“Like what?”
“Like I’m something worth looking at.”
“Can’t help it.” He held my eyes. “You are.”
My pulse kicked. Cassie shifted beneath me, sensing the change in my body, the way my thighs tightened, the way my breathing went shallow.
“We should keep moving,” I said, but my voice came out rougher than I intended.
“Should we?”
“Yes.”
I nudged Cassie forward. Graham followed.
We rode in silence for another half mile, the trail climbing through a dense stand of ponderosa pine, and the whole time I was aware of him behind me in a way that had nothing to do with safety. I could hear Brutus’s hooves on the packed earth. Could hear Graham’s breathing. Could feel his presence like a hand pressed to the small of my back.
The trail curved around a boulder, and a branch hung low across the path. I ducked under it easily, but heard Graham swear softly behind me as it caught his shoulder.
I turned in the saddle. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just—” He was pulling a twig out of his hair, grinning at himself, and for some reason, the grin, the twig, the morning light in his hair, it all broke through every barrier I had left.
I wanted him.
Not in the abstract, distant way I’d been managing for days. Not the acknowledgment that yes, Graham Fraser was attractive and yes, my body had opinions about that.
I wanted him in the immediate, physical, devastating way that made my skin hot and my brain shut down. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted his mouth where it had been last night and then everywhere else. I wanted to know what he sounded like when he?—
The realization must have shown on my face, because Graham’s grin faded and his eyes went dark.
“Rose.”
“Don’t,” I said automatically.
“You’re looking at me the way I’ve been trying not to look at you for a week.”
“I’m not looking at you in any way.”
“You are.” His voice had dropped, gone rough at the edges. “And if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to have a very hard time staying on my side of the trail.”
Everything between us pulled tight. Two weeks of tension, of fighting this, of pretending we could keep our hands to ourselves, and it was all right there in the way he was looking at me and the way I couldn’t look away.
I turned Cassie around.
“Where are you?—”
“We’re going back,” I said.
Graham stared at me. “What?”
“We’re going back. Now.”
Confusion melted into understanding. Understanding caught fire.
“Rose—”
“Are you coming or not?”
