Devious - Lisa Jackson [121]
“Really?” She tried not to notice that his shirt hiked up as he stretched, exposing those lean, hard muscles of his abdomen, the trail of dark hair that slipped beneath the waist of his jeans.
“You don’t remember?” He cast a surprised look down at her, one of his eyebrows arching.
“That you were into high tech?” she asked. “No.”
“I said ‘closeted.’ ”
She rolled her eyes up at him. “So it’s true. The wife is the last to know.”
“ ‘The wife’ hasn’t been around much lately,” he reminded her, and the barb was as sharp as the Pomeroy utility knife she was planning to use on the wide tape that sealed the five boxes she’d found in the attic over her small garage.
There it was between them.
The marriage.
The impending divorce.
She didn’t want to think about that, not right now. “So you really are the computer-genius cowboy?”
“Yes’m,” he drawled, twirling the screwdriver like it was a six-shooter, then holstering it into his jeans pocket. “Here at the BS Ranch—and that BS stands for Briarstone, don’tchaknow—we do it all. Everything from pulling calves to restoring laptops.” His crooked, decidedly sexy smile stretched wide.
“BS is right,” she said, and laughed for the first time in what seemed like eons. She also remembered why she’d fallen so hard and fast for him. Oh, Slade, she found herself thinking, if only we could start over—wipe the slate clean.
She realized then that she’d never stopped loving him.
Her throat caught for a second. What an idiot.
You can never go back. Didn’t she believe that old axiom? Her smile faded as she saw the empty years stretching out before her. Her parents and sister dead, her husband an ex and living at the Triple H, far, far away in a long-distant past. Oh, God, now she was getting maudlin.
Fool!
She felt her cheeks burn and prayed Slade had no idea what she was feeling.
“Let’s see what you think.” Slade carried the laptop to her desk, where he set it down. He was standing so near her she smelled a hint of his aftershave, and it brought back memories of lying in bed, his scent still lingering on the pillows long after he’d gotten up to feed the livestock. Irritated, she pushed the wayward memory aside.
He was standing half behind her, one shoulder nearly brushing her back, his face even with hers as he pushed a few buttons on the keyboard. “Try something.”
“Such as?”
He slid a glance at her from the corner of his eye. “Well, I was talking about a program on the computer, but if you have something else in mind . . .” His voice was low and suggestive.
“In your nightmares, Cowboy.”
“And yours, I’ll bet.”
“I’m not having this discussion with you!” She sounded tough, but inside she was melting.
His laugh was low. Mocking. As if he knew what she was thinking. She turned her head and noticed his belt buckle, right at eye level, the faded fly of his jeans, right above the top of her desk and slightly rounded.
Oh, great!
He was getting aroused, too?
Not good! Not good at all.
Quickly she turned her attention back to the computer screen. “Okay, hotshot,” she said, hating that she sounded slightly breathless. “Give me a demonstration.”
There was a pregnant pause, and she felt her cheeks burn.
“You can be such a bastard!” she said.
“And you love it.” His laugh was deep and rich, the timbre familiar.
“God, what an ego!”
Ignoring his amusement and his eye-level, jean-covered crotch, she reached for the computer’s mouse, plugged it in, and with a few clicks located the program she used for booking reservations at the inn. “Let’s see if I can cancel Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s rooms for the weekend.” She turned her mind away from the slight bulge at the front of Slade’s jeans and began working.
“You’re a tease, wife,” he said.
That makes two of us. “And you’re always thinking with