Free One Night with a Cowboy (Paint River Ranch) (Entangled Indulgence) by Elizabeth Otto Page B

shoulder. She followed a side-by-side capital P with an upside down, backward R. The brand covered half the length of his shoulder blade. Tucker flinched at the ministration of her finger over the markings.
    “The Paint River Ranch brand.”
    Unable to help it, Sophie traced the markings again. The skin had healed in a perfect ridge to create a clear, white design over his golden skin. “This had to hurt like hell.” Before she finished tracing the R, he pulled away. He didn’t respond, snapped the T-shirt and slipped it back on, much to her disappointment.
    His eyes swept over her quickly, and then went back for a slower round. Her belly quivered when his gaze paused at her lips. Then, with a quick nod of his head, he turned to the door. She walked him out, flutters swarming in her belly when he stepped onto the porch. He was walking out as easily as he’d walked in. Something told her Tucker had had plenty of practice with that.
    “Ah, thanks for…getting the squirrel.”
    His left hand clenched and relaxed, clenched again before he shoved it under the waist-band of his chaps. “You bet.”
    “Will I see you again before I leave?” The words raced out. Her cheeks went hot. This was not going the way she’d thought it out in her head. Smooth wood met her palm as she gripped the porch railing. Seeing him again would accomplish what, exactly? Sure, she’d been lacking in the male-company department for a while, which is probably why Tucker was so delicious. Compared to the double helping of nothing she’d had in her bed in the past months, he was pure divinity. That wasn’t exactly true. He would have been Mr. Perfect even if she weren’t in a dry spell, because it was pretty likely there wasn’t another man out there who could rival him in the hot department.
    Tucker pulled the toothpick from his mouth and tilted his head just right, so that were she to step into him and reach up, she could meet his lips perfectly. The little twitch of muscle in his cheek said he knew it, too.
    “Do you want to, Fifi?”
    Yes. No. What was the point in denying it? As soon as he went away, and she found herself, alone, in the tiny cabin, it would become painfully obvious how much she wanted to see him again. The quiet, the alone time…all that room to think, and ponder, and regret. She crossed her arms. Okay, fine. One more time couldn’t hurt. “Only if you promise not to make me eat squirrel.”
    His face went impassive while he sucked in his lower lip and looked up at the sky with a frown. Sophie followed suit. It was barely late morning, and clouds had begun to move in. The warm, damp breeze hinted at rain. Maybe she’d been wrong to agree. As his shoulders stiffened a bit, and his jaw worked, Sophie figured he had other things to do—things that didn’t include making the time to see her again.
    She tried to wave it off before this turned embarrassing. “Really, though, no big deal if we don’t…”
    His eyes snapped to hers, the smile back. “Go grab a sweater.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you get to see me again right now.”
    …
    He was trying not to be an antsy jerk, but truth was he almost couldn’t help it. That nagging feeling was back in full force, to the effect that Tucker reached for his cell phone to call Jaxon, and realized he’d left it in the house. There was no sense in what he was doing right now, that’s for sure. Rain was coming and he had work to do. He was obviously missing something that would probably come back to bite him in the ass later, too. Yet, as Sophie’s scent wrapped around him in the humid confines of his truck, Tucker couldn’t bring himself to fully care about anything that lay outside the cab.
    It was all he could do not to reach out and pull the band from her hair, let it tumble down completely from the messy ponytail it was currently in. He’d wanted to take Sophie somewhere private—it had been a whim, but he was used to doing what he pleased, when he wanted to do it.