Free Tangled Up in Love by Heidi Betts

enough to make his mouth water. Her long, wavy brown hair falling down around her shoulders, a few stray curls framing those amazing breasts with their tight raspberry nipples, and drawing his gaze to her flat stomach, then lower . . .
    He swallowed hard, his nostrils flaring and visiongoing fuzzy at the edges. As if the snugness at his crotch wasn’t bad enough, now his diaphragm was growing tight, his palms turning damp, and his heart beginning to pulse beneath his rib cage.
    He needed a drink, a cold shower, to put about a hundred miles between him and Ronnie’s hot, luscious body. Those pajamas, with their funny-looking dogs on them, might have been more-than-adequate covering when he’d first arrived, but now the only thing he could think about was ripping them off to see if the reality of her naked body was as good as his imagination painted it to be.
    Oblivious to his inner turmoil or how close he was to spontaneously combusting, Ronnie remained pressed close to him, counting the number of stitches already lined up on one of the needles. She wiggled a bit more, ratcheting his temperature up another ten or twenty degrees, before covering his hands with her own.
    She was practically in his lap . . . crap, crap, crap . . . ready to show him the next part of the knitting process. Only he couldn’t follow her instructions because every time he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his raging libido, all he smelled was Ronnie.
    She smelled fresh and clean from her shower, with a hint of sharp, sweet citrus, probably from whatever soap or shampoo she’d used.
    His fingers clenched around the needles, so tight, he was surprised they didn’t snap. He wanted to inhale her. Wanted to turn his head just a few degrees and lick the column of her throat like a cat licking cream.
    Admit it, Stone, you want to do a hell of a lot more than that.
    Yeah, he did. Way more.
    Slow things. Fast things. Hot, slurpy, sexy things.
    “Are you watching?”
    Blinking, Dylan raised his head to find Ronnie frowning at him. He shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position for his trapped, straining boner, and hoping she didn’t notice his predicament.
    “Yeah, I’m watching.” Watching, fantasizing, salivating.
    “Oh, really?”
    One of her dark, perfectly sculpted brows arched higher than the other, making him feel like a grade school student being singled out by the teacher.
    “Then what did I just show you how to do?”
    Damned if he knew. He was still trying to get the image of her long legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded his way to glory out of his brain.
    “Um . . . I forget. Can you show me again?”

 
     
Row 6
     
     
    Counting to ten, she concentrated on her breathing and reminded herself that she didn’t
care
if he listened to her or not. Didn’t
care
if he learned to knit or not. In fact, for the sake of their competition, she preferred he didn’t. And either way, she was going to get her thousand dollars just for pretending to help him.
    The thought of that amount of money sitting all safe and sound in her bank account washed the tension from her body and relaxed her from the crown of her head to her polished toenails.
    She inhaled and exhaled once more, then leaned back in to wrap her fingers around his and guide his movements.
    “Try to keep up, Stone. You don’t want me telling folks you’re a slow learner, do you?”
    That seemed to snap him out of whatever haze he’d been in. He made a scoffing sound and replied, “I’m only a slow learner when it comes to certain subjects. With others, I catch on real quick.”
    His voice was low and husky and carried a hint of suggestiveness. Slanting a glance in his direction, she noticed a heat in his gaze she’d never seen before.Other men had looked at her that way, with lust and longing, but never Dylan.
    She licked her lips and swallowed, quickly returning her gaze to the needles and yarn in front of them before he caught her watching