Maybe he had passed it by the first time he had looked at Rose and seen a woman, not his best friend’s little sister. Not a child in need of protecting. But a woman. A beautiful woman whose strength and courage got under his skin. A beautiful woman whose smile and eyes and body played havoc on his dreams.
Maybe it had been too late all the way back then.
Either way, he pushed past his reservations now. Demolished them. Wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her forward. There was a breath where he stopped. Just one. Her eyes went wide. Her chest hitched upward, and her lips parted.
And then, he closed the distance between them.
The taste of her exploded through him, shrapnel from the impact embedding in his chest. He didn’t know what he had imagined. That it might be gentle or easy because she was young. That he would have control over it because she was inexperienced, and he knew it.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t easy.
And he did not have control.
Her mouth was so damn soft, and it was the softness that he thought might bring him down to his knees.
He would brawl with any man at a bar, even if he was twice Logan’s size. He would be confident in his ability to win. Strength didn’t scare him.
He would test himself against a sheer rock face, and he wouldn’t be intimidated. He was a man who had survived so much there wasn’t a whole lot that scared him. Wasn’t a whole lot he thought might be able to bring him to his knees.
But this softness could.
This softness very nearly did.
It wasn’t an avalanche. Wasn’t an explosion. It was like the sun. Warming him through, melting ice in his veins he hadn’t even realized was there. And it hurt. Like when your hands froze solid out working without gloves and you came inside and pressed them up against a heater.
It always hurt. When feeling returned to parts of your body that had lost it.
That was this kiss.
It wasn’t what he intended. The bet had been to teach her a lesson, and hell...he’d had to follow it through. And part of him wanted to punish her for torturing him, for refusing to listen. He thought to crush her mouth beneath his and make her take the desire that rioted through his chest, whether he wanted it to or not.
Instead, he found himself just holding her there, her mouth against his, immersed in that softness, damn near devastated by it.
Then she moved.
A whimper beginning in the back of her throat, her hands coming up and taking handfuls of his T-shirt. He didn’t know if she was planning on pushing him away or pulling him more firmly against her. He didn’t give her a chance to make the choice.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her more firmly against his body, fitting her petite curves to his chest.
He could feel her fingers tightening on his shirt, could feel the way that she tugged him to her, even just slightly.
She wasn’t pushing him away.
No, she wasn’t pushing him away at all.
He angled his head, slipping his tongue between her lips, and she gasped, reeling backward and stumbling away from him. Her eyes were wide, her lips flushed pink and swollen looking.
It was the most intoxicating aphrodisiac he’d ever come into contact with.
Rose. Rose Daniels, looking like a woman aroused, flushed and turned on because of him.
He had seen Rose in a lot of lights.
He’d seen her dirty and exhausted from work. Cranky and favoring a leg with a strained thigh muscle after an unfortunate encounter with a spooked horse. Cut up from brambles and barbed wire. Laughing like a maniac while she raced him across the field. Cold and grumpy and wiping at a runny nose. Drunk. Yeah, he’d seen her drunk. He’d been the one to supply the alcohol. Silly and giggling in a way that she would never normally do as her inhibitions melted away with each sip.
He’d seen a lot of versions of Rose Daniels.
But never this one.
Of course, the companion to turned on seemed to be scared at the moment, and he didn’t like that at all.
So much for teaching her a lesson. Apparently he didn’t have it in him.
“Rose...”
“I don’t...” She blinked hard. “I don’t understand what that was.”
“That’s what it feels like when a man wants you,” he said. “It’s not all this pussyfooting around and texting your sister to get to you. I don’t care what he thinks, he thinks that he wanted you, but he waited too long, and he let you get the wrong idea.”
“You want me?” She asked the question in the same tone a person might ask if a bear was planning to eat them. Horrified. Shocked. Fascinated.
“I told you, sweetheart, you don’t know what it looks like when a man wants you. If you did, then you would’ve seen it a while ago.”
“How long is a while ago?”
“Doesn’t matter. Fact of the matter is, you were playing with things you didn’t understand, and I told you. I told you, but you didn’t listen.”
“I’m listening now,” she said.
“Doesn’t mean anything.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t mean anything?” Her voice rose a pitch, and he turned away from her, heading out of the kitchen. Rose followed after him, abandoning her stew.
“I’ve got work to do.”
“You were going to make food,” she said.
“Now I’m not.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t just come in intending to make food and then not make it. You can’t just kiss me and tell me you want me and then walk away.”
“Which of these things is bothering you more? Are you truly that bothered by me not making food?”
“I am bothered,” she said, tumbling outside the house onto
