“You’re dangerous.”
“Funny. That’s what everyone says about you,” Maia said.
Cole bent his head once more to the temptation of her bare neck. She was warm satin. He tasted her, teased her earlobe with his teeth. Before she could protest his action he lifted his head to distract her. “Why did you stick up for me in the diner the other day?” he asked. “Everyone believes I killed the old man. Why don’t you?”
Maia shivered, tried to pull her suddenly scattered defenses back around her. His mouth had sent small flames licking over her skin. “You were cleared as a suspect. It’s all they talk about sometimes, and it gets annoying. You were a thousand miles away when your father was murdered, but they want to believe you did it.” She burrowed closer to the warmth of his heart without realizing she was doing it. “You inherited all that money and the ranch after you left home and turned your back on your father. And then you dared to fire everyone. It’s human nature I guess. They want you to be guilty. And it gives them someone to talk about.”
“I still might have had it done,” he pointed out. His hands traced the contours of her back, slid down to her waist and over her hips.
“It was wrong of them. I felt bad for the boy. What is he? About fourteen, fifteen? He just lost his father, and they want to spread gossip about his guardian. It’s malicious, and it makes me angry.”
“He’s fourteen, and he hated the old man.” Cole heard the contemptuous words come out of his mouth. He never revealed anything private to anyone, least of all a complete stranger or a woman he had sex with. What the hell had gotten into him?
They weren’t even dancing anymore, just holding one another and swaying, their bodies moving in a perfect rhythm. His arms tightened around her, and he drew her hips closer to him. The rest of the room seemed to have fallen away, leaving them wrapped in a world of two. Maia looked up at his face. Something fluttered in her stomach. His head began to descend toward hers, inch by slow inch. She could see lines etched into his face, the shadow on his jaw, his long eyelashes and the intent in his hungry eyes.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I have to.”
“I said no. Very decisively.” Maia pulled her head back to keep his lips from touching hers. She’d be lost if he kissed her with his sinful mouth. She was taking no chances.
“You are a such a coward. You’re running.”
“Like a rabbit,” she confirmed.
“You haven’t asked me why I was in jail. Is that the reason you won’t take me home with you?”
His hands were making slow circles along her spine. His erection was pressed tightly against her stomach. She ached in places she didn’t know could ache. “I haven’t asked why because it isn’t my business,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief when the song ended. “I have to play.”
Cole let her slip out of his arms because if he held her any longer, he was going to throw her over his shoulder and take her out of there to any place he could have her to himself for a long, long time. He managed to make it back to his seat without breaking anything. He took a long pull on the beer. It was warm and did nothing to cool the fire racing through his veins.
Cole watched her through half-closed eyes, already staking his claim on her, making certain the other men in the bar knew she belonged to him. No woman had ever gotten to him before. She seemed lost in her music, unaware of him when he was burning for her.
His cell phone beeped, and, scowling, he glanced down to identify the caller. “What is it, Jase?” Cole demanded, his eyes on Maia. If she smiled one more time at the lunkhead in the front row, he was going to have to smash his beer bottle right over the man’s head.
For a moment there was silence, then a harsh, tearing sob. “I trusted you. You knew I cared about him. You knew Celtic High mattered to me.”
Cole went still. “What are you talking about, Jase? Calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
“The bay. He’s all torn up. What’d you do to him?”
“I didn’t do a damned thing to him,” Cole bit the words out in anger before he could stop them. “I’ll have the vet there in an hour.” It was over an hour’s drive to the ranch, but he could shave off minutes. He couldn’t blame Jase for accusing him. The kid had been taught not to trust anyone, but it still hurt. Much worse than that, Cole couldn’t help his own suspicions. He’d investigated the kid’s past, looking for red flags, cruelty to animals, anything that might indicate the old man had passed on his sick genes, but he’d found nothing. Still, the doubt crept in.