Free Taking Catie: The Temptation Saga: Book Three by Helen Hardt

I’ll see you later, I guess.”
    And he was gone.
    Nothing about when they might meet again. Nothing about hey, it was great. When can I see you? Let’s go out sometime. How about a movie?
    Nothing about the magic they had just shared.
    And it had been magical. At least it had for her.
    Catie’s heart fell. Well, what had she expected? He’d made his position clear.
    She decided to take another shower since the first one had been interrupted. Her hair was tangled again, this time wet, so she went to the bathroom and borrowed a brush she found on the counter. After combing out her snarls, she started the shower and entered, letting the hot water ease her tired body.
    Unfortunately, it didn’t do anything for her tired heart.
    For that’s what it was. Tired. Damn tired of loving Chad McCray.
    After a fifteen minute soak under the soothing showerhead, Catie dried off and found her clothes. She put on her jeans and bra, but had a quick thought. Chad wouldn’t be back for a while yet, and she had a strange urge to put on one of his shirts. Just to feel it next to her skin, as if she really belonged to him, lived in this room with him. Was his woman.
    She chose a white cotton with pearl snaps. It hung on her, but when she inhaled the clean crispiness of it, she felt like she’d come home.
    She walked out of the bedroom and decided to look around the house. Huge, as she’d realized last night, but in broad daylight, the Colorado sun streaming through the windows, it was gigantic. She walked through the living room, the dining room, all the time fantasizing about being mistress of this manor, showing guests in, smiling and laughing, Chad by her side, his arm draped possessively around her shoulders. She waltzed into the shiny kitchen and imagined preparing a hearty ranch breakfast for Chad and their children, shuffling them off to school, and then going about her daily chores. Chad would come home at noon for a hot lunch she’d prepare, and then, before he went back to work, he’d take her to the bedroom and love her because he couldn’t wait until the evening.
    Yeah, that’s how it would be.
    She shook her head. Damn, Chad was right. She was a silly little kid. Playing house like a schoolgirl.
    She headed back to the bedroom and replaced Chad’s shirt in his closet.
    How was she going to get home?
    Chad had brought her on Eclipse, and the walk back to her house was ten miles at least. She sighed as she slipped into her own shirt.
    A piece of garbage caught her eye by the wastebasket, and she reached to pick it up. Chad’s condom.
    Her heart skidded to a stop.
    There was a tear in it.

Chapter Eight
    D riving to the south barn , Chad called Annie and then swore to himself as he pushed his cell phone back into his pocket.
    What the hell had he been thinking, asking Catie to call the vet? As if he’d never had a calf birthing before. He’d always called the damn vet himself. He didn’t need someone else to do it. She wasn’t his helpmate. It wasn’t her problem.
    He shook his head.
    The whole damn night had been a mistake. But oh, how her tight little body had sheathed him. He’d barely gotten into her and she’d gripped him like a vise. He’d had to work to keep from coming then and there. Now, all he could think about was burying himself in her sweetness again.
    A spike of heat hit him low in the gut, and his groin tightened in expectation.
    Not a boner. Not now.
    Christ.
    All he had to do was imagine her pretty face, her sweet raspberry kisses, her lovely brick-orange nipples.
    The tangy scent of her heated sex.
    He was a goner.
    Like he always said about his brothers. Always said they were goners. Damn.
    This had to stop, and it had to stop now.
    Otherwise he’d break her heart, and he wasn’t sure he could live with himself if he did that.
    She wasn’t in love with him. This was a little girl crush that had gotten out of hand, yes, but it was nothing more than pure infatuation. He’d help her see that.