Authors: Gigi Moore
She couldn’t figure out if she was so turned on because she had just barely escaped being trampled or because Carson was the one who had rescued her.
Desiree lifted her face from his soft cotton shirt in time to hear the spectator applause as if she were emerging from deep underwater.
They all thought her appearance and near-trampling were part of the show. Didn’t Desiree just wish!
“She all right?” one of the play-outlaws asked as he and his partners got off their horses and rushed to where Carson and Desiree sat on his horse.
“I think so,” Carson answered for her.
Desiree remained silent and watched as he signaled to the men. In the next moment the three outlaws headed over to the bleachers, clapping their hands and informing the crowd that the show was over for now and they had to clear out.
Carson turned his horse back around to the sound of ahs and groans as the crowd grudgingly dispersed. He steered the horse back toward town and that’s when Desiree noticed her basket overturned in the middle of the road.
“My pie!”
“Pie?” Carson swung around in his seat, green eyes raking up and down the length of her with obvious shock and more than a little disdain.
“Authentic Louisiana pecan pie,” she murmured in her defense, knowing how deranged she must sound. Here she’d almost been killed and she was worried about damn pie. She couldn’t help it, though. She’d put a lot of effort into making that pie, had pretty much risked life and limb to get it to Carson, and after all this he probably wouldn’t get a chance to sample it.
Carson sneered at her pitiful attempt at an explanation.
“
C'est sa couillon.”
“What did you just call me?”
“I said you’re an idiot.” He looked like he was ready to thump her on the head with his finger just for good measure, as if she was a little kid who’d misbehaved in church.
Like Desiree didn’t already feel pretty freaking small and foolish enough. “Well damn, don’t hold back, Mr. Quarry, just tell me how you really feel.”
Carson gritted his teeth as he dismounted his horse and reached up for her to do the same.
Desiree looked down into the storm cloud that was the man’s face and hesitated.
“Haven’t you caused enough trouble already? Come on down. Now.”
Well, when he puts it that way
. Desiree automatically felt her dander go up. Okay, she was totally in the wrong, but he didn’t have to be such a jerk and still giving her the hairy eyeball while he was at it! “I can get down myself.”
“Wait, don’t do tha—”
Adding insult to near injury, Desiree’s foot missed the stirrup as she tried to dismount and she went tumbling off the horse face forward. If it hadn’t been for Carson coming to her rescue yet again, she would have landed on the hard-packed dirt headfirst. He caught her against his chest and silently held her close.
It took a moment for Desiree to realize it wasn’t just her own heart pounding in her ears.
“What? Are you on a suicide mission today?”
Was that a tremor she heard in his voice? Nah, it couldn’t be, not from the big, bad, arrogant cowboy. “You can put me down now.”
He murmured something else in that foreign tongue that Desiree presumed was French, his voice deep and moving through her like warm butter.
She fought the shudder trying to ride through her body, not wanting to give him the wrong idea, even if she was ready to tear off his clothes and start licking him from head to toe like an ice cream cone. “You know you could do that in English. I know you’re already not afraid to insult me to my face.”
“I said I’d rather not.”
“Rather not—”
“Put you down. Not insult you to your face.”
“Oh.” Why would he rather not put her down? Shouldn’t getting her down and away from him be his top priority since she seemed to have pretty much ruined his life? At least he acted like she had. “Please put me down.”
Carson did, taking his sweet time about letting her slide down his body to stand on her own. Once her feet were on terra firma he still maintained contact, however, hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “You all right,
cher
?”
“I’m fine thank—”
Cher? Whoa, buddy. What was that all about?
However, rather than ask him, afraid of the answer, Desiree said,
“I’m fine, thanks to you. And now I need to go see if I can salvage my pie.” She headed toward the overturned basket with Carson on her heels.
“What is so damned important about that pie?”
She turned a glare on him, fists on her hips. “I went through a lot of trouble to get your mother’s recipe just right, okay? I just wanted you to try it and see if it was good or not, that’s all. Sam already tried some and loved it, at least he said he did, and I wanted your opinion, too, since it’s your mother’s recipe and…”
“You said that already.”
“God, I’m babbling.” She watched one corner of his mouth tilt up at this, and her heart near about stopped at the unfamiliar sight. Not to mention her face heated with what she was sure continued to be a fierce blush.
“I’m sorry for calling you an idiot.”
The regret in his voice drew her eyes up to his, and at five-five that involved her tilting back her head more than a little to meet his unflinching green stare. Yeah, he was a tall drink of water, at least six-three by her guesstimate—six-three of solid, broad-shouldered muscles.
Desiree swallowed as she remembered exactly how some of those muscles felt when he’d lifted her, biceps and triceps of lean, banded steel. She tried not to think about the hard, ripped abs she’d felt beneath her hands when she’d had her arms around his waist, or she’d just completely lose her good sense. She swallowed before she said, “I
was
an idiot. I could have gotten someone hurt, not just myself.”
“There was no way you could have known—”
“I was in the way, plain and simple.”
Carson moved one hand from her shoulder up to her face and cupped her cheek.
Desiree felt an electrical current shoot through her body at the skin-to-skin contact, his work-roughened hand warm and invigorating on her face.
He rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone, just under her eye, back and forth, back and forth, his movements gentle, hypnotic, and slow. “I’d like a taste now.”
Was she hearing things? He’d certainly voiced
her
thoughts. She’d like a taste of him now, tomorrow, whenever she could get it. Her panties moistened at the image of her licking his bare chest as he lay on her bed, wanting her as much as she wanted him.
Where was this sudden carnality coming from? It surprised her, not just because it had been so long since she’d touched or been touched by a man so intimately but because one of the last times that she had, the experience hadn’t exactly been something she wanted to remember. In fact, the experience had been something she wanted to forget completely for the violence and pain it wrought.
Desiree cleared her throat. “Pardon?”
“Your pie. I’d like a taste. That is, if any of it’s salvageable.”
It had to be more salvageable than her mind at the moment. The man was really making her lose it big time. This was dangerous. She knew he didn’t like her, that he wanted to keep his distance. Did she really want him to like her and close the distance, though? Things had been bad enough for her when she entertained the attentions of a man who claimed to like her then did unimaginable things to her in the name of finding her attractive and wanting her.
Desiree turned from that magnetic gaze to get her bearings before crouching down to retrieve her basket. She lifted the linen cloth to peek beneath. The pie inside hadn’t been damaged at all. Only a slice had spilled out and gotten flattened in the dirt, making the overall damage to her peace offering minimal.
“My partner must have wanted that piece,” Carson said.
Desiree stood and saw the teasing gleam in his eyes. He made a joke. Would wonders never cease! “He must have.”
“Did I hear my name?”
Desiree and Carson both turned to see the cowboy who had been playing the deputy to Carson’s sheriff as he paused just behind them.
“The varmint has radar whenever food’s involved,” Carson stage-whispered to Desiree, then said, “If the lady says it’s all right, you can have a piece of…” he paused here, giving her a meaningful glance, “her authentic Louisiana pecan pie, Miller.”
Miller rubbed his hands together and licked his chops. “Sounds like a good deal.”
Thank goodness for Miller! Alone with Carson, Desiree had started to contemplate some decidedly unwise possibilities. After all, what could exist between the two of them?
Now Desiree had something entirely different to focus on than her lust, yet she remained anxious. Carson had made his pronouncement as if her pie were the best thing since sliced bread and she feared that it wouldn’t live up to his buildup.
She pulled back the linen cloth further and Miller didn’t hesitate to reach in and scoop out a piece with the spatula that was inside.
He took a hearty bite of the pie and began humming as he closed his eyes.
After several moments of watching the rapturous look on the man’s face, Desiree couldn’t take the suspense anymore. “Well? How is it?”
“Huh?” Miller opened his eyes to glance from Desiree to Carson and back again as if coming out of a trance. “I thought you knew from my humming and the look on my face.”
Desiree laughed as Carson swatted at Miller’s head with his Stetson while Miller ducked and dodged, laughing as he left the two of them alone again.
“Hits the spot right nice after a shootout!” he said over his shoulder.
“I feel bad now that I didn’t bring some lemonade or something else to wash this down with,” Desiree said.
“Next time.” Carson clapped and rubbed his hands like Miller and Sam had before him and reached in for a piece of the pie.
Desiree’s heart pounded with his inference that there would be a “next time” as well as the idea that he was about to bite into something she had made with him and his brother especially in mind.
She was treading in risky waters and berated herself for bringing attention to herself unnecessarily. Things had been simpler when he’d thought her an annoyance to be avoided and she’d avoided him for self-preservation. Now he’d touched her, made her feel real, and she had nothing to offer him beyond a damaged shell.
What healthy, red-blooded man wanted to deal with her kind of baggage? She didn’t even want to deal with it half the time, but she had no choice.
Carson paused with the pie to his mouth. “If this is as good as your flan, don’t be afraid when you see my eyes roll up in my head like Miller’s. Just know I’m not having a seizure.” He took a bite before Desiree could reply and immediately closed his eyes as he began to chew.
She was glad, as it gave her a chance to admire him without being watched by those green laser-beam eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
The sun revealed the red highlights in his longish black hair, softening the appearance so much her fingers itched with the desire to run through it. Shaking her head, she moved her gaze farther down to his lightly tanned face, taking in the strong, sculpted jaw and the contrasting sight of long, lush lashes just brushing his cheekbones.
Desiree paused at his throat, the slight expanse of skin exposed by the two undone buttons at his collar. She looked at the pulse beating in his neck, surprised by the overwhelming urge to put her lips against it, the hunger that demanded she suck and nibble his neck—
mark
him—
as she ran her hands over the hard-muscled breadth and curves of his torso.