by Lori Foster
She swallowed hard, tossing her head back, ignoring the lingering tingle in her lips. “Bastard. You have a bed with a down pillowtop and you would be put me on that abomination?”
He took another step toward her, his dark eyes clashing with hers, sending a little zing of heat through her. It was all that deferred pleasure business. This level of not-being-able-to-ignore-Jace’s-hotness wasn’t normal.
“If you let your dog lick my dish...” His tone was so menacing, his gaze so intense, and the tension in her chest was so tight...she snickered.
“That sounds like the world’s sickest euphemism.”
His lips twitched, as if he was trying very, very hard to hold back a smile. Or evidence of amusement of any kind over her shenanigans.
“Samantha, do not let your dog lick the bowl. And I’ll let you do the dishes.”
“Hollow victory, but I’ll take it.” She lifted the bowl back up out of Poppy range and turned to the sink. “You can do the breakfast dishes.”
“Great. I’m going to go take a shower. Pick whichever room you want, but the dog cannot sleep on a bed.”
“Fine. Fine. Good night, Jace the Grumpy Cowboy.”
“Good night, Sam.”
He turned and walked out of the room and she just kept washing dishes. She didn’t even look at his ass.
Normal. Everything was back to normal. The kiss had inspired a bit of temporary insanity, but it was over now.
Totally over.
The next month was going to be just fine.
Chapter Three
Samantha cranked up the radio and ladled some more pancake batter onto the griddle, singing an octave above Blake Shelton as she got in touch with her hillbilly bone. Poppy barked along in no particular key.
Jace’s kitchen was so big she actually had to take steps to the fridge to get more milk for her batter. In her old apartment she’d just kind of stretched to get everything. This was heaven.
When her bakery started getting featured on the Travel Channel and Food Network, ’cuz hell, yeah, it would, then she’d get rich and famous and buy a house with a huge kitchen. Testing recipes would be way more fun in here.
She started to do a little dance, using the batter-covered ladle as a microphone and giving an on cue “Yeehaw” as the song commanded.
“Samantha, what the f—”
Then she flung her arms wide, a motion started because of the music and made bigger by the very stern sound of Jace’s voice, and came up against something solid, the pancake batter making a wet splat as it came into contact with its target.
She turned, her eyes wide and level with Jace’s throat. And the spray of raw batter that started between his pecs and spread out like a gooey star.
She snorted a laugh and quickly took a step back, clapping her hands, one of which was still holding the ladle, over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said through her fingers.
Little clumps of uncooked pancake tangled in his dark chest hair, which got her noticing the chest hair. Which got her following the thin line of it that ran down the center of his abs and to his very low jeans and...oh, my.
She looked back up into very dark, very angry eyes.
“Good morning,” she said, her smile wide. “I made breakfast. Dammit!” She turned and scurried back to the griddle and flipped the pancakes. They were only a little dark. Some syrup and whipped cream would cover that right up. “It’s okay. The pancakes are fine.”
“What the hell are you doing, Sam?”
“Cooking. For you, silly. Before you go out riding the range.”
“I’m castrating calves today.”
“Well...you know. Before you go cut off animal balls. I hear that really works up a sweat. Also, these are kind of a theme breakfast. They’re round like... Yeah, well, that’s not appetizing.”
Jace pulled a hand towel off the oven door handle and wiped it over his bare chest. She cocked her head to the side and watched intently, unable to help herself. It was like some kind of weird breakfast porn. And it was kind of fascinating.
Jace walked over to the radio and turned it off.
“Country music hour is sacred in the morning,” she said.
“My sanity is sacred all the time. And I reserve the right to not be assaulted by breakfast.”
“Who hasn’t had a slight pancake mishap?”
He looked down at his chest. “Everyone?”
“Eh.” She waved her hand. “Charming foibles aside, I’ve made you breakfast.”
“Your foibles are possibly less charming than you think.”
She shook her head. “Nah. I’m quirky. It’s adorable.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Breakfast!”
She used the spatula to put a stack of four pancakes on a plate. Then she added syrup, chocolate chips, whipped cream and a cherry. And held it out to him. “Be mad at me while you eat this,” she said.
“It’s impossible,” he said, sounding defeated as he took the plate and sat down at the small kitchen table, his bad mood lightening even more when he noticed the cup of coffee already in position for him.
“I know.” She smiled and put a pancake onto a plate for herself, sticking to chocolate chips and whipped cream, and sat across from him.
He took a bite and moaned, a deep, guttural sound that echoed in her stomach and made her feel all strange and jittery.
“Good?” she asked.
“So good.”
First the pancake batter show, now he was making sex noises while he ate. The man was a damned hazard to her health.
No, this wasn’t the first time she’d been inappropriately aroused by Jace. There was...well, all of high school. But he’d dated other girls, and she’d dated other boys. And then there were a few months of melancholy longing sprinkled throughout the next twelve years. But nothing she couldn’t deal with. Nothing she couldn’t ignore.
Like a few weeks ago when they’d watched that movie and he’d put the popcorn bowl in his lap. It had forced her mind to what was beneath the bowl. To whether or not he felt her reaching in the bowl. To what he might think of that.
But then she hadn’t seen him for a couple of days due to work obligations, and she’d gotten her head on straight.
It was just that there had been two incidents in the space of a few hours and since she was living with him for the time being, there had been no blessed distance to make sure she could get her brain back in order.
The Jace lust had to end. It was just bad. Bad bad bad. If they were going to live together for the next four weeks she had to somehow manage it without drooling like Poppy.
“I’ve got to head out,” she said, standing and stretching. “I need to get everything going at the bakery. Thank God I just make cupcakes and pies and not breads, or I’d have to be there at 3:00 a.m. Still, the meringue will not whip itself.” She wiggled her eyebrows and reached down to the floor by her chair to retrieve her purse.
“What are you doing with your mongrel?” he asked.
“My purebred—” she bent and smooched Poppy on the lips “—stays home. I run a bakery. Unsanitary.”
“You just made pancakes with it right there.”
“She’s not unsanitary to me. She’s unsanitary per regulations laid out by the state of Oregon. I think she’s a peach. But then, I don’t really want hair wafting onto the cupcakes, either.”
“What am I supposed to do with her?”
“I’ll take her out now and she can stay inside until I close up shop. That’s what I normally do.”
“You want her to stay in the house?”
“She can’t stay in the van. It’s cold. Sometimes I leave her outside, but not all day in the snow.”
“She’s a Newfoundland, Sam. Aren’t
they...waterproof like ducks?”
“Poppy is an inside doggy,” she said.
“You’re overindulging.”
“Ah, Jace, you overindulge in bleach and I love you, anyway.”
“Bleach, unlike your dog, leaves things cleaner than before it blew through the kitchen.”
“I was the one splattering pancake batter, not Poppy.”
“Then maybe I should keep her and throw her owner in a snowbank.”
“You wouldn’t. I’m too cute.”
Jace felt all the electricity that had flowed through his veins when she’d hit him in the chest with pancake batter now run toward his heart and encircle it, giving it a hard jolt. Dammit, she was too cute.
She was too cute to send to a mouse-infested storage unit. Too cute to throw into a snowbank. Too cute to have underfoot twenty-four hours a day because she was also just about too cute not to pull into his arms and kiss until neither of them could breathe.
Which meant it was time to go out and throw himself in a snowbank and then get his ass to work.
“Do whatever you want with Poppy. I have calves to de-ball.”
She arched her brows. “As you do.”
He gave her a halfhearted wave and walked toward the front door. He grabbed his gloves from their place on the shelf that was just to the right of the door and the keys that were hanging on the hook below.
A place for everything, everything in its place. A simple fantasy he’d had in his childhood, one that had been unattainable.
Now he had it. And it really did make everything run smoother. He could get everything he needed for the day together in a matter of minutes. Muscle memory. Everything was right in reach, just where it was supposed to be.
No waste. No valuable moments spent searching for a tool that wasn’t where it belonged. He didn’t really care if Sam thought he was crazy. He was efficient. Crazy and efficient, but what the hell? He had control. He was the master of his domain.
He paused for a moment and put his hand on his hips, letting out a long breath that lingered in the air like fog before dispersing. He looked at the fields, covered in snow, to the mountains beyond them. The barns. The equipment sheds. It was all his, and it was all how he liked it.
Yeah, life was pretty damn good. And in a few weeks, Sam would be on the path to homeownership and out of his house. And things could get back to the way they were supposed to be.
With mild lust flare-ups that happened every now and then. But nothing like this seam-busting, perma-erection he was dealing with now.
He shook his head and kept walking. Spending the day removing the testicles from animals should serve as a decent libido crusher.
He’d never looked forward to the job so much.
* * *
“Holy shit.”
Jace walked through the front door of his house and was greeted by the muggy, unpleasant scent of dog. Wet dog.
And then his eyes went to the floor and followed the little trail of cotton fluff balls that ran from the kitchen, across the entryway and into the living room, to the fireplace.
He half expected to see a big black beast at the end of the trail. But he didn’t.
Because the big black beast was on his couch. With the remains of the throw pillow that had been viciously attacked hanging from its jaws.
And its face was wet. It added to the gore of the scene. And judging by the puddles that led from the hall bathroom to the couch, the wet had come from the toilet.
“Hi, Jace! I brought cupcakes.”
He whirled around. “Why is your dog on my couch? Why did it drink out of the toilet? And why in hell did it chew up my pillow?”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said, angry now, unreasonably so, maybe. No, not unreasonable. She’d come storming in yesterday and given him a fait accompli and now she was getting pancake on him and getting his cock hard and her dog was breaking his house.
“She never does stuff like that.”
She crossed to where he was standing and her mouth dropped open.
“See?” he asked. “She did that. She did. She killed that throw pillow and she didn’t even have the decency to consume the body. A pleasure killing.”
“She never does things like that!” she said again, running over to the side of the couch and kneeling down in front of Poppy. “Bad dog! Bad, bad dog.”
She sounded as if she was cooing at a newborn baby. Not like she was scolding a two-hundred-pound animal.
“You don’t sound like you mean it.”
“I’m in shock,” Sam said, pushing into a standing position. “She doesn’t chew things at home. She must have been confused about the boundaries here.”
“Confused about the... She’s a dog!”
Sam crossed her arms beneath her breasts, the motion tugging her shirt tight across them. He imagined her expression was fierce, but he was having a hard time motivating himself to raise his focus and confirm it. Angry eyes...perfect breasts. Frowning mouth...boobs.
There was no contest.
But at some point, he had to acknowledge that he’d passed from normal, expected male study of the female form to slobbering douche bag, so he had to no choice but to look up. Yeah, she was mad.
“Where do you get off being mad? Your dog chewed up my—”
“Ten dollar throw pillow.”
“The money isn’t the point. It’s mine. And I like things where I left them and not desecrated by the hound of the Baskervilles.”
“It won’t happen again, Jace. Come on,” she said to Poppy, genuinely stern now. “Outside.”
She walked out with the dog and returned a few moments later without her. “She’s thinking about what she did.”
“No she’s not. She’s thinking about when she can kill again.”
“Jace, I’m sorry. She really doesn’t normally chew. She does drink out of the toilet—I can’t lie. But she doesn’t have opposable thumbs, so we’ll just make sure the bathroom door is closed and she’ll go for her water bowl.”
“She can’t stay in the house, Sam. Not while you’re gone. I can’t have her in here. It would drive me crazy.”
“Jace, what am I supposed to do with her?”
“She can hang out with me. That way I can keep an eye on her. She’s never made a move toward any of the animals on the ranch before, so I’m assuming she’ll stick close, right?”
“Well, yeah, but you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her, not any more than I hate the idea of any dog in my house and on my furniture. We’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t try to crawl in my lap like an overgrown puppy.”
“She’ll be a mess if she follows you around all day.”
“I’ll hose her off inside where I take care of the horses. She won’t get cold. I don’t mind mud out there. I mind it on my floor. There’s a difference.”
“Okay, thanks. I’m sorry we’re being high-maintenance guests. That wasn’t my intention.”
He let out a long breath. “I know, Sam. We’ll be fine. We just have to establish a routine.”
“Well, in keeping with that theme, I brought more dessert.”
“I like that routine.”
Samantha felt a little glow at the center of her chest. She had no idea why Poppy had decided to go postal on the pillow, and she really did feel bad, in spite of the fact that protectiveness for Poppy made her a little prickly. So the idea that something about her was welcome in Jace’s eyes was...nice.
“I’ll bring out a tray of cupcakes. You sit down. We’ll watch a movie. Your pick.”
He muttered something about cupcakes being preferable to popcorn. “Sure, Sam.”
“And Poppy can come sit by the fire. It’ll make a nice domestic picture.”
“Nothing with that much fur features into my version of a nice, domestic picture.”
For some reason, his words made the glow vanish. Leaving her cold and a little sick. “Oh. Well, what does feature in your nice domestic picture?”
He shrugged. “Me by myself, I guess. Or with you over for a movie.”
But living by himself. Not with a wife. Why did that bother her? She shouldn’t care. If Jace had a wife she’d never get to see him. She’d long dreaded that day, really. The day when another woman became more important to him than she was.
But it hadn’t come yet. And she was pretty thrilled about it.
Still, the idea that he was happiest alone...she didn’t like that, either. “Well, you pick the movie.”
“Die Hard.”
“Ugh. Fine. I’ll get the cupcakes.”
“And a beer.”
“Cupcakes and beer?” She made a face. “Instead of dinner?”
“It’s my house. My rules. Beer. Die Hard.”
“Cupcakes. Manly.”
“Put a piece of bacon on them and man them up.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“Great. You go get that stuff and I’m going to...” He looked at the couch, then at the fuzz on the floor.
“You’re going to clean up.”
“I know how to party on Friday night.”
“You surely do show a lady a wild time.” Their eyes met and she felt a tug that went down deep, from her heart to her stomach. “I’ll just... Cupcakes. And maybe I’ll fry bacon for a side.”
She turned and went into the kitchen. Where she could get a momentary reprieve from Jace’s scent, his hot body and the looks that made her feel as if she was being turned inside out.
Chapter Four
Saturdays were always slammed at the bakery. When Samantha got back to Jace’s that evening she was carrying a box of unfrosted sugar cookies and a tube of red icing, and she was ready to fall over.
“You’re late tonight,” Jace said when she walked through the door.
“Tidings of comfort and joy!” she said, holding out the cookies.