Free Seeds of Desire by Karenna Colcroft Page B

think of you as nothing more than a sparring
partner and masturbation tool.” The words rankled, but after the way she’d
acted, she deserved them. She swallowed her anger and went on, “I wanted you last night, not a sex toy. Masturbation, I can do on my own. And I—I never
thought about being into you as anything, because I thought you didn’t like
me.”
    He ran the washcloth over her hair. Water trickled down her
neck, but she didn’t mind it.
    “Guess maybe we have a failure to communicate here,” he
said, sounding less angry. “I thought you despised the ground I walked on, even
if I tried to avoid environmental impact.”
    She laughed. “You didn’t impact the environment. You
definitely impacted me.” More than she wanted to admit. He’d bugged the hell
out of her, made her feel as if she was some tree-hugger he only tolerated
because he had to. Because of him, she’d believed she had something to prove,
even though she shouldn’t have had to prove anything.
    Oh, hell yeah, he’d impacted her.
    She swallowed the many possible comments that came to her
lips and instead said, “The way you acted around me, I thought you didn’t have
such a great opinion of me. I was just some tree-hugger your boss stuck you
with.”
    “Like I said, a failure to communicate.” He gently ran the
washcloth over the area around her cut, avoiding the stitches. “Do you remember
the day you came in to talk to my dad and uncle?”
    She did. He’d sat behind his father’s desk, in his dad’s
chair with his feet up on the heavy oak surface and watched silently while his
father and uncle spent an hour asking her questions about the environment and
why JaBro would benefit from having a consultant on staff. Although she’d
remained focused and had answered all their questions professionally, Jared had
drawn her attention, flustering her with his presence. Even then she’d found
him attractive in the tailored slacks and navy-blue dress shirt he’d worn.
She’d tried to look at him as little as possible so he wouldn’t throw her off,
but had failed to keep her eyes off him entirely.
    He hadn’t spoken a word until the end of the interview, when
he’d looked her in the eye and said, “Welcome aboard.” Even though she hadn’t
been offered the position until two days later.
    His presence that day had made her uncomfortable, his
silence even more so. And the discomfort had annoyed the hell out of her. Even
then, she’d felt as though she had something to prove to him, and she’d
answered the interview questions accordingly. She wondered whether she would
have managed the questions as well as she had if he hadn’t been there staring
at her. She’d gotten just angry enough to work her butt off for the position.
    “I looked at you that day and thought, this is the woman I
want.” Jared continued wetting her hair, stroking it with the washcloth. It
relaxed her more than she would have expected, and she let her eyes drift
closed. “I think my dad and uncle would have contracted with you anyway. I
guaranteed they did by promising to make the rounds of these planting expeditions
only if you were the one going with me.”
    The water running down her neck made Cassidy shiver. Or
maybe Jared’s words caused it. He’d been interested in her from the moment he
saw her, and he’d admitted it.
    It wasn’t possible. She had to be imagining this. Her head
injury must have caused her to hallucinate. She didn’t doubt that lust at first
sight existed, and she could kind of accept that Jared lusted for her. However,
if he’d gone to those lengths to ensure she had the consultant position, there
had to be more to it than lust.
    There couldn’t be. She’d never suspected he might actually
like her, never mind any stronger emotions than that. Even when she’d
discovered he wanted her, she hadn’t thought it had to do with anything but
sex. They were too different. He treated her like a sparring partner, not a
love interest,