by Elle James
Maybe not. But he might hurt her. The thought flitted through her mind. Her pulse raced and her breathing became ragged, as if she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
He was so close!
Oh, she’d been close to men before. Hell, she’d had to carry a two-hundred-pound soldier over her shoulder up a hill during a training exercise and in combat when she’d had to carry one of her team to the rear, after he’d been hit by explosives.
But this situation was different.
They were both conscious, and Viper didn’t smell of sweat and gunpowder. He smelled of fresh dirt and the outdoors, and he was still dirty from having rescued the bride and groom from near death.
Why was she hesitating? They had a job to do, and if learning to waltz would make it more believable, by God, she’d do it.
Dallas placed her foot on one of his and looked down to position her prosthetic on the other. “Don’t let me hurt you,” she said.
“Relax. I can handle it.” He smiled down at her. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
And he stepped out. “1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.”
At first, Dallas remained stiff in his arms, her back ramrod straight, her knees rigid.
“It’s okay to bend your legs, you know,” he whispered against her ear. “1-2-3, 1-2-3.”
Soon, she was on her own feet matching his rhythm with similar movements, albeit awkward and clumsy. “I take it your mother taught you to dance, too?”
“No, actually, my wife taught me to waltz for our wedding.” His jaw hardened, and he quit counting for a couple seconds.
“Your wife must have been a special woman.”
“She was,” he replied, his words clipped.
Dallas hadn’t grown up with a loving mother. Sometimes she’d wished she had. Viper might as well know about her dysfunctional family. “My father raised me, after my mother ran off with the used car salesman.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“Not really. I had a great relationship with my father. My mother wasn’t good with children. My father taught me a lot of things, but dancing was not one of them.”
“What kinds of things, besides hunting and running?” he asked without breaking their dancing pace.
“How to cook a mean pot of chili, and how to change the oil on my truck.”
“And who taught you how to kiss?” Viper brought her to a halt.
The air disappeared out of her lungs, and Dallas nearly fell over her good foot. If not for the strength of Viper’s arms, she would have crashed to the floor. “Kiss?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
Chapter 4
Why in hell had Viper taken Dallas into his arms? Being so close to the woman brought back feelings he’d thought long forgotten.
Though Dallas was taller, bolder and less girly than Emily, she had curves in all the right places, and she was warm and smelled like sunshine and spring flowers.
He almost laughed. If he said anything like what he was thinking, Dallas would knock him on his ass and wipe the floor with him.
But to ask her who taught her to kiss? He’d taken his life into his own hands. The woman didn’t suffer fools.
“Kiss?” she said, her voice like an angel’s whisper, not the usual clipped words. Then she stumbled, requiring him to tighten his hold to keep her from falling.
His arm brushed against the side of one breast, the connection making him instantly hard. Viper told himself he wasn’t interested in the former Ranger. If anything, he should be afraid of pissing her off.
But he found a twisted sense of satisfaction in pushing her buttons and making her think more like a girl than a soldier. “That’s right. In order to convince others we’re a couple, kissing will take place.”
Her tongue darted out from between her teeth and swept across her lips.
Viper’s groin tightened and his hands around her did, as well. “Should we practice?”
Dallas’s eyes widened, and she shoved herself away. “No.” She rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans. “We…we can cross that bridge when it comes.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “Besides, if we’re tracing the paths of the brides and grooms, you might want to get a shower first. You don’t want to show up at the courthouse looking like you do.”
He glanced down at his clothing still caked in the mud he’d collected on his slide down the hill to the crashed limousine. “You’re right. I’ll head to Hank’s place for my gear, and be back within an hour. I suppose since we’ll be working together, we need to stay close. We can stay here, or you can come to Hank’s place. I’m sure Hank and Sadie wouldn’t mind finding a room for you there.”
Dallas frowned. “We’re not fake married yet. Why can’t our living arrangements stay the way they are?”
“They could, but if we’re setting up ourselves as bait, I’d rather be close. We never know when we need one another to cover the other’s ass.”
Dallas’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and then she sighed. “You’re probably right. Since Hank’s place is too locked down with security, we should probably stay here.” She glanced out the window. “Which begs another question. Will we put others in the line of fire by being here? Some of the guests aren’t as mobile as others.”
“You’re right. How about we stay here the first few nights and then check with Hank’s sister and see if they can put us up at her ranch until the wedding? We can get really familiar with the lay of the ranch and any potential areas of concern.”
Dallas’s lips pressed together, but she nodded. “Just to be clear, we’re only pretending to be a couple. It’s all for show. We will not go past first base as a fake couple.”
Viper held up a hand like he was swearing in court. “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
“Trust me, I won’t want you to.” She lifted her chin.
“To make myself perfectly clear, you’ll have to ask me if you want more than the requisite kisses a man will give his fiancée and bride in public.”
“I don’t know why, but I’m not all that sure I trust you.”
“I was a Boy Scout,” Viper said.
Dallas snorted. “I’ve met a lot of Boy Scouts I couldn’t trust any farther than I could throw them.”
Viper laughed out loud. “I bet you threw them pretty far.”
“I did.” Dallas’s lips twitched. “And they weren’t too happy about being bested by a woman.”
“Again, you’d have to ask for me to make love to you, sweetheart. I don’t relish picking myself up off the floor all bruised and battered.”
“Good.” She lifted her chin a little higher. “Just keep that in mind. I don’t give second chances.”
He popped a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am. I worked for a living.”
“Yes, sir.” Again, he popped a salute.
“Good grief.” Dallas shook her head. “Get out of here. I have work to do before we leave for town.”
“I’ll be back as soon as possible. Don’t go anywhere without me. Once that announcement hits the newspaper, we’re officially an engaged couple planning a quickie wedding.”
Dallas nodded. “I’ll remember. The question is, will you?”
His brow dipped. “What do you mean?”
“No flirting with pretty waitresses or getting phone numbers from the women you meet.”
He touched a hand to his chest and gave her an innocent look. “You think I flirt with random women and ask for their phone numbers?”
“A man like you can’t help but attract the attention of the opposite sex.”
His chest warmed. “You think I’m sexy.” Viper grinned. “Well, that’s a good start.”
Her cheeks blossomed with pink. “I didn’t say you were sexy. Merely that you would attract some women.”
He raised his brows, enjoying her discomfort. Perhaps too much. “But not you?”
“Of course not. You’re not my ty
pe,” she answered far too quickly, the pink in her cheeks darkening to red.
“Oh.” He tapped his chin. “You have a type, do you?” Viper tilted his head, knowing he shouldn’t poke at her, but he couldn’t resist. “And what type is that?”
“I like more cerebral men.”
He fought back a laugh. “Cerebral. You mean men who are more brain than brawn?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, so you like men who can’t fight back, physically.”
A frown pulled her brows together. “No. That’s not what I meant. I like men who can hold their own in a conversation.”
“And I can’t because I’m sexy.” He didn’t proffer his words as a question, but as more of a statement, fighting back the laughter bubbling up in his chest.
“No. I didn’t say that.” She glared. “You’re putting words in my mouth.
“Darlin’, I don’t have to put words in your mouth, you’re doing a pretty good job of it all by yourself.” He caught her arms and pulled her close. “Since I’m not smart enough to be your type, I think we need some practice to fool the cerebral men out there into thinking we’re together. Come here and lay it on this non-cerebral man.” He bent and captured her mouth with his in a kiss designed to blow her socks off.
Oh, he knew how to kiss. He’d dated his share of women before marrying Emily. Not one of them had complained about his kisses. In fact, they’d all come back for more.
He dragged her against his body, with one hand low on her back, and the other buried in her hair. At first, he crushed her lips with his, then he traced his tongue across the seam of her lips.
When she opened her mouth on a gasp, he thrust past her teeth and claimed her tongue with his in a long, slow caress.
Dallas pressed her hands to his chest, her body stiff. When he deepened the kiss, he could feel the change.
The starch melted out of her arms and back. The fingers pressed to his chest curled into his shirt, urging him closer instead of pushing him away.
What had started as a kind of punishment for insinuating he wasn’t all that smart played back against him. Viper wanted to show her she was not immune to his charms and then leave her wanting more. Only, he couldn’t seem to let go.
The more he kissed her, the more he wanted to keep doing it. Until finally, he had to let go long enough to suck air back into his lungs.
Damn. What had he just done? No woman had made him want more than a handshake since Emily.
Until one female Ranger, who’d more or less told him he was too pretty to be smart and not her type at all.
* * *
Dallas leaned her forehead against Viper’s chest, remembering how to breathe. Not only had the man kissed her…he’d kissed her into a daze. She’d forgotten to push him away, forgotten where she was, her mission and hell, what day of the week she’d woken up in.
Despite her insistence on keeping their partnership purely professional, she had all kinds of unprofessional thoughts and images racing through her head. Each one had something to do with getting naked with the man and making mad, passionate love. Not that she’d made mad, passionate love to any man ever in her life. Made love, yes, but it hadn’t been all that memorable.
She couldn’t let that happen. They had a job to do and needed all their focus on solving the mystery of who was sabotaging local weddings.
Dallas straightened her fingers against his chest and pushed back. Adopting an air of nonchalance, she smoothed a hand over her hair and said, “Well, I think those moves should convince our Tango of our fake-commitment to each other.” She laid extra emphasis on the word fake. She could never admit to him that the kiss had rocked her world. No man should have that kind of effect on her. Ever.
But Viper had.
Holy hell.
He pushed a hand through his hair and released his hold, dropping his hands to his sides. “I’m not so sure. I think we need more practice.”
With a hand held out in front of her, Dallas put the kibosh on him taking her into his arms again. Another kiss would be a very bad idea at that moment. “You need a shower. I need to do chores, and we have a trail to lay for our perpetrator. The sooner we get to it, the sooner we can find our guy and stop the wedding day terror.” She pointed to the door. “Go.”
Viper chuckled.
The warm, deep sound of his mirth filled every pore in Dallas’s skin, spreading heat throughout her body.
How did he do that?
No man had made her quite as aware of her femininity as Viper had in just a single kiss. Hell, no man had kissed her like Viper had. Yeah, she’d been kissed once or twice. Okay, maybe once. But the guy who’d stolen that kiss had suffered a broken nose for his audacity. Not another man had dared try again.
Going through Ranger training, she’d shaved her head like the men and worked hard to become one of the guys. None of her battle buddies dared make a move on her. Deployed and in a wartime situation, she’d been shunned by her team. Even more so after each battle in which they’d engaged had ended badly. They blamed her, saying she’d jinxed them. She didn’t believe in luck, good or bad, superstition or jinxing.
All her life, she’d worked hard to establish herself as one of the guys, only to discover she wasn’t and never would be. But after every operation went south, she wondered if the men had been right.
“I’m going,” Viper said. “But I’ll be back in less than two hours. Be ready to hit the ground running.”
“I’ll be ready,” she said.
“Oh, and wear something pretty. A bride should want to look good for her man when they go to apply for their marriage license.”
Dallas frowned and swept a hand down her length. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“It’s okay for mucking stalls and feeding the livestock, but not for our undercover operation.” He winked. “Do you have a dress you can wear?”
“Hell, no. I’ve never owned a dress a day in my life.”
His lips twisted into a wry grin. “Guess we’ll be going shopping sooner than I thought.”
“The hell we will,” Dallas said. “I’m not changing who I am.”
“You want this operation to be a success, don’t you?” Viper’s gaze captured hers. “I don’t know how you approach a new job, but this assignment is my first for Brotherhood Protectors. I figure I’m here on a trial basis. If I screw up this one, Hank Patterson will have every right to fire my ass.” His eyes narrowed. “How much do you want to keep this job you’ve just been handed?”
Dallas pressed her lips together and forced herself to meet his gaze. After a long moment, she dropped hers and nodded. “I don’t know who else would hire someone like me. I’d like to keep this job, if at all possible.”
“Same here.”
She jerked up her head. “What do you have to be afraid of? You’re an able-bodied man, fully capable of doing anything.”
“Probably the same thing you’re afraid of.”
“You’re afraid you’ll be rejected or won’t be able to perform because you have a prosthetic leg?”
“Not the leg part, but the fear of rejection and inability to perform are two of my concerns. I’m not quite sure what a retired spec-ops guy can do to find a wedding saboteur. But I’m giving it my all to make sure I capture his ass to prove to myself I can do what it takes to ensure I keep this job. Where else will I get to use my Army training in the civilian world?”
“You could hire on with a police or sheriff’s department,” Dallas suggested. “Whereas, I couldn’t. No law enforcement agency will hire a one-legged female, except to sit behind a desk. Which isn’t my style.”
His brow furrowed. “You don’t know that.”
She snorted. “Oh, yes, I do. I’ve applied to more than one. Turned down at all, based on physical requirements. Even though I can probably outrun and outperform any recruit they might have.”
Viper’s lips quirked upward. “I don’t doubt that in the least. But I, for one, am glad th
ey turned you down.”
She frowned. “Why?”
A grin spread across his face. “At least, I have a pretty partner for this undercover operation.”
Her back stiffened. She had to remind herself where she was. Had she been on active duty, in her spec-ops unit, she would have taken offense at his statement. She hadn’t done everything in her power to be “one of the guys” for them to tell her she was pretty. But in her current assignment, being female came with a different set of requirements. “Thanks,” she said, albeit grudgingly and followed him out onto the porch.
“See ya in a few.” Viper climbed into the gray truck and drove out of the yard.
Dallas’s gaze followed him until he rounded a bend in the long driveway, disappearing out of sight.
“What was that all about?” Gavin joined her.
Dallas laughed. “I just got engaged.”
* * *
As Viper drove to Hank and Sadie’s place to collect his duffel bag, his thoughts went back to the woman who would be his partner for the assignment.
Dallas was long, lean and built like a brick house—sturdy and solid, with toned lines and a badass attitude. What impressed him most was the fact she didn’t have a clue how attractive she was.
Oh, not in the usual, supermodel-perfect way, but in a striking, knock-a-guy-on-his-butt kind of way.
When he arrived at the beautiful, sprawling ranch house, Hank met him on the porch. “You’re back so soon?”
“I think it best if I stay at the Brighter Days Ranch with Dallas. The relocation makes more sense, since we’re supposed to be an engaged couple.”
Hank opened the front door. “What do you think of Hayes?”
An image of Dallas flashed in Viper’s mind. “I think she will work fine for this assignment.”
“Good.” Hank clapped his hands together. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“Nothing. I just want to grab my go bag and get started.”
Sadie stood by the door, baby Emma perched on her hip. “Vince, I’m glad you’re here. Let me know when I need to organize the wedding dress shopping trip. I can be ready at a moment’s notice.”