Free Addicted to Love by Lori Wilde

taking chances, starting over. She was tired, discouraged, and fed up with romance.
    “Your turn,” Brody said.
    “Huh?” She was so wrapped up in thinking about how sexy his forearms looked with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up she hadn’t heard what he said.
    She felt the heat of his gaze on her face and her cheeks heated. She rolled the dice without looking over at him, but her cheeks stayed strangely warm. One thing you could say about being back at the beginning, you couldn’t fall down any more chutes. Not until you ventured out from home base, put your heart on the line all over again.
    But she was done with putting her heart on the line. It hurt too damned much to have your hopes dashed again and again.
    Maisy ended up winning the game. Brody came in second, Deana third, and Rachael a distant fourth. But of course. She’d landed on twice as many chutes as ladders.
    Maisy interlaced her fingers, raised her arms, and walked around the room shaking her clasped hands over her head like a cocky, triumphant prizefighter.
    Deana rolled her eyes. “Sorry for the poor sportsmanlike conduct,” she apologized to Rachael. “When it comes to competition, Maisy takes after her father.”
    “No need to apologize. She’s just passionate about the game,” Rachael said.
    “Let’s play again.” Maisy hopped up and down beside the table.
    “No way,” her mother replied and tickled her under the rib cage. “The competition is too stiff.”
    Maisy giggled.
    “Come on, Muffin.” Deana ruffled her daughter’s hair. “It’s time for bed.”
    “Aw, Mom, can we please play just one more game?” Maisy pleaded.
    “Well,” Brody said and stretched out his long arms. “I’ve had enough ladder climbing for one day.”
    Rachael raised her head.
    He caught her eye and winked. An inside joke. He was sharing an inside joke with her. A clutch of something dangerous hooked somewhere in the general vicinity of her heart.
    Stop it.
    But no matter how much she scolded herself, Rachael couldn’t prevent her gaze from taking him in. Brody Carlton wasn’t a man you could easily ignore. She was so busy staring at him, in fact, she barely noticed when Maisy said good night as Deana led her upstairs for her bedtime rituals.
    Brody was still dressed in his sheriff’s uniform, looking every inch the public servant, except for the turned-up sleeves. He watched her. She could see him sizing her up in that calculating, sheriff-y way of his.
    A shaft of light slanting in from the kitchen threw a shadow over his profile. His hair was the color of maple syrup, his eyes equally as dark. He looked serious, dutiful, manly. On alert, forever on guard.
    Rachael’s heart fluttered and she had to dig her fingernails into her palms to remind herself where she was and how she’d gotten here.
    He consulted his watch. “It’s nine-thirty. You ready for bed?”
    Those words, spoken in his rich, deep, masculine voice, sent perilous mental pictures clicking through her brain. She imagined him leading her upstairs to his bedroom and kissing her with those hot, firm lips as his nimble fingers undressed her. She thought about peeling his shirt over his head, exposing his bare chest, running her fingers along the taut muscular ridges.
    “Who, me?” she squeaked.
    “It’s a little early, I know,” he said. “But I get up at five every morning.”
    “So go on to bed.” She waved a hand. “I’m a night owl.”
    “That’s not going to work. You’re my prisoner.”
    “And that means . . . ”
    “You sleep when I sleep, wake up when I wake up.”
    “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
    “Not at all.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yep.” He gave her a look that sent all the blood rushing to her pelvis.
    “Where will I be sleeping?”
    “In my bed.”
    “What?” The word flew out of Rachael’s mouth in a breathless gasp.
    “Don’t look so panic-stricken.” An amused smile curled his lips. He was enjoying teasing her. “I’ll be sleeping on