Seduce Me, Cowboy (Mills & Boon Desire) (Copper Ridge)

by Maisey Yates

  That he agreed with, more or less. His whole life had been a series of small moves with no pausing in between. One step at a time as he climbed up to the top. “I’m not sure it’s the best thing to let your employer know you think he’s a small step,” he said, just because he wanted to see her cheeks turn pink again. He was gratified when they did.

  “Sorry. This is a giant step for me. I intend to stay here forever in my elevated position as your assistant.”

  He set his lunch down, leaning back and holding up his hands. “Slow down, baby. I’m not looking for a commitment.”

  At that, her cheeks turned bright red. She took another bite of coleslaw, leaving a smear of mayonnaise on the corner of her mouth. Without thinking, he leaned in and brushed his thumb across the smudge, and along the edge of her lower lip.

  He didn’t realize it was a mistake until the slug of heat hit him low and fast in the gut.

  He hadn’t realized it would be a mistake because she was such a mousy little thing, a church secretary. Because his taste didn’t run to that kind of thing. At least, that’s what he would have said.

  But while his brain might have a conscience, he discovered in that moment that his body certainly did not.

  Three

  It was like striking a match, his thumb sweeping across her skin. It left a trail of fire where he touched, and made her feel hot in places he hadn’t. She was... Well, she was immobilized.

  Like a deer caught in the headlights, seeing exactly what was barreling down on her, and unable to move.

  Except, of course, Jonathan wasn’t barreling down on her. He wasn’t moving at all.

  He was just looking at her, his dark eyes glittering, his expression like granite. She followed his lead, unsure of what to do. Of how she should react.

  And then, suddenly, everything clicked into place. Exactly what she was feeling, exactly what she was doing...and exactly how much of an idiot she was.

  She took a deep breath, gasping as though she’d been submerged beneath water. She turned her chair sideways, facing the computer again. “Well,” she said, “thank you for lunch.”

  Fiddlesticks. And darn it. And fudging graham crackers.

  She had just openly stared at her boss, probably looking like a guppy gasping on dry land because he had wiped mayonnaise off her lip. Which was—as things went—probably one of the more platonic touches a man and a woman could share.

  The problem was, she couldn’t remember ever being touched—even platonically—by a man who wasn’t family. So she had been completely unprepared for the reaction it created inside her. Which she had no doubt he’d noticed.

  Attraction. She had felt attracted to him.

  Backtracking, she realized the tight feeling in her stomach that had appeared the first moment she’d seen him was probably attraction.

  That was bad. Very bad.

  But what she was really curious about, was why this attraction felt different from what she’d felt around other men she had liked. She’d felt fluttery feelings before. Most notably for Grant Daniels, the junior high youth pastor, a couple years ago. She had really liked him, and she was pretty sure he’d liked her, too, but he hadn’t seemed willing to make a move.

  She had conversations with him over coffee in the Fellowship Hall, where he had brought up his feelings on dating—he didn’t—and how he was waiting until he was ready to get married before getting into any kind of relationship with a woman.

  For a while, she’d been convinced he’d told her that because he was close to being ready, and he might want to marry her.

  Another instance of sitting, waiting and believing what she wanted would come to her through the sheer force of her good behavior.

  Looking back, she realized it was kind of stupid that she had hoped he’d marry her. She didn’t know him, not really. She had only ever seen him around church, and of course her feelings for him were based on that. Everybody was on their best behavior there. Including her.

  Not that she actually behaved badly, which was kind of the problem. There was what she did, what she showed the world, and then there were the dark, secret things that lived inside her. Things she wanted but was afraid to pursue.

  The fluttery feelings she had for Grant were like public Hayley. Smiley, shiny and giddy. Wholesome and hopeful.

  The tension she felt in her stomach when she looked at Jonathan...that was all secret Hayley.

  And it scared her that there was another person who seemed to have access to those feelings she examined only late at night in the darkness of her room.

  She had finally gotten up the courage to buy a romance novel when she’d been at the grocery store a month or so ago. She had always been curious about those books, but since she’d lived with her parents, she had never been brave enough to buy one.

  So, at the age of twenty-four, she had gotten her very first one. And it had been educational. Very, very educational. She had been a little afraid of it, to be honest.

  Because those illicit feelings brought about late at night by hazy images and the slide of sheets against her bare skin had suddenly become focused and specific after reading that book.

  And if that book had been the fantasy, Jonathan was the reality. It made her want to turn tail and run. But she couldn’t. Because if she did, then he would know what no one else knew about her.

  She couldn’t risk him knowing.

  They were practically strangers. They had nothing in common. These feelings were ridiculous. At least Grant had been the kind of person she was suited to.

  Which begged the question—why didn’t he make her feel this off-kilter?

  Her face felt like it was on fire, and she was sure Jonathan could easily read her reaction. That was the problem. It had taken her longer to understand what she was feeling than it had likely taken him. Because he wasn’t sheltered like she was.

  Sheltered even from her own desire.

  The word made her shiver. Because it was one she had avoided thinking until now.

  Desire.

  Did she desire him? And if she did, what did that mean?

  Her mouth went dry as several possibilities floated through her mind. Each more firmly rooted in fantasy than the last, since she had no practical experience with any of this.

  And it was going to stay that way. At least for now.

  Small steps. This job was her first small step. And it was a job, not a chance for her to get ridiculous over a man.

  “Did you have anything else you wanted me to do?” she asked, not turning to face him, keeping her gaze resolutely pinned to the computer screen.

  He was silent for a moment, and for some reason, the silence felt thick. “Did you finish entering the invoices?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said. “Here.” He handed her his phone. “If anyone calls, say I’m not available, but you’re happy to take a message. And I want you to call the county office and ask about the permits listed in the other spreadsheet I have open. Just get a status update on that. Do you cook?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Do you cook? I hired you to be my assistant. Which includes things around the house. And I eat around the house.”

  “I cook,” she said, reeling from the change of topic.

  “Great. Have something ready for me, and if I’m not back before you knock off at five, just keep it warm.”

  Then he turned and walked out, leaving her feeling both relieved and utterly confused. All those positive thoughts from this morning seemed to be coming back to haunt her, mock her.

  The work she could handle. It was the man that scared her.

  * * *

  The first week of working with Hayley had been pretty good, in spite of that hiccup on the first day.

  The one where he had touched her skin and felt just how soft it was. Something he never should have done.

  But she was a good assistant. And every evening when he came in from dealing with ranch work his dinner was ready. T
hat had been kind of a dick move, asking her to cook, but in truth, he hadn’t put a very detailed job description in the ad. And she wasn’t an employee of Gray Bear. She was his personal employee, and that meant he could expand her responsibilities.

  At least, that was what he told himself as he approached the front porch Friday evening, his stomach already growling in anticipation. When he came in for the evening after the outside work was done, she was usually gone and the food was warming in the oven.

  It was like having a wife. With none of the drawbacks and none of the perks.

  But considering he could get those perks from a woman who wasn’t in his house more than forty hours a week, he would take this happily.

  He stomped up the front steps, kicking his boots off before he went inside. He’d been walking through sludge in one of the far pastures and he didn’t want to track in mud. His housekeeper didn’t come until later in the week.

  The corner of his mouth lifted as he processed that thought. He had a housekeeper. He didn’t have to get on his hands and knees and scrub floors anymore. Which he had done. More times than he would care to recount. Most of the time the house he and Rebecca had shared while growing up had been messy.

  It was small, and their belongings—basic though they were—created a lot of clutter. Plus, teenage boys weren’t the best at keeping things deep cleaned. Especially not when they also had full-time jobs and were trying to finish high school. But when he knew child services would be by, he did his best.

  He didn’t now. He paid somebody else to do it. For a long time, adding those kinds of expenses had made both pride and anxiety burn in his gut. Adjusting to living at a new income level was not seamless. And since things had grown exponentially and so quickly, the adjustments had come even harder. Often in a million ways he couldn’t anticipate. But he was working on it. Hiring a housekeeper. Hiring Hayley.

  Pretty soon, he would give in and buy himself a new pair of boots.

  He drew nearer to the kitchen, smelling something good. And then he heard footsteps, the clattering of dishes.

  He braced his arms on either side of the doorway. Clearly, she hadn’t heard him approach. She was bending down to pull something out of the oven, her sweet ass outlined to perfection by that prim little skirt.

  There was absolutely nothing provocative about it. It fell down past her knees, and when she stood straight it didn’t display any curves whatsoever.

  For a moment, he just admired his own commitment to being a dick. She could not be dressed more appropriately, and still his eyes were glued to her butt. And damn, his body liked what he saw.

  “You’re still here,” he said, pushing away from the door and walking into the room. He had to break the tension stretching tight inside him. Step one was breaking the silence and making his presence known. Step two was going to be calling up one of the women he had associations with off and on.

  Because he had to do something to take the edge off. Clearly, it had been too long since he’d gotten laid.

  “Sorry,” she said, wiping her hands on a dishcloth and making a few frantic movements. As though she wanted to look industrious, but didn’t exactly have a specific task. “The roast took longer than I thought it would. But I did a little more paperwork while I waited. And I called the county to track down that permit.”

  “You don’t have to justify all your time. Everything has gotten done this week. Plus, inefficient meat preparation was not on my list of reasons I might fire you.”

  She shrugged. “I thought you reserved the right to revise that list at any time.”

  “I do. But not today.”

  “I should be out of your hair soon.” She walked around the counter and he saw she was barefoot. Earlier, he had been far too distracted by her backside to notice.

  “Pretty sure that’s a health code violation,” he said.

  She turned pink all the way up to her scalp. “Sorry. My feet hurt.”

  He thought of those low, sensible heels she always wore and he had to wonder what the point was to wearing shoes that ugly if they weren’t even comfortable. The kind of women he usually went out with wore the kinds of shoes made for sitting. Or dancing on a pole.

  But Hayley didn’t look like she even knew what pole dancing was, let alone like she would jump up there and give it a try. She was... Well, she was damn near sweet.

  Which was all wrong for him, in every way. He wasn’t sweet.

  He was successful. He was driven.

  But he was temporary at best. And frankly, almost everyone in his life seemed grateful for that fact. No one stayed. Not his mother, not his father. Even his sister was off living her own life now.

  So why he should spend even one moment looking at Hayley the way he’d been looking at her, he didn’t know. He didn’t have time for subtlety. He never had. He had always liked obvious women. Women who asked for what they wanted without any game-playing or shame.

  He didn’t want a wife. He didn’t even want a serious girlfriend. Hell, he didn’t want a casual girlfriend. When he went out it was with the express intention of hooking up. When it came to women, he didn’t like a challenge.

  His whole damned life was a challenge, and always had been. When he’d been raising his sister he couldn’t bring anyone back to his place, which meant he needed someone with a place of their own, or someone willing to get busy in the back of a pickup truck.

  Someone who understood he had only a couple free hours, and he wouldn’t be sharing their bed all night.

  Basically, his taste ran toward women who were all the things Hayley wasn’t.

  Cute ass or not.

  None of those thoughts did anything to ease the tension in his stomach. No matter how succinctly they broke down just why he shouldn’t find Hayley hot.

  He nearly scoffed. She wasn’t hot. She was... She would not be out of place as the wholesome face on a baking mix. Much more Little Debbie than Debbie Does Dallas.

  “It’s fine. I don’t want you going lame on me.”

  She grinned. “No. Then you’d have to put me down.”

  “True. And if I lose more than one personal assistant that way people will start asking questions.”

  He could tell she wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. For a second, she looked downright concerned.

  “I have not sent, nor do I intend to send, any of my employees—present or former—to the glue factory. Don’t look at me like that.”

  She bit her lower lip, and that forced him to spend a moment examining just how lush it was. He didn’t like that. She needed to stop bending over, and to do nothing that would draw attention to her mouth. Maybe, when he revised the list of things he might fire her for, he would add drawing attention to attractive body parts to the list.

  “I can never tell when you’re joking.”

  “Me, either,” he said.

  That time she did laugh. “You know,” she said, “you could smile.”

  “Takes too much energy.”

  The timer went off and she bustled back to the stove. “Okay,” she said, “it should be ready now.” She pulled a little pan out of the oven and took the lid off. It was full of roast and potatoes, carrots and onions. The kind of home-cooked meal he imagined a lot of kids grew up on.

  For him, traditional fare had been more along the lines of flour tortillas with cheese or ramen noodles. Something cheap, easy and full of carbs. Just enough to keep you going.

  His stomach growled in appreciation, and that was the kind of hunger associated with Hayley that he could accept.

  “I should go,” she said, starting to walk toward the kitchen door.

  “Stay.”

  As soon as he made the offer Jonathan wanted to bite his tongue off. He did not need to encourage spending more time in closed off spaces with her. Although dinner might be a good chance to prove that he could easily master those weird bursts of attraction.

  “No,” she said, and he found himself strangely relieved. “I should go.”<
br />
  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, surprising himself yet again. “Dinner is ready here. And it’s late. Plus there’s no way I can eat all this.”

  “Okay,” she said, clearly hesitant.

  “Come on now. Stop looking at me like you think I’m going to bite you. You’ve been reading too much Twilight. Indians don’t really turn into wolves.”

  Her face turned really red then. “That’s not what I was thinking. I don’t... I’m not afraid of you.”

  She was afraid of something. And what concerned him most was that it might be the same thing he was fighting against.

  “I really was teasing you,” he said. “I have a little bit of a reputation in town, but I didn’t earn half of it.”

  “Are you saying people in town are...prejudiced?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s on purpose. But whether it’s because I grew up poor or it’s because I’m brown, people have always given me a wide berth.”

  “I didn’t... I mean, I’ve never seen people act that way.”

  “Well, they wouldn’t. Not to you.”

  She blinked slightly. “I’ll serve dinner now.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “the story has a happy ending. I have a lot of money now, and that trumps anything else. People have no issue hiring me to build these days. Though, I remember the first time my old boss put me on as the leader of the building crew, and the guy whose house we were building had a problem with it. He didn’t think I should be doing anything that required too much skill. Was more comfortable with me just swinging the hammer, not telling other people where to swing it.”

  She took plates down from the cupboard, holding them close to her chest. “That’s awful.”

  “People are awful.”

  A line creased her forehead. “They definitely can be.”

  “Stop hugging my dinner plate to your shirt. That really isn’t sanitary. We can eat in here.” He gestured to the countertop island. She set the plates down hurriedly, then started dishing food onto them.

  He sighed heavily, moving to where she was and taking the big fork and knife out of her hands. “Have a seat. How much do you want?”