Page 11 of Forgiveness
CHAPTER SIX
Flux
Duchess was fuckingclever as hell, Flux would give her that, but nothing about the exhausting, sweaty plan made a dent in his attraction toward her. He watched the way a bead of sweat ever so slowly disappeared down her T-shirt and wished he could follow it with his tongue. He licked his lips and jerked himself out of fantasyland. This woman was dangerous: He had to get his head on straight with her. A whiplash of frustration made him dig deeper into the pile of hay, sending chunks of the large bale in the wheelbarrow flying out and over them like snow.
“Shit!” Flux looked up and his gaze fell on her perfectly shaped tits. “Fuck!”
“Is this too much for you?” Maggie laughed and walked over to him and picked a piece of straw out of his hair.
The small bit of contact set his whole body on fire. While she showed him the offending piece, it took every ounce of self-control not to throw her onto the fresh pile of hay behind them and let his hands do the talking for both of them. He must have made a face or something because she dropped the straw and backed away, and her delighted, cocky smile became more guarded.
“How does a guy like you end up fighting bulls in a rodeo?” she asked, almost too brightly, as she turned back to the pile they were shoveling and dug in for another round.
Fuck, he shouldn’t even be there, it went against his own rules. He was a damn mess. It was like as soon as he saw her at the bar, all his rules went to shit, and he didn’t understand it.She’s just a sweet piece. Nothing more. But then why did it feel like so much more?
“Are you going to share your story?” Her voice broke through his thoughts.
“Pass.” His fingers tightened around the shovel handle and he put his back into the work, this time being careful not to channel his annoyance with himself into the helpless hay.
“I didn’t know passing was an option.”
“This isn’t a date, Duchess.”
“Fair enough,” Maggie replied as she straightened out. She dropped the shovel and pulled her hair back with some kind of elastic band that women carried with them around their wrists.
Flux wanted to wrap her hair around his hands so bad. Nothing like a good tug on a chick’s hair while he pounded the hell out of her pussy.
“You have a funny look on your face. Haven’t you ever seen a woman pull her hair up in a ponytail?” Maggie stared at him.
He tipped his head her way. “Nice ink job.” When she’d swept her hair up, he’d noticed a delicate black and white horse shoe on the nape of her neck with a ring of purple flowers circled around it. He couldn’t guess the significance, outside of the typical good luck BS, but he had the strongest urge to kiss her right in that spot and run his hands down over that fine ass while he breathed in her sexy scent. Just thinking about all that made his dick rock hard in less than two seconds flat.
Flux cursed under his breath and turned back to his hay pile, hoping she didn’t notice while he did some adjusting. Something about this woman turned him into a horny teenager and it was infuriating. It was like his sex drive didn’t have an off switch. Wouldn’t it be great if he could attribute it to playing a cat and mouse game—that she was the one who got away from his bed where no one had ever turned him down before—but it wasn’t that simple. It seemed that nothing was easy when it came to Maggie.Keep it simple at all times—yeah, right.Another one of his rules thrown in the crapper.
“You’ve got some pretty serious ink on your arms. I bet there was a lot of time and money that went into their creations.”
“You’d win that bet. You got any more tats in places that I’d like to explore?”
“No,” she said quickly as she hoisted another shovel full of hay and spread it around the stall. “Horses have always been my thing. I’ve been riding them since I could walk. Combine that with my whole family being obsessed with the rodeo, and well, here I am.”
“Simple as that?” Flux cracked his knuckles and leaned against the shovel. “Girl meets rodeo, girl falls in love?”
There was that cute as hell smile that made her cheeks dimple and a blush spread across her face before she moved to hide it. He loved catching her off guard. The way she scrambled to act all tough made him feel oddly protective, and he enjoyed the fact that he could push her off her cocky pedestal without being an asshole about it.
“You want my resume now?” She laughed, then threw a handful of hay in his direction as he dodged it, covering his head.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Duchess,” he warned, unable to conceal the burst of playful possessiveness that had risen to the surface. When was the last time he’d felt that?Six years ago before … don’t fuckin’ go there.
Maggie’s small tongue flicked out, taunting him.
Damn, she’s sexy.He couldn’t very well let that score go unsettled, now could he?
Before he knew exactly what he was doing, Flux let the shovel fall to the ground and was suddenly less than a step away from scooping her luscious body up in his arms. He remembered the feel of her beneath his palms when they were dancing. Maggie’s curves had molded to him in the best way possible as they swayed together. Flux didn’t hesitate as he grabbed her around the waist and fused their bodies together.
She gasped and her eyes grew wide.
“I warned you, darlin’,” he said before his other hand threaded through her soft blonde locks. “You wanted to make this a game, but I forgot to tell you that I don’t play fair.”
Her lips parted and nothing came out; all her comebacks seemed to be at a standstill. Their flirtation had taken a dangerous turn and he knew, for better or worse, this was a breaking point.
