Don't Mess With Texas by Christie Craig Page B

for all he knew.
    He let his gaze move over her briefly—gorgeous hair, expressive eyes, lips that could fuel wet dreams. Breasts—real breasts. Silicon didn’t shimmy and shake like hers. And the softest skin he’d ever felt.
    She wasn’t tall. He did like long legs, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t miss them if he got to check out the entire package hidden behind that hospital gown.
    The tightening low in his gut sent his moral compass to full alert. The woman was in the hospital for Christ’s sake—had been puking her guts out, and here he was getting hot for her. Telling his libido to take a hike, he ran a hand over his face and stared at the curtain to clear his head.
    “My paintings usually sell for between eight hundred and three thousand dollars.”
    Forcing himself to look at her, he kept his eyes above her neck. “We’ll work that out later.”
    She shook her head and the damn gown took anotherslip off her shoulder. His moral compass got skewed again. He watched her pull it up.
    “How much do your services run?” she asked.
    “We’ll work that out later, too.” Oh, hell. He’d rather have what she’d first assumed he’d wanted to barter for, some no-strings-attached sex. Then again, hadn’t he just come to the conclusion that Nikki Hunt didn’t have no-strings-attached sex? While less than an hour ago, he hadn’t known her well enough to say she didn’t take her clothes off for a living, now he felt all the wiser. Something about her screamed pillow talk, slow walks on the beach, stay-overs, and commitment. All the things he’d given one woman, and vowed to never give another.
    “So how do we proceed?” She nipped at her pouty bottom lip.
    Carefully
. The one word bounced around his head as he tried not to think about how he would like to be the one nibbling on her bottom lip. “That depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On whether or not I arrest you,” Tony answered, appearing at the curtained entrance. “Can I talk to you?” he asked Dallas. The clenched muscle in his brother’s jaw told Dallas that something had happened. “Now.”
    Dallas looked at Nikki. Panic, no doubt at the thought of being arrested, rounded her blue eyes. Seeing her look so vulnerable and scared kicked his protect and serve instinct into high gear—never mind that he didn’t carry the badge anymore.
    He opened his mouth to tell her not to worry, to promise her he’d take care of everything. But that would have been a lie. First, Nikki Hunt was in a whole hell of a lot of trouble, and second… while Dallas might do everythinghumanly possible to prove her innocent, he didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep, especially to soft, angel-eyed women who would want more than he could give.
    “I’ll be right back,” he said.
    “You can be a bastard, can’t you?” Dallas told Tony as soon as he cleared the curtain.
    “Bastard?” Tony led him through a doorway to an empty corridor. “She’s a murder suspect. Or have you forgotten what that means?”
    “Yeah, well, seeing I was one of them myself not too long ago, it doesn’t mean shit!”
    His brother stopped walking and shook his head. “Okay, here’s the thing. I get the fact that you are sympathetic. I’ll even admit I see what you’re saying about this Nance kid being innocent. But this is me.
My case
. Don’t you know me well enough to know that I’m fair? That I’m not going to push for a conviction unless I believe it’s warranted?”
    “What I believe is that if she looks guilty, you’ll do your job. And your job, the job I used to do, sometimes puts innocent people in bad situations.”
    “You don’t know she’s innocent,” Tony snapped.
    “My gut says she is.”
    “Your gut isn’t the body part in charge right now. It’s your dick. Admit it. You want to get in her panties.”
    “I don’t want—”
    “Bullshit!” Tony jabbed a finger at him. “If you believe that, then you’re lying to yourself. I saw the way you were