Free Primal Instinct by Tara Wyatt

mouth—a mouth that she knew could make her moan, could make her wet, could make her ache with need—and exhaled loudly. “Why are you being like this? I thought we…”
    “We what?” She blinked at him. “It was one night, Colt. That’s all.” She paused for a second. “Did you take this job thinking you’d get another chance to…” She swallowed, struggling to maintain focus with all of the tiny, fleeting thoughts flickering through her brain, each one bouncing up against the other, but nothing joining together to make a cohesive picture.
    He closed his eyes for a second. “Of course not. I’m here to help you.”
    She didn’t say anything, unable to make her mouth work, and just kept fiddling with the tuner keys, needing something to do with her hands, otherwise she’d grab him and kiss him, and completely ruin the progress she’d already made at shoving some distance between them.
    He sat back on the couch, and she tried not to pay attention to the way his forearms flexed when he crossed his arms, or to the way his low voice sent dangerous ripples of lust chasing one another over her skin. Tried to ignore the way his face attracted her eyes like a magnet. She’d only seen him in dim light the night before, and she hadn’t noticed the faint dusting of freckles across his nose. Paired with the slight scruff highlighting his perfectly formed jaw, he looked rugged and sexy, with the tiniest hint of pretty. With his wide shoulders, strong arms and sturdy frame (not to mention the black eye and the tattoo), he didn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with.
    He was strong, and sturdy, and completely off-limits.
    *  *  *
    “Taylor,” Colt started again, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He’d known just showing up was a risk, but he hadn’t expected her to react like this. She didn’t look at him when he said her name, just propped the guitar on her knee and started playing easy, slow scales, gradually speeding up. She didn’t watch her hands as she plucked gracefully at the strings.
    “Hey, hand me that capo.”
    “What?” He frowned. Those were not the words he’d been expecting to come out of that pretty mouth.
    “That black thing on the table. Toss it.”
    Doing as he was told, he picked up the small black clamp and lobbed it to her. She caught it easily in one hand. He watched with a mixture of curiosity and lust as she shoved her guitar pick between her lips and began fastening the capo over the guitar’s neck, securing it behind the second fret. She swung the guitar back down over her knee and began strumming the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water.” Strumming her gleaming acoustic guitar and ignoring him. Trying and almost succeeding at looking as though seeing him meant nothing to her. Her eyes darted up and caught his, and there was a guardedness that hadn’t been there the night before.
    The certainty that someone had hurt her—badly—settled over him like a blanket. He studied her intently. He could see the tension coiled her shoulders, the stiff tilt of her neck.
    She chewed on her lip as she strummed, and he clenched his jaw at the intense urge to trace his tongue over the indents left by her teeth, to soothe the bite before maybe replacing those marks with some of his own. He stirred in his jeans at the thought and clenched his jaw even harder, his back molars squeaking under the pressure.
    For whatever reason, she was throwing up walls around herself, trying to keep him out. And if that was what she wanted to do—what she needed to do, for whatever reason—he’d let her. But he also wasn’t going anywhere. He knew, without a doubt, that he’d done the right thing taking this job. He’d been carrying around an uneasiness since he’d woken up alone, her side of the bed cold, and it had only lifted when he’d set eyes on her again. So she could keep him out, but meanwhile, he’d keep her safe.
    Long moments went by and she just kept strumming.