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then stripped out of her clothing before she had a chance to change her mind. Stepping into the water, she immediately covered her breasts with her arms and bent her knees until the water came up to her neck.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” she said between nervous giggles.
“Look at it this way,” he said, opening his eyes. His low, intimate tone and the look on his handsome face as he moved through the water toward her made Fee feel as if he had cast a spell over her. “It’s something you can check off your bucket list.”
“I don’t have a list,” she said slowly.
“I’ll help you make one.” His gaze held hers as he reached beneath the water and lifted her to her feet. Taking her into his arms, he smiled. “Then I’ll help you check off all of the new things you’re doing.”
Her arms automatically rose to encircle his neck and the moment her wet breasts pressed against his wide, bare chest a jolt of excitement rocked her. “You said you wouldn’t look.”
“I haven’t...yet.” His slow smile caused a nervous energy in the deepest part of her. “But I never said I wouldn’t touch you.”
As he lowered his head, Fee welcomed the feel of his firm mouth covering hers. Chance’s kisses were drugging and quickly becoming an addiction that she wasn’t certain she could ever overcome.
The thought should have sent her running as fast as she could to the Cheyenne airport and the earliest flight back to L.A. But as his lips moved over hers with such tenderness, she forgot all the reasons she shouldn’t become involved with him or any other man. All she could think about was the way he made her feel.
When he coaxed her to open for him, she couldn’t have denied him if her life depended on it. At the first touch of his tongue to hers, it felt as if an electric current danced over every one of her nerve endings and a tiny moan escaped her parted lips. She wanted him, wanted to feel his arms around her and the strength of his lovemaking in every fiber of her being.
The feel of his hard arousal against her lower belly was proof he wanted her just as badly. The realization created a restlessness within her and she was so lost in the myriad sensations Chance had created, it took her a moment to realize he was ending the kiss.
“As bad as I hate to say this, I think we’d better head back to the house.” His voice sounded a lot like a rusty hinge. “I have a good idea where this is headed and I don’t have protection for us.”
Covering her breasts with her arms, she nodded reluctantly. There was no way she could deny that the passion between them was heading in that direction. Thank goodness he had the presence of mind to call a halt to it.
“Turn around.”
He laughed. “Really? Our nude bodies were just pressed together from head to toe and you’re worried about me seeing you?”
Her cheeks heated. “Feeling is one thing, seeing is entirely different.”
“If you say so,” he said, doing as she requested.
Hurriedly getting out of the water, Fee turned her back to him, used his shirt to quickly dry herself and then pulled on her panties and jeans. But when she searched for her bra, she couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.
“Looking for this?” Chance asked.
Glancing over her shoulder, he was standing right behind her with her bra hanging from his index finger like a limp flag. “I thought you were supposed to stay in the water with your back turned until I got dressed,” she scolded, taking her lacy brassiere from him to put the garment on.
“I stayed in the water right up until you started searching for your bra.” She heard him pulling on his clothes. “After you dried off, you dropped my shirt on it when you reached for your panties.”
“You watched me get dressed? You swore you wouldn’t peek.”
“Yeah, about that.” He turned her to face him and the slow smile curving his mouth caused her to catch her breath. “I was never a Scout so that oath earlier didn’t really count. But just for the record, I told you before I kissed you that I hadn’t looked yet. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to.” He gave her a quick kiss, then bent to pull on his socks and boots.
While he walked over to where Dakota stood munching on a patch of grass, Fee picked up his damp shirt and waited for him to help her onto the gelding’s back. She should probably call her boss at Lassiter Media and arrange for someone else to take over the PR campaign, then head back to L.A. to get her priorities straight before she committed career suicide. But she rejected that idea immediately. No matter how difficult the assignment, she had never bowed out of a project and she wasn’t going to back down now.
She was just going to have to be stronger and resist the temptation of Chance Lassiter. But heaven help her, she had a feeling it was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do.
* * *
Chance lay in bed and damned his sense of responsibility for at least the hundredth time since he and Fee had returned to the house. He hadn’t taken her on the moonlight ride with the intention of seducing her. On the contrary, it had simply been something he thought she might enjoy and he’d been right. She’d loved seeing all the billions of stars twinkling in the night sky.
At least, that’s the way things had started out. What he hadn’t allowed himself to consider was the effect her body would have on his when they rode double. Her delightful little bottom rubbing against the most vulnerable part of him had quickly proven to be the greatest test of his fortitude he’d ever faced. Then, if he hadn’t been insane enough, she’d noticed the spring and he’d had the brilliant idea of going skinny-dipping.
“Yeah, like that didn’t have disaster written all over it,” he muttered as he stared up at the ceiling.
If he’d just stayed on his side of the pool and hadn’t touched her or kissed her, he wouldn’t be lying there feeling as if he was ready to climb the walls. But the allure of her being so close had been more than he could fight and once he’d touched her, he couldn’t have stopped himself from kissing her any more than he could get Gus to give up baseball.
But what had really sent him into orbit had been her response. The minute their lips met, Fee had melted against him and his body had hardened so fast it had left him feeling as if he might pass out. The feel of her breasts against his chest and his arousal pressing into her soft lower belly had damn near driven him over the edge and he’d come dangerously close to forgetting about their protection.
Fortunately, he’d had enough strength left to be responsible. But that hadn’t been easy.
He punched his pillow and turned to his side. No two ways around it, he should have known better. But he’d been fool enough to think that he could control the situation and ended up being the victim of his own damned arrogance.
He’d known full well the moment he’d laid eyes on her at Hannah and Logan’s wedding, a spark ignited within him and with each day since the fire had increased to the point it was about to burn him up from the inside out. He wanted her, wanted to sink himself so deeply within her velvet depths that neither of them could remember where he ended and she began. And unless he was reading her wrong, it was what she wanted, too. So why was he in bed on one side of the hall and she in bed on the other now?
With a guttural curse that his mother would have had a fit over, Chance threw back the sheet and sat up on the side of the bed. Two hours of tossing and turning had gotten him nowhere. Maybe a drink would help him calm down enough to get a few hours of sleep.
Pulling on a pair of jeans, he didn’t bother with a shirt as he left the master suite and stared at the closed door across the hall. He’d like nothing better than to go into that room, pick Fee up and carry her back to his bed. Instead, he forced himself to turn and walk barefoot down the hall to the stairs.
When he reached the kitchen, he went straight to the refrigerator for a beer, and then