7

“What did you ask me?” Brady demanded, because his blood was roaring in his ears and he’d obviously misheard her.

He must have misheard her.

“Do. You.” Amanda drew each word out, as if he were very, very dim. And possibly hard of hearing. “Want. To come up. To my apartment. With me.” And then she smiled, much too sweetly for his peace of mind. Or his blood pressure. “For coffee?”

Maybe she really liked coffee. She worked at the coffeehouse. Maybe she thought she was issuing a perfectly innocent invitation.

But even as he tried to tell himself that, her body language told him something else. Because she was twisted around in the passenger seat to face him. One leg was crossed over the other, and she was twirling a hank of her honey-colored hair around and around one finger.

The look in her eyes was pure evil.

“For coffee,” he repeated. “You are inviting me up for coffee.”

“Sure.” More twirling. “Or whatever.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?”

It wasn’t until the echo of his words careened around inside the cab of his truck that he could admit that yes, he’d added a little more volume than necessary.

But all Amanda did was make a tsking sound. “No need to get all worked up about it, Brady. A simple yes or no will do the trick.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She lifted one shoulder, then dropped it, never shifting her come-hither gaze from his. “I like coffee.”

He thought he might crack his own steering wheel in half.

“You don’t invite men up to your apartment, Amanda. If you do, you have to know what kind of invitation they’re going to think it is. Do you?”

“You know what kind of invitation it is.” She batted her eyelashes at him, which should have been laughable. And yet Brady wasn’t laughing. “Coffee. Haven’t I already said that?”

He found himself rubbing his hands over his face, the way he seemed to do a lot around her. He was also praying for deliverance. Both at the same time, and neither helped.

“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Why are you inviting anyone anywhere?”

“This is the problem,” she complained, dropping the hair-twirling part of her act. Though she didn’t sit back. Or revert to an easily ignored ten-year-old the way he wanted her to. “You have a dirty mind.”

Brady stared at her. “I do. Because I’m a grown man. And normally, when I’m issued invitations to other people’s apartments, it’s because they also have dirty minds. Because they are grown women.”

“Did you think when you picked me up that you were scooping up a preschooler? That I was toddling down the road to nursery school?”

“Pretty much,” he snapped.

Amanda smiled at him, even sweeter than before, and a whole lot more problematic. “Then what are you getting so upset about? It’s only coffee.” Her smile widened. “Unless it’s not. To you.”

Everything inside Brady went still.

The afternoon sun caught at her, flooding the cab of the truck. Amanda was dressed in a regular old T-shirt that wasn’t scandalous in any way. And a pair of jeans that couldn’t be the same ones she wore to work in the bar because they were looser.

But it didn’t really matter, because he knew now. He knew what she looked like in tight clothes. He knew she had curves, and he’d seen her hips sway. He’d seen her twirl her hair around her finger, and he’d seen the flirtation in her eyes. And he couldn’t figure out how to unknow any of those things.

There was a breeze coming off the river and into the rolled-down windows of the truck. There was a hint of snow in it, because this was the time of year when the mountains whispered premonitions to the people down below.

Any way he looked at it, Amanda was a problem and her presence in his truck spelled foreboding.

He would show her the error of her ways, then get out of here. It was the only rational way to handle this. Her.

“Okay,” Brady said instead, not shifting his gaze from hers. And not aware he’d even said anything until he heard his own voice.

“Okay?”

Brady nodded his head toward the stairs. “Let’s go. Coffee.”

He had the distinct satisfaction of watching Amanda go from sultry to purely startled.

He liked that far more than he should have.

And not only because this was an excellent opportunity to impart a lesson. But because he was tired of being considered unthreatening. Undemanding. The local equivalent of a Labrador retriever, according to his family and hers. It wasn’t that he wanted the people he loved most to cringe around in fear of him, but a little respect wouldn’t go amiss.

He could start teaching that lesson right here.

Brady waited, but all Amanda did was stare back at him, her eyes wider than before and filled with more wariness than flirtation.

“Weird,” he drawled as the silence spun out between them. “If I didn’t know better, I might think you were suffering from second thoughts here.”

“I have coffee all the time.”

But she still didn’t move.

The stillness inside Brady seemed to bloom a bit. Then take root. He studied her for a moment. Then did nothing more than lift a brow.

And watched Amanda flush.

He wondered if she’d been flushing like that out in the dark where he couldn’t see it. He certainly hoped so. It made him feel a lot better about the riot going on in him.

For a moment, for one little second, he didn’t beat himself up for any of it. There would be ample time for that later. For a moment, a breath, he let himself enjoy the tension between them. The breeze and the heat on her cheeks. A pretty woman in his truck and a blue sky above.

Amanda blew out a breath. And when she moved, she moved quickly. She threw open the truck’s door, jumped out, and then headed for the stairs. She took the metal steps two at a time, and Brady followed. Much more sedately, because he was enjoying the view. And appreciating how fast she moved, because it told him all kinds of things about the energy crackling through her.

He didn’t have it in him to pretend it wasn’t buzzing around in him too. That didn’t mean he would act on it.

Amanda unlocked the outer door at the top of the stairs, and Brady followed her into the small, narrow hallway inside. There was a window down on the other end, thankfully, or it would have been dim and much too close. There were two doors that opened into the hallway on opposite sides, and it took Brady a moment to remember that he’d been in the other one. And Amanda’s too, come to think of it, because these were the apartments the Coyote bartenders used.

He waited until Amanda fumbled with her deadbolt at least three times and then, bright red in the face, shoved her door open and led him inside.

“Nice to see you put a new coat of paint on the place,” he said cheerfully, as he looked around.

Then got to watch, like it was his own, personal show, as Amanda processed that information. What he was telling her. What it meant.

He would have said it was impossible, but her face got even redder. Then she scowled, though he only got a glimpse of it before she turned her back on him and moved farther into the apartment.

“I hardly recognize the place,” he drawled when she’d retreated to the other side of the island in the kitchen portion of the living room, and stood there as if she thought it was a wall. A fortress. “It’s actually pretty.”

“Yes, Brady.” Amanda sounded impatient. But he was staring straight at her while the afternoon sun poured in those big windows that looked out toward town, and he could see she was more rattled than she sounded. “Message received. You want me to know that you’ve spent lots of time in these apartments. I get it. What’s the word for a male slut?”

He laughed at that, to his own surprise. “There isn’t one.”

“And I’m betting you don’t think that’s a problem.”

“I can’t say that I believe in sluts, as a general concept,” Brady said merrily. “It’s an ugly little word to describe one of life’s most glorious gifts.”

“You mean sex.”

“I mean a person—”

“A woman.”

“An individual who likes sex. A lot of sex. I, personally, consider the enjoyment of sex cause for celebration. Not condemnation.”

Amanda blinked. “Do people not enjoy sex?”

Brady tipped his head slightly to one side while that question spun around in him. It suggested that Amanda had never experienced bad sex, or even indifferent sex, which was cause for a whole different level of celebration.

But then he remembered who she was. And who her brothers were, more to the point. And he couldn’t quite make himself believe that little Amanda Kittredge had been out there indulging in any kind of sex at all—not bone-melting, life-altering good sex, run-of-the-mill, functional sex, or even the bad sex Brady had never experienced—with four angry bodyguards always lurking around her. He feared for his own life when he was with her, and he wasn’t some pimply high school kid.

He would be very surprised if she’d ever gotten naked with anyone.

But the alternative was that Amanda was … untouched.

Innocent.

Something shifted inside him. He had the uncomfortable feeling that it was a tectonic plate.

But Brady wasn’t here to indulge in his own earthquakes. He was here to cause them.

“Some folks don’t enjoy anything,” he told her. “Even sex.”

He’d thumbed his hat off at the door, and now he tossed it onto her counter and ran his hand through his hair. She was even prettier as the light fell through the windows, making her look like she was made of golden honey.

His mouth watered. He ignored it.

“Are you going to make me coffee?” he asked while she stayed where she was on the other side of the kitchen island and gaped at him. “Or do you want a keep the focus on sex?”

Amanda jolted, and there was color high on her cheeks again. And there was something deeply wrong with him that he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than reach over and run his finger over the curve of her cheek to feel all that silky heat himself.

Brady ignored that too.

She jerked into action. She pulled a bag of ground espresso from her freezer. Then she spooned it into the silver espresso maker on her stove. Once she set it on the gas flame of her stovetop, she busied herself rummaging around for mugs in her cupboard. When she found a couple, she went back to the refrigerator to lift a carton of heavy cream from inside.

“What?” she demanded defensively, when he only stared back at her. “I don’t like fake things.”

“Noted.”

She slammed the carton down on the counter with enough force to make a dollop of cream spill over.

“Lite this, fat-free that, low fat, low whatever.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think it’s going to kill us all. We ate real food out on the ranch. I still do.”

“Amanda.”

“People feed their farm animals better than they feed themselves. If I wouldn’t put it in one of our horses, why would I put in me?”

“Easy, killer,” Brady drawled. “Who are you talking to? I grew up ten miles away from you. Frankenstein food is not my thing.”

Amanda didn’t look remotely mollified, but the espresso maker made noise behind her, indicating the coffee was ready. She took longer than strictly necessary to turn around and handle it.

Brady watched in a silence that felt thicker by the second as she poured espresso into two mugs, then topped each one up with a dollop of heavy cream. She slid one mug in front of him, keeping one closer to her.

“You don’t normally take sugar,” she said. “But I have some if you want it.”

There was a strange note in her voice, like she didn’t want him to know that she was aware of how he took his coffee. Which, again, was a little pinprick of information he didn’t quite need.

Because he would expect a person who must have made him more coffee drinks than he could count, over the years, to know how he took it. But a completely neutral barista would hardly have feelings about that, would she?

Sure enough, when all he did was regard her steadily by way of reply, that pink flush bloomed again on her cheekbones.

“You blush a lot,” he pointed out.

Amanda tilted her chin up fractionally. “It’s an uncontrollable reaction when in the presence of so much foolishness.”

“What foolishness is that?”

He didn’t reach for the coffee she’d made. And not reaching for her seemed like an act of supreme self-sacrifice. Instead, he braced his hands on the countertop, because she was doing something similar across from him.

“I think you know, Brady.” But she wasn’t sounding quite as sure of herself at the moment. “There’s been a lot of looming. A lot of threats and dire pronouncements. I think we can tie it all up in a bow and call it pure foolishness, don’t you?”

“You’re the one who invited me up.” He smirked. “For coffee.”

“You said you wanted some.”

“Is that really what you were offering, Amanda? Because I don’t think it was. And I think you know it.”

“I distinctly remember telling you I liked coffee.”

But her voice was a little bit breathier than before. And when Brady straightened from the counter, then took his time rounding the island toward her, her jaw didn’t exactly drop. Instead, her lips parted, and her eyes began to look a little bit glassy.

“I—I … I don’t—”

“Now, sweetheart, you spent a lot of time ranting at me about how grown-up you are,” he said, almost like he pitied her. He didn’t. “Are you really going to tell me that I misunderstood you down there in my truck?”

She kept turning as he came around the corner, keeping her body pointed toward him. That suited Brady fine. He waited until they were face-to-face, and then he moved even closer, trapping her with her back to the counter while he caged her between his arms.

For a long moment he did nothing but listen to her fight to breathe.

This close, he could smell her soap on her skin. And mint in her hair. And he could smell coffee too, but then he’d always had a deep appreciation for the rich, thick scent of it.

The pulse in her neck was going wild. She looked jittery and hopped up, but he knew it was something far more intense than caffeine. He could feel it too.

“I’ve been up in these apartments a time or two, I don’t mind telling you,” he said, and with his hands on the counter he had to lower his head toward hers. So he did. “But it hasn’t been for coffee. In fact, Amanda, I believe you’re the first woman to actually make me a cup of coffee outside of a coffee shop in a good long while.”

“I can’t help it,” she said weakly, and he liked how greedy her voice was, then. How shaky. “It’s literally my job.”

“And that’s why you invited me up here?” he asked, his voice a low, lazy rumble. “To do your job?”

“To be honest,” she said, and then swallowed so he could hear it, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“No?”

“No. I thought you’d rant at me some more about walking on the street, crossing without a crossing guard, not maintaining a buddy system, or any number of other things that apply to kindergartners that you somehow think also apply to me. Then I thought you’d growl something and drive off in a cloud of dust. After telling me that you might as well be my older brother a few thousand more times.”

“You’ve made it a point to remind me that you’re not my sister.”

Amanda arched her back to keep looking him in the eye. And her body brushed against his while she did it, costing him more than he wanted to admit. He had to fight to keep his expression impassive, but she didn’t do the same. Instead, she made a shuddery little sound, and then, worse, he could see goose bumps prickle to life down the line of her neck.

And once again he was … desperate.

He told himself to ignore it.

“I’m not your sister, Brady.” Her eyes searched his. “I never was.”

Brady couldn’t decide if he was furious or filled with something far more dangerous than temper. That place inside himself where he stayed so still, so watchful, seemed to grow wider. Ravenous.

He couldn’t keep himself from following where it led. Not for one second more. He shifted, pressing himself against her while he smoothed back her hair. Then he held her face in his.

He didn’t let himself think about how natural it all felt.

Her hands came up too, and Brady could feel them on his abdomen. He hoped she wasn’t pretending to herself that she wasn’t affected by this, when he could feel her shaking.

For a moment, he didn’t bother to hide. He gazed down at her, intense straight through and wild with it, buffeted by seismic changes he refused to name.

He let her see all of that, and then he dropped his head even closer.

“Brady—” she started, though it was more like a squeak.

He took a thumb and dragged it over her lips. Back and forth, over and over, to make them both crazy.

“I’m not one of your older brothers,” he told her, his voice going gravelly. “And if you want to play these games of yours, you need to remember that I’m an adult. Not a kid.”

She blinked, and then her eyes flashed liquid gold as her gaze went defiant. “Right back at you.”

Brady knew he needed to teach her a lesson. One she wouldn’t forget.

So he kissed her.

He could have kissed her sweetly. He could have eased in.

If he’d thought about the fact that this was Amanda Kittredge, he might have. Assuming the thought didn’t kill him first.

But this was a lesson, and he wasn’t here to be sweet.

He kissed her like she was a girl in a bar. Like she’d invited a man she barely knew up to her apartment on the flimsiest of excuses. He kissed her like a one-night stand, deep and hot and carnal.

There was every chance in the world that Amanda had never been kissed before, so he didn’t waste time pretending he was a safe, domesticated boy.

He kissed her like a man. Need and hunger and expectation, with every stroke of his tongue against hers.

She made a noise in the back of her throat, but he couldn’t tell if she was startled or greedy. So he kissed her until he could tell the difference.

He knew when her hands smoothed out against his abdomen, then dug in. He knew when her tongue met his.

And for a blistering moment, it was all earthquakes and appetite, so he ran with it. He hauled her up against him, up off the floor until he could set her on the counter. Then he moved between her legs. He pulled her flush against him and didn’t protect her from his arousal. Or the force of his hunger.

But it wasn’t until he slid his hand down her back to grip the sweet curve of her hip that she finally made a noise and wrenched her mouth from his.

“I—I can’t—”

“You can’t what?” he asked her pitilessly.

“I can’t—I mean, I’ve never—”

She blew out a long, shuddering breath. Brady understood she had no idea of the picture she made. Her hair, tousled and wild, and her lips damp and faintly swollen from his.

He didn’t understand the tenderness in him, then. When the whole point of this had been to overwhelm her. He didn’t understand why he wanted to hold her, pull her head to his chest, soothe her.

He didn’t understand any of this magic, only that Amanda was making a mess of him.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he cleaned up her mess.

“Riley is my best friend in this world,” he gritted out. “And I’m pretty fond of the rest of them too. That’s what you have going for you when things get too intense between us. I know them, they know me, and because of that, I know you too. But what happens if it’s some other guy? One of those men you think you’re going to pick up downstairs? They won’t know a single thing about you except the invitation.”

“So what?”

He could feel the growl inside him. “What if you change your mind, and he doesn’t want that, Amanda? What’s your plan, then?”

“Just because someone likes to drink in the Coyote doesn’t make him a monster, Brady. You should know. You drink there all the time.”

“And you can tell the difference. With all your vast experience with men, you can tell if you’re looking at a good guy or bad mistake waiting to happen. Are you sure, Amanda? And what are you prepared to risk if you’re wrong?”

She pushed at him, looking panicky, so he didn’t move. He was proving his point. One beat, then another, and all he did was wait. Only when she pushed again did he move to the side. She pulled her legs together, then slid off the counter and onto the floor.

Amanda caught herself with one hand on the kitchen island, letting him know without another word how unsteady she was. It was one more detail he filed away, vowing that he wasn’t going to look at it. And if he did, it would be much later. Alone. Somewhere his shame wouldn’t choke him.

“Is that what this was?” she asked softly. Uncertainly. “You wanted to teach me a lesson?”

“Did you learn something?”

Brady hated himself when a look of misery washed over her face. And he wondered why, if hurting other people felt like this, his father had committed himself to it with such gusto. He couldn’t get his head around it.

But this wasn’t the time or the place to examine his Amos issues. Or to wonder how he’d picked up so many of the old man’s ways when he’d been so sure he wouldn’t. That he couldn’t. That he’d gone ahead and built a life somewhere else to prevent it.

“I’m going to go wash off this day,” Amanda said, still in that small, shaky voice that made his bones ache like an old man’s must. “And that’s not an invitation, Brady.”

She didn’t look at him again. She wrapped her arms around her middle, ducked her head, and headed off across the room toward her bedroom.

Leaving him there with nothing but his hat on the counter and a stone deep in his belly, chock-full of all that regret he’d warned her she didn’t want to experience. He didn’t much care for it either.

Brady heard her shower go on and tortured himself for a while, imagining those curves he’d felt pressed flush against his chest, finally bared to his view. And better still, covered in water and soap and—

“Enough,” he muttered.

At himself. At this situation. At innocent Amanda, who tasted like sin and redemption and who had already ruined him without even trying.

He let himself out of her apartment and took the stairs too fast, throwing himself into his truck. But no matter how much dust and gravel he kicked up behind him as he pulled away, he had the feeling his Amanda Kittredge problem was only just beginning.