Cowboy Casanova - Lorelei James [141]
A few more people wandered in, and Hope got busy serving and chatting with the ladies, admiring projects and pictures of completed gifts they’d already mailed off to relatives for the holiday season.
It was over an hour later before she realized she was alone with him in the shop. It was obvious, no matter what she said, he was going to do whatever he pleased.
She wasn’t sure if that pissed her off or if she liked his stubbornness.
After filling a mug with coffee, she brought it over and placed it in front of him. “If you’re planning on staying much longer, you should know I will drape a display quilt over your back.”
Matt stood, pausing to brush his palms against his thighs before picking up the coffee and taking a long swallow. He closed his eyes as he hummed in approval, and she allowed herself one brief fantasy of kissing her way across his firm jawline, tasting his lips.
She snapped her gaze back up to meet his, attempting her most innocent expression possible.
He was grinning. “Am I in your way?”
She shrugged. “Not really, but I still don’t understand what you’re up to. Go home, Matt. If you don’t have chores to do, you certainly don’t need to waste a day off in my shop.”
He moved aside a basket full of patterns for Christmas ornaments and sat on the stool he’d cleared. “Yes, I’ve got some time off today, but I don’t consider it a waste to spend it here.”
Bloody fool. “What the hell is going on? Just tell me.”
“I want to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for help.”
“But you said we were going to be friends.”
Hope opened her mouth to respond and nothing came out. Friends. The night she’d offered that word to him rushed back. Her brain flooded with too many erotic images. Him stripping down, his cock tenting the front of his boxers. She might have had her eyes open a tiny crack as he stripped, and her penance was that now she had a good idea exactly what size equipment he was packing.
The sight of him, the feel of his hard body underneath hers in the tub—all of it rendered her speechless to respond.
Friends?
Good Lord. She was going to die right there in the shop.
This time, he’s not giving her up without a fight.
His Only Hope
© 2011 Skylar Kade
After two grueling years caring for her terminally ill mother, Hope O’Shea is eager to start fresh. Except her first interior-decorating job is for a popular BDSM club—part of her kinky past she misses, but had to leave behind.
Worse, she somehow ends up in the arms of her ex-Dom, Gabriel Cassidy. The one man who could strip her emotions bare, so bare that rather than reveal her painful history, she ran.
Gabriel never understood why Hope left without even a goodbye. Determined to get answers, he entices her to Maison Domine for a weekend on the promise of meeting the owner for another decorating job. Except being with her again reminds him why he loved her in the first place—and why she shouldn’t trust him as her Dom.
As their attraction reignites, Hope is transported back to the sub-space bliss she felt only with Gabe. Then a nightmare from her past shows up at the club, and with no other safe place to turn, she has no choice but to trust Gabe with her shame. Leaving Gabe with a devastating choice—reveal his last secret…or lose his Hope.
Warning: This book contains a feisty interior decorator, a dominating leather worker, heart-wrenching sex and redemption.
Enjoy the following excerpt for His Only Hope:
Gabe’s lips thinned and his dark brown eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, somewhere mysterious where no one from your prior life knows your location?”
That kind of snark had been her territory, not his. You have