Cinderella's Big Sky Groom by Christine Rimmer Page A

you believe me?”
    â€œWhat does it matter?”
    â€œIt matters.”
    She lifted her chin, drew herself up to her full five foot eleven in heels. “Why?”
    â€œI might not be the prince you’re looking for, but I would never have brought you here if there was something going on between your sister and me.”
    She kept glaring at him. She wanted so badly to be angry with him. But she wasn’t, not really. At least, not any angrier than she was with herself. She drew a calming breath and let it out slowly. “You shouldn’t have brought me here. And I shouldn’t have come.”
    What else could he say but “I know.”
    â€œThen why did you bring me here?” She threw out the question as a desperate challenge.
    He didn’t answer, only looked at her with eyes that promised things she shouldn’t let herself understand—shocking things, intimate things. Things she’d never done before. Things she probably never would do. Things that, if she ever did do, she wouldn’t do with him.
    Would she?
    â€œWhy?” she demanded again, to distract herself from the dangerous turn her own thoughts had taken. “Why did you bring me here?” She was hoping against hope that he would lie, say something tactful and easy, something to make everything right again, make everything safe.
    Instead, he told the truth on a low husk of breath. “I brought you here because I couldn’t bear to let you go.”
    She stared at him. She felt hot all over, suddenly. Her heart pounded hard and hurtfully, so loud to her own ears she was sure he must hear it.
    Get out, her wiser self insisted. Get out of here. Now.
    She backed away another step, enough to clear the doorway, so she was standing in the hall next to a narrow mahogany table with curving claw-footed legs.
    â€œLynn.”
    She froze again.
    And he asked the question she didn’t want to hear. “Why did you agree to come here with me?”
    â€œI…”
    â€œI answered you. Now answer me. Why?”
    Her mouth worked, but no words came out. She watched him, unable, somehow, to break the hold of his eyes and get out of there. He started walking toward her, eating up the space between them with slow, deliberate strides.
    Go, move, turn, run! her good sense shouted in her ear. But something else—a vivid longing that pulsed through her in heated, needful waves—held her there until he reached her.
    He took her glass, set it on the claw-footed table. He set his own glass down there, too. Then he cupped her chin in both of his big, fine hands.
    â€œWhy did you come here?” he demanded, so softly this time. The feel of his hands on her skin was pure heaven. His breath touched her upturned face, melted something inside her.
    â€œI…”
    â€œYes?” Urgent. He sounded urgent. Her own body seemed to answer that urgency with an erotic insistence all its own.
    â€œTell me.” He brushed his lips across hers. Oh, that felt lovely. She wished he’d do it again.
    Maybe he would if she confessed the truth. “I didn’t want the night to end.” Her voice was a throaty whisper. “It was wrong of me. So foolish…”
    â€œBut you came here anyway.”
    â€œYes. Because it’s my birthday. And it’s all been like magic. And I didn’t want it to be over, I didn’t want midnight to strike.”
    â€œBut it will.” His eyes looked sad now, sad and knowing. “Midnight does that,” he whispered. “It always comes. Eventually.” He ran his hands down her throat, an encompassing caress that made her heart stutter in her chest.
    Then he took her shoulders, gently and resolutely. “Do you want me to take you home now?”
    â€œNo.” The word got out before she could stop it. And then once it was out, she accepted the fact that it was only the truth.
    A smile played on his lips for a moment and was gone.