Free Heartbreaker by Linda Howard

into her mouth. Hunger flared, fanned into instant life at his touch. She had always known that once she touched him, she wouldn’t be able to get enough of him.
    She softened, her body molding itself to him as she instinctively tried to get close enough to him to feed that burning hunger. She was weak where he was concerned, just as all women were. Her arms were clinging around his neck, and in the end it was he who broke the kiss and gently set her away from him.
    â€œI have work to get back to,” he growled, but his eyes were hot and held dark promises. “Be ready tomorrow.”
    â€œYes,” she whispered.

 
    Chapter Four
    T WO P I C K U P T R U C K S came up the drive not long after sunrise, loaded with fencing supplies and five of John’s men. Michelle offered them all a cup of fresh coffee, which they politely refused, just as they refused her offer to show them around the ranch. John had probably given them orders that she wasn’t to do anything, and they were taking it seriously. People didn’t disobey Rafferty’s orders if they wanted to continue working for him, so she didn’t insist, but for the first time in weeks she found herself with nothing to do.
    She tried to think what she’d done with herself before, but years of her life were a blank. What had she done? How could she fill the hours now, if working on her own ranch was denied her?
    John drove up shortly before nine, but she had been ready for more than an hour and stepped out on the porch to meet him. He stopped on the steps, his dark eyes running over her in heated approval. “Nice,” he murmured just loud enough for her to hear. She looked the way she should always look, cool and elegant in a pale yellow silk surplice dress, fastened only by two white buttons at the waist. The shoulders were lightly padded, emphasizing the slimness of her body, and a white enamel peacock was pinned to her lapel. Her sunshine hair was sleeked back into a demure twist; oversized sunglasses shielded her eyes. He caught the tantalizing fragrance of some softly bewitching perfume, and his body began to heat. She was aristocratic and expensive from her head to her daintily shod feet; even her underwear would be silk, and he wanted to strip every stitch of it away from her, then stretch her out naked on his bed. Yes, this was exactly the way she should look.
    Michelle tucked her white clutch under her arm and walked with him to the car, immensely grateful for the sunglasses covering her eyes. John was a hard-working rancher, but when the occasion demanded he could dress as well as any Philadelphia lawyer. Any clothing looked good on his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped frame, but the severe gray suit he wore seemed to heighten his masculinity instead of restraining it. All hint of waviness had been brushed from his black hair. Instead of his usual pickup truck he was driving a dark gray two-seater Mercedes, a sleek beauty that made her think of the Porsche she had sold to raise money after her father had died.
    â€œYou said your men were going to help me,” she said expressionlessly as he turned the car onto the highway several minutes later. “You didn’t say they were going to take over.”
    He’d put on sunglasses, too, because the morning sun was glaring, and the dark lenses hid the probing look he directed at her stiff profile. “They’re going to do the heavy work.”
    â€œAfter the fencing is repaired and the cattle are moved to the east pasture, I can handle things from there.”
    â€œWhat about dipping, castrating, branding, all the things that should’ve been done in the spring? You can’t handle that. You don’t have any horses, any men, and you sure as hell can’t rope and throw a young bull from that old truck you’ve got.”
    Her slender hands clenched in her lap. Why did he have to be so right? She couldn’t do any of those things, but neither