Standing in the hall outside my older brother’s office, I tried not to eavesdrop on Ashley’s conversation with her supervisor. With the door closed, I shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, but the conversation appeared to be heated.
After the phone slammed down, I slowly counted to ten then knocked.
“Come in,” she growled.
I opened the door to find her cheeks flushed, a soft glow of perspiration telling me she was more than a little hot under the collar after her conversation with Phil Moske.
Just like everything else about Ashley Callahan, even her sweat was sexy. I just wished I was the one making her shine like that, the beautiful face glowing as I speared into her with my cock or my tongue.
“Sorry if I just snapped,” she said, a tremor running through her shoulders. “Moske won’t let me go out at first light—says he’ll coordinate with the rangers about going in with me and I don’t get any other service agents yet.”
Slamming the lid on her laptop, she shook her head.
“And the lab didn’t come up with anything from the samples I took at the fox den. I need to take the carcass to Billings.”
I nodded. “No harm getting something to eat before you go, right?”
She looked at me, the gray gaze sharpening for a second before she took a deep breath and practically drooled on Adler’s desk.
“It really smelled good…great, actually. I swear I can still smell it.”
I tilted my head toward the hall. “I’ll show you the shortcut.”
Grinning, Ashley stood and shoved her laptop in its case. I moved toward the door as she took her first step away from the office chair.
“Whoa,” I shouted, seeing all the color drain from her face.
Without a word, Ashley started to fold. I jumped forward, catching her under the arms and lifting. I turned to deposit her on the couch. She cried out as I twisted.
“What should I do?” I asked, worried that the next move would hurt her even more.
“Just give me a second,” she wheezed, her arms wrapped around my neck and her weight fully shifted to her right leg.
Hyperventilating, her chest pushed a hard, fast rhythm against mine. My hands pressed at her back, one low down, the other centered between her shoulder blades to help her stay balanced on the one leg.
“You can’t drive to Billings tonight,” I warned. “You need that leg seen to.”
She shook her head. “Moske was adamant and I’ve only been working with him a couple of months. If I say I can’t because of my leg, I’ll be riding a desk until a medical review clears me—or kicks me out of the service.”
“Fine,” I snorted. “But first I’m getting you over to the couch and fetching you some food and a fresh ice pack. Can you move?”
I hoped to high heaven she could. Holding her like I was produced uncomfortable effects. I was breathing almost as fast as Ashley and my heart wanted to rip through my chest. It wasn’t the strain of holding her up. I had a man’s muscles, not some metrosexual’s. It was worry twisting me up inside.
“Yes.” Gripping my shoulder with one hand and the back of a visitor’s chair with the other, Ashley made it to the love seat against the wall and sat down. She looked up at me, eyes shimmering with pain. “Thank you.”
A small grin began to crack at the edge of her mouth.
“You know, I thought you were a bit of a jerk at first…when you almost dropped a tree on me.”
I smiled back. “It was a less-than-auspicious first meeting.”
“I’ll say.”
When she looked at me like that, her face lighting up as humor pushed the pain into the background, I wanted to pull her hair down, knot my fingers in it and kiss her until she said to hell with getting back to Billings and stayed with me.
Instead, I took a rough swallow and nodded at the hall.
“Back in three minutes…three-point-five if I have to fight Siobhan for any fish or cornbread.”
Eager to get back to Ashley, I left the room in quick, long strides. Having an idea as I grabbed a plate in the kitchen and began to load it up with food, I pulled out my phone and typed in a quick text message. I hit send, grabbed a drink and an ice pack and made my excuses to the rest of the day’s riders and Mama.
“Here,” I said, returning to the office and pulling a side table over to the love seat.
Ashley glanced at her watch. “Looks like Siobhan was amenable because that was two minutes and fifty-two seconds.”
I waited until she took her first bite and needed to chew it.
“I had an idea, so hear me out.”
The smoky gray gaze darkened with suspicion, but she nodded.
“I know I can’t drive your Jeep.”
She rolled her eyes in confirmation.
“But you really can’t either, it’s a stick shift and it’s not safe for you or anyone you pass on the road.”
Closing her eyes, she nodded again. It had come up that Mama was a widow, which led to talk of the wreck that had taken my father and sister’s life. I appreciated how Ashley had the innate decency not to argue with me on whether it was safe for her to drive.
“But I figure,” I continued. “that it’s okay to put the Jeep up on a hauler. I’ll drive you, the fox and your vehicle to Billings tonight.”
Ashley swallowed as I finished. The food must have gone down wrong because she started to cough. She took a sip of lemonade, but that didn’t help. Perching on the arm of the love seat, I patted her on the back until the harsh barking ceased.
My hand lingered in case the coughing fit wasn’t over. Fingers resting lightly near the base of her neck, my palm soaked up the heat that poured from the small depression between Ashley’s shoulder blades.
She put the food and drink aside, the muscles around her eyes stretching her gaze wide as she looked up at me, her lush bottom lip beginning to tremble.
“Why?” she rasped.
Forcing a sudden lump back down my throat, I shrugged. “Because I almost dropped a tree on you.”
Ashley shook her head. She wasn’t buying my lie. Maybe it was time to tell her the truth.
Or at least show it to her.
Wrapping one hand along the curve of Ashley’s jaw, I sighed and lowered my mouth to hers. I didn’t know which scared me more—the idea that Ashley might take offense or that she would kiss me back.
She kissed me back.
She really, really kissed me back, her fingers curling around the front of my shirt and pulling me onto the love seat, my body crammed into the space between her and the armrest because she couldn’t move with her injured leg.
Ashley returned the kiss with her lips parting and her head tilting back, her warm fingertips skimming up to trace the sensitive flesh of my Adam’s apple before they threaded and locked behind my neck. She kissed me with her chest taking up a new rhythm of short, desperate breaths that molded our bodies closer together each time she inhaled.
Regaining control, I bit softly at her lip before moving to her chin. I murmured sweet nothings in the shape of faint coos from the back of my throat.
Slowly, the heat and urgency faded. I didn’t want it to fade, but it had to. There wasn’t anything we could do then and there, Ashley’s leg injured and us sitting on my brother’s couch, two doors down from where my niece had her playroom.
“I guess we have that figured out,” I whispered against her neck.
She laughed, the sound low but a little harsh. “Really? Because I’m more confused than ever.”
“You know I want you,” I answered.
“Do I?”
There were ways to show her, but they were crass for how little time had passed since we first met. I could take one of her elegant hands and press it to the front panel of my jeans, let her outline the proof of just how hard she made me. I could test her in return, slip my hand down her slacks, find the gusset of her panties, sluice my fingers through the wet need that had poured from her at our kiss.
Both options played in my mind, my cock swelling to the point of pain.
“Ash,” I rasped, pressing a gentle kiss at the corner of her jaw. “I’m not stopping because I want to. You’re hurting and you’ve got to be bordering on exhaustion. When we kiss like that again, I want to know you’ve got a clear head. I want us to be where we can act on our passion.”
She squirmed but didn’t pull away.
“You telling me you’re clearheaded right now?”
I chuckled. She had a point. The way my body was responding, my hormones had to be in a riot. I could barely see straight, my head all dizzied up from kissing her.
“The only thing I’m clearheaded on,” I answered, “is that I want to do everything right with you. That means getting you safely back to Billings and your leg mended enough you don’t want to pass out the next time you put weight on it.”
Sighing, she buried her face against my chest and agreed to the plan.