Page 17 of Broken Roads (Hard to Handle #1)

Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves. It's like we're suspended in time, trapped in this moment that stretches and expands until it fills the entire kitchen. My heart, a betraying drumbeat of want I can't silence, pounds so loudly I'm certain he must hear it.

This is insanity. This is Bradley Walker. The man who's fought me at every turn, who clearly resents my presence, who looks at me like I'm gum stuck to his boot rather than a person to be known.

So why does my body hum like a live wire under his gaze? Why does heat pool low in my belly, a liquid warmth that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the way his eyes have darkened?

Shame and panic hit me like twin tidal waves, drowning whatever insanity had momentarily possessed me.

Without a word, I bolt, pushing past him toward the hallway, desperate to escape the suffocating intensity of that kitchen, that look, that moment that should never have happened.

I have to get away before I do something unforgivable, like act on these wild thoughts inside my head.

My shoulder brushes against his chest, the brief contact sending a jolt through me. For a fraction of a second, I feel his breath catch, the slight tensing of his body as we connect.

Then I'm past him, bare feet slapping against the hardwood as I flee down the hallway like I'm being chased.

My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs, blood rushing in my ears loud enough to drown out any sound of pursuit.

Not that he would follow. The last thing Bradley Walker wants is to prolong any interaction with me.

Except that look in his eyes tells a different story.

When I finally reach my bedroom door, my fingers, suddenly clumsy, fumble with the knob. The latch gives way and I practically fall inside, pulling the door closed behind me with a soft click. I lean back against it, as if my weight might keep out the confusion that threatens to follow me inside.

My chest heaves with each shallow breath, the wet shirt now cold against my skin, raises goosebumps across my flesh.

I'm trembling. Not from cold, but from something deeper, more primal.

My body feels wound too tight, a guitar string tuned to the breaking point, vibrating with tension that has nowhere to go.

The memory of Bradley's face burns behind my eyelids when I close them.

The sharp angles of his jaw, the fullness of his lower lip, the heat in his gaze that transformed him from the cold, dismissive rancher into something else entirely.

Someone who looked at me and saw not the city girl, the outsider, the unwelcome intruder but a woman.

Just a woman, standing before him with water soaking her shirt and her heart in her throat.

I press my palms flat against the door behind me, needing to feel something solid and real.

This is madness. Complete madness. Bradley has made it abundantly clear that he resents my presence, my ideas, my very existence in his carefully ordered world.

One heated look in a moonlit kitchen doesn't change that fundamental truth.

And yet.

I can't deny what I saw in his eyes. What I felt in that charged silence between us. The recognition of something mutual and unwanted and powerful enough to leave us both speechless.

"Stop it," I whisper to the empty room. "Just stop."

Pushing away from the door on unsteady legs, I make my way to the dresser.

I need to change out of this wet shirt, need to wash away whatever madness possessed me in that kitchen.

My fingers find the hem, peeling the damp cotton away from my skin.

The air feels cool against my bare torso as I drop the shirt to the floor, but it does nothing to cool the heat that seems to have taken up residence beneath my skin.

I consider finding another shirt, but the thought of fabric against my sensitized skin is suddenly unbearable. Instead, I sink to the floor, back against the bed, knees pulled to my bare chest in a defensive posture that feels like the only thing holding me together.

What is wrong with me? I came here to do a job. To help save Walker Ranch, to prove to myself I'm still capable of building something instead of just destroying. I didn't come here to develop whatever this is for the last person on earth I should be attracted to.

Because that's what this is, isn't it? Attraction. Pure and simple and complicated all at once.

I close my eyes, but it only makes things worse.

In the darkness behind my lids, I see him again.

Filling the doorway, shadows playing across the planes of his face, and finally that moment when annoyance gave way to something heated and hungry.

I feel the brush of his body against mine as I passed him, the brief, electric contact that shouldn't have affected me so deeply but somehow reached into my core and ignited something I thought I'd buried.

My fingers dig into my bare shins, nails leaving crescent marks in the skin.

I should be thinking about tomorrow's presentation on updating the ranch's booking system.

Should be going over figures and projections and ROI calculations.

Should be doing anything except sitting half-naked on my bedroom floor, obsessing over a man who'd probably rather I disappear completely.

Resting my forehead against my knees, my hair falls around me like a curtain, shielding me from a world that suddenly feels too complicated.

My heart rate gradually slows, but the tension in my body refuses to dissipate entirely.

It coils within me, a spring wound too tight, waiting for release that won't come.

Outside my window, the Montana night continues, indifferent to my crisis.

Stars wheel across the vast sky, cattle shift in distant fields, and somewhere in this house, Bradley Walker is either cursing the moment our paths crossed or fighting the same unwelcome attraction that's currently tearing me apart.

I don't know which possibility terrifies me more.