Rich, Rugged Rancher

Good to know.

“I don’t like mixed signals, Rockwell. You can’t devour me one minute and ask me to leave the next.”

“On my spread, I can do anything I damn well like,” Clint muttered.

Fee cocked her head at his statement. “Now you’re just sounding petulant. It’s not a good look on you, Rockwell.”

Clint rubbed his hand over his face. “Will you just go? Please?”

“No, not until we talk about why you jumped away from me like you were hit by a bolt of lightning.”

Annoyance and frustration jumped into Clint’s eyes and Fee didn’t mind. She could deal with those emotions. She far preferred anger to his impassivity. “Let’s break it down, shall we?” she continued.

“Let’s not.”

Fee ignored him. “You touched my boob and I banged the back of my heel against your prosthetic leg. Now, because I know that couldn’t hurt you, there has to be another reason why you’re overreacting.”

Clint handed her a hard stare, his eyes reflecting confusion and more than a little fear. At what? What was the real problem here?

“You know I have a prosthetic leg.”

Yes, she did. It was the least important thing she’d discovered about him. “I also know you are a billionaire, you were some sort of super soldier and now you are a semi-recluse, much to the dismay of the Royal residents, who’ve placed you somewhere between God and Friday-night football.”

Finally, a hint of amusement touched his lips. “That’s a huge exaggeration since I have little to do with them.”

“Trust me, ten minutes dealing with your sarcasm and general orneriness would have them reevaluating your wonderfulness,” Fee said, her tone tart. She slapped her hands on her hips. “But we’re getting distracted from the point of this conversation.”

Clint looked past her at something beyond her shoulder. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Damn straight. “No.”

“I lost my left leg above my knee. When you kicked it, I realized I should stop this, now.”

“Why?”

“To save both of us the embarrassment of you running out of here squealing when you see me, and it, fully exposed. It’s not a pretty sight.” Clint’s smile was hard and his eyes glittered with pain-laced fury. “I don’t need your sympathy or your pity. I just need sex.”

Fee felt anger boil inside of her. She was angry at the people who had so obviously hurt him by making him feel less than, and angry at him for projecting those people’s feelings onto her. Yes, she was a reality TV star but she wasn’t shallow, dammit.

To make her point, Fee gathered a handful of Clint’s T-shirt in her fist. She knew with a quick twist he could be free of her grasp, he did have a hundred pounds of muscle on her, but she was trying to make a point here.

“You just keep pissing me off, Rockwell. It’s quite a talent,” Fee murmured.

“Just get to the point, Seraphina. I’ve got work to do.”

Fee pulled him over to the steps and pushed him down two of them so they were eye to eye, face to face. “That’s better. Now, listen up because I’m only going to say this once…”

“Man, you’re bossy.”

“If I were a man, you’d call my behavior assertiveness,” Fee quipped back.

“If you were a man, I would’ve had you in a headlock by now.”

Fair point, Fee thought.

“And I certainly wouldn’t have kissed you and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Clint continued.

Fee waved his words away. “I’m not going to get into an argument about semantics with you, Rockwell. Not right now anyway.” Fee was surprised that Clint—a taciturn, will-only-use-one-word-when-three-are-needed man—was even arguing with her.

Fee placed her hands on either side of his face and rested her thumbs against his mouth. “Be. Quiet.”

“Nothing makes me angrier than when someone who doesn’t know me compares me to someone else,” Fee told him, keeping her voice low but intense. “I’m lots of things—I have a hundred faults—but I am, one hundred percent, my own person. That means I make up my own mind and I get very pissed when people assume they know what’s inside my head.”