Free A Little Less Conversation by Rhyannon Byrd

he’d been telling her what a “great” time he’d had, and in the next, she was exploding all over the place like an emotional rocket.
    Oh god . She swallowed hard, struggling to keep herself together, but there was a pain in her heart that hurt like all get out. He’d been ready to leave her at her damn doorstep with a smile and maybe, if she was lucky, a platonic kiss on the cheek, when every other woman got the full, mind-blowing treatment of incredible sex. And there was no way in hell she was settling for less.
    The whole thing hurt so much more than a mere sexual rejection, because she honestly cared for this man. If she hadn’t already believed herself in love with him before tonight, she would now, after having spent the evening with him, laughing and smiling—and of all things…talking. And yet, talking with Mark had been like its own kind of foreplay. Their conversation had been vivid, taking on a life of its own, instead of the self-absorbed drivel that men usually poured out to her. Each word had been like a seduction, the string of sentences like an invisible line drawing them closer together, leading up to the ultimate moment where he’d actually admit that he did want her for more than talk, more than mere conversation.
    But she’d been wrong—blinded by lust or love or who knew what—only to realize now that her initial conclusions had been right all along.
    Maybe it was like a sickness. Even the most virile of men who came into contact with her became sensitive souls looking for nothing more than warm companionship and a great gal to talk to—saving all those savage urges for the women who made them burn. The frustration of it made her want to pound her fists upon that solid, mouthwatering chest, the details of which she could so easily make out beneath the thin cotton covering of his soft T-shirt.
    And damn it, she wasn’t going to stand for it. She wanted to toss him to the ground and show him just how wrong he was about her. If she could only have him for a friend, then by god, she at least wanted one night of knowing what it felt like to be taken . She deserved it! Mark Logan was every bit as fun and entertaining as she’d known he’d be, and she knew she was already in far too deep for emotional safety. When you threw in the heart-tripping sexual attraction, hunger so sharp it cut, it was enough to make her want to lay him out on her bed and ride his bad boy ass until neither one of them could move.
    A single night. Just once. Was that really so much to ask?
    He stared down at her, the dark heat of his gaze sending a shiver through her watery limbs, and took her still half-full beer bottle from her trembling fingers, setting it on the end of the step behind her, along with his own. Then his hands lifted to the sides of her face, long fingers sliding up through her hair until he held her head between the controlling pressure of his palms.
    “What are you doing?” she gasped, as he tilted her head back at an angle that had her looking up into the hard lines of his ruggedly chiseled face, and for the first time ever, she realized how dangerous he could be. Not that she was afraid of him. No, she knew, no matter how angry he might become, that he’d never physically harm her. But there was a danger about him all the same. An electric, sizzling force that rode the powerful lines of his long body, thrumming beneath her fingertips as she pressed her hands to the hard muscles of his broad shoulders.
    “I’m getting ready to give you a taste of my reputation, sweetheart. Isn’t that what you wanted tonight?”
    She swallowed, struggling to sort out the tangled, hazy mess of her thoughts. “What’s wrong with you?”
    “Now why would you think anything’s wrong? I just wasn’t reading your signals right, Mel. If you wanna come, you gotta open up and let a guy know before he gets blinded by those big brown eyes of yours and is afraid of going too far. If you’d told me up-front what you