The Secret Child & The Cowboy CEO by Janice Maynard Page B

nightgown lay on the bed but she was still dressed. The lingerie was a silky swathe of cream lace and mauve satin. He swallowed, dragging his gaze away from it and focusing on her face. “I have to leave in the morning.”
    â€œSo soon?”
    â€œNot for good,” he said swiftly. “But I have to fly to Denver for a meeting that I can’t handle over the phone. I’ll be gone less than twenty-four hours.”
    Bryn nodded slowly. “I’ll keep an eye on Mac. Despite what you think, Trent, I love him.”
    â€œEven though he sent you away?”
    Her smile was wry. “I’m trying to let go of the past.”
    He prowled the small space between the door and the bed. “Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
    She stood there staring at him with bare feet and a face washed clean of makeup. Young, vulnerable, sweetly sincere. “You can trust me, Trent. I swear.”
    His body hardened, and he groaned inwardly. How could he be sure of her when sex got in the way and clouded his judgment?
    He shook his head to clear it. But when he looked at her again, she was more appealing to him than she had been mere moments before. His feet took him to her side. Her pull was inescapable.
    She stiffened when he wrapped her in his arms. “I’m not playing this game with you, Trent.”
    The quaver in her voice hurt something deep in his chest. “I can assure you,” he said roughly. “This is no game.”
    He kissed her because it was the only thing he could do. Because if he didn’t, something inside him would shrivel and die. Because he was apparently weaker than he thought.
    She was everything he had ever wanted and didn’t know he needed. Her lips tasted like toothpaste and something else far more exotic. His past and his present woven into one complicated package.
    She fit him perfectly, her head tucked against his shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around his waist.He slid a hand beneath her shirt and stroked the soft skin on her back.
    When he tipped up her chin, their eyes met, his searching, hers filled with an emotion he shied away from. He wouldn’t let her twist him in knots. This violent attraction was about sex, nothing more.
    Slowly, waiting for her to protest, to escape his embrace, he bent his head. Their lips met easily, in perfect sync.
    He moved his mouth over hers gently, dragging out the pleasure, making his own heart race with the effort to hold back. What had happened on the mountain only whetted his appetite for more. This had nothing to do with Jesse. This was about scratching an itch. Or at the very least, proving to himself how far she was willing to go. He wanted her.
    Clothes drifted away in a sensual ballet. Skin heated. Voices hoarsened with desire. His and hers.
    This time Bryn was the one to call a halt. Pale but calm, she slipped from the bed and donned her robe.
    â€œI want you, Trent. But not like this. Not with mistrust between us.”
    Before he could summon a response, the shrill shriek of the smoke alarm sounded. For one crazed split second, he actually thought about dragging her down on the bed and saying to hell with it.
    But the memory of his father jarred him to reality.
    He rolled from the bed, groaning and cursing, and shoved his legs into his jeans. “This isn’t over,” he said.
    Â 
    Bryn knew her blood pressure must be through the roof. To go from desperate arousal to anxiety to fear so quickly made nausea swim in her stomach.
    She found Trent and Mac in the kitchen. Trent was swearing a blue streak, and Mac presided over a ruined skillet than contained the charred remains of what must have been eggs.
    Trent climbed on a chair to disable the smoke alarm. In the resultant silence, the three adults faced off in an uncomfortable triangle.
    Bryn had the misfortune to giggle.
    Trent glared and Mac chortled. Soon all three of them were laughing hysterically.
    Trent was the first to regain