it away when he noticed the rolls seemed irregular, that not all the edges of the bills lined up. If he hadn’t been so distracted by her, he would’ve immediately noticed that something was wrong with the roll, that her sweet, innocent expression was as fake as hell.

Oh, hell no, she wouldn’t dare…

He held out his hand and instead of handing the first one over, she threw it at his chest. He caught the first one, then the second and tucked it under his arm, snapping the rubber band off the first.

Yep, as he thought. A real note covering fake money. Toy money…

Clint felt a bubble of laughter rise within him, tried to swallow it and failed. When his husky-from-lack-of-use chuckle filled the space between them, he was as surprised as Fee.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed…

He heard Fee’s smothered laugh, a cross between a hiccup and a giggle. And because he wanted to taste his laughter on her lips, because he wanted to taste her, Clint moved quickly and, after placing his hands on either side of the arm of the chair, bent down and kissed her.

And immediately wished he hadn’t.

Because, as their lips touched, as her mouth opened and her fingers came up to touch the scruff on his jaw, he knew he’d never be satisfied with just one kiss…

He wanted more. Much, much more.

He was a grouch and a grump, curmudgeonly and contrary, but hellfire, the man could kiss. Fee found herself surging to her feet, her arms looping around his neck, her breasts pushing into his chest. She felt his big hand on the top of her butt, pulling her into a very thick, concrete-hard erection, and she whimpered in delight.

He was so big, everywhere. Fee found herself on her tiptoes, straining to align their mouths, knowing they’d both have cricks in their necks at the end of this make-out session. Clint solved the problem by placing his hands on her hips and boosting her up against his body, holding her weight with ease. What else was a girl to do but wind her legs around his trim waist, hook them behind his back and slide her most sensitive spot over his impressive bulge?

Fee heard Clint’s moan of appreciation and then his hand encircled the top of her leg, his fingers on the inside of her thigh, and Fee wished he had his hands on her naked flesh, that she could feel his clever mouth sucking her nipples, maybe even going lower.

His mouth, as she was coming to learn, was a weapon of mass temptation. Fee knew that if he asked, she’d eagerly follow him into his house and down the hallway to his bedroom, or whether he decided to stop. She would take whatever he’d give her, grateful to be the recipient of the profound pleasure he managed to pull to the surface.

They didn’t need to talk, their bodies were better at communicating than they were. Fee felt Clint take a step and she felt the hard coolness of wood through her jeans, dimly realizing he’d planted her on the wide sill of a window.

He lifted his hands to hold her face, his thumbs caressing her cheekbones as he feathered kisses across her eyelids, down her temple. Fee closed her eyes, enjoying the moment of tenderness. Then Clint covered her right breast with his hand, and her nipple tightened, rising against the fabric of her sweater to press into his palm. Clint jerked his head back, looked at her with stormy eyes and muttered a quiet obscenity.

“Why aren’t you pushing me away?” he hoarsely demanded.

“Why would I, since you kiss like a dream?” Fee responded, her voice just this side of breathy. Hearing his sharp intake of air, Fee decided to rock his boat a little more. “You are abrupt and annoying but, God, you know how to touch me.”

Clint ran his knuckles up her ribcage and across her nipple. “Like this?” His fingers burrowed under her sweater and landed on her bare skin.

“Exactly like that,” Fee murmured. Then Clint pulled down the lacy cup of her bra and pulled her nipple with his fingers. Fee couldn’t help crying out.

Fee put her hand behind his head and shook her head. “No, don’t stop! Do it again.”

Clint’s repeated the action and Fee arched her back, dropped her leg and banged her heel against the back of his lower thigh, just above his knee. Instead of bone and sinew, the heel of her boot bounced off metal hidden behind the fabric of his jeans.

Clint reacted like he’d been scorched. Leaping backward, he put a healthy amount of distance between them. He stared down at the floor as Fee tried to make sense of why he stopped.

The answer came to her on a quiet whisper: she’d kicked his prosthetic leg.

Well, okay then. No big deal…

“Come back here and kiss me, Rockwell,” Fee suggested, wanting, no, needing his mouth on hers. She wasn’t done with him, not yet.

Clint had frozen, his big arms folded across his chest, his face a blank mask. She didn’t like the lack of emotion in his eyes, in his expression. She could handle pissed off and irritated, turned on and taciturn, but she didn’t like this cyborg standing in front of her, acting like she was a fly he was getting ready to swat.

“I think it’s time you went home,” Clint said, in the blandest of bland tones. “You can take your gag money with you and start arrangements to pay me the twenty thousand we agreed upon.”

They were back to this, really? “That number is just something you pulled out of your ass to piss me off, we both know it’s stupidly excessive. As for leaving…”

Fee jumped down from the windowsill and walked up to Clint until her breasts brushed against his arms. She saw the flare of heat in his eyes and knew he was nowhere near as unaffected as he was pretending to be.