Brenda Jackson - Hot Westmoreland Nights / Scandalising the CEO

They walked up the stairs and when they reached the landing they walked down the hall. “Nice place.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ve seen it before.”

She arched her brow. “No, I haven’t. Earlier today when you left your door wide open, I had no reason to snoop around up here. My job was in the kitchen area and no other part of your house.”

He wondered if she could be believed, and when he glanced over his shoulder again he couldn’t help but note how she was checking out several of the bedrooms they passed. Maybe she hadn’t come snooping after all. He had five guest rooms all with their own private baths. At twenty-three, Gemma was the interior designer in the family. She had been more than happy to spend his money to lavishly decorate each of his bedrooms. And she was dying to get started on the rooms downstairs once he gave her the go-ahead. That wouldn’t be for a while. He was still recovering from having her underfoot when she’d done the upstairs.

“Sorry, my mistake,” he apologized by saying.

When they reached the bedroom that she would be using, he stood back to let her enter. He could tell from her expression that he had made a wise choice. She liked it, which meant she was a frilly, lacy and soft colors kind of girl. While she was standing in the middle of the room, scanning the room in awe, he placed her luggage on the bed.

His first inclination was to bid her good-night and leave her standing right there, but something about the expression on her face stopped him. She actually seemed absorbed. He somehow understood. Gemma’s interior design work could do that to you. He would be one of the first to admit that his sister was good. The money used to send her to college had been well spent.

He doubted there was ever a time Gemma hadn’t wanted to be an interior designer. He could vividly recall how she had made curtains for his first car—a bright red Chevy—when she was eight. To not hurt her feelings he had mounted the things in the car’s rear window hoping that none of his friends saw them.

“Whoever decorated this part of your home did a fantastic job,” Chloe said, as her gaze returned to Ramsey.

Chloe noted that he was looking at her again, with the same intensity that he’d looked at her earlier that day. And as she stared back his gaze never wavered, it held hers deep within its scope. Without words, with barely a breath, something was taking place between them. She wished she could dismiss her theory and believe she was just imagining things, but there was no make-believe with the heat consuming her body. Her breasts suddenly felt swollen and her nipples seemed tender against the fabric of her dress.

Her gaze moved from his face and scanned his body downward and was glad to see she was not the only one affected by the moment. He was aroused. Fully. There was no way he could hide it and he wasn’t trying to. Her gaze shifted back to his face and what she saw in the depths of his eyes almost took her breath away. There were promises of hot, lusty nights, more pleasure than she could probably stand, kisses that would start at her mouth and end between her thighs and an explosion that would shatter every single thing within her. She paused for breath at the thought that those were real promises she saw in his gaze and not a figment of her imagination.

Then she also saw something else in the depths of his eyes beside those promises. She saw a warning. If she couldn’t stand the heat, then she needed to stay out of the kitchen. At that moment she pulled in a wary breath. Was Ramsey Westmoreland the one man she could not handle?

“I’ll leave you alone to unpack,” he finally said, breaking the intense sexual tension that surrounded them. “You have your own bathroom, which I believe you’ll find more than sufficient.”

She nodded. Her ability to speak had escaped her.

“Good night, Chloe. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She could only stand and stare after him as he left the room.

There was no doubt about it. He had to get her out of his house, Ramsey thought, as he paced his bedroom hours later. What had happened in the guest room tonight was uncalled for, but still pretty much unclear. He had come within seconds of crossing that room, bending his head and taking her mouth with his to satisfy the hunger he felt. The hunger he was still feeling. The thought of his tongue mingling with hers while he held her tight against the heat of his chest caused the hot stab of arousal to nearly knock him to his knees.

And where on earth had such passion come from? It had nearly taken over him, transformed his brains into mush and had filled his mind with naughty thoughts of all the things he wanted to do to her. He pulled in a deep breath deciding he needed to analyze the situation. He needed to determine just how they had come to this point.

He would be the first to admit there had been a strong sexual attraction from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. A rush of hot blood had shot through his veins, had hammered away at his insides, and an awareness as profound as anything he’d ever encountered before had zinged through him with the force of a volcano erupting. Every nerve, every bone and every muscle in his body had been affected.

And things hadn’t gotten any better during the lunch hour when he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her just as Callum had claimed. And he had a feeling that the reason Eric and Thel had probably backed off hadn’t been because of any feeling of defeat where she was concerned. They had retreated because they’d picked up on his interest. If Callum had noticed his staring at her, then there was a strong possibility others had as well. And because doing such a thing was so unlike him, they probably figured he was being territorial. Had he been?

He rubbed his hands down his face as he uttered a frustrated curse. She was probably in her bed, sleeping peacefully between the sheets, while he was the one walking the floor with an erection that was keeping him awake. He seriously considered going into her room, getting her up and asking her to leave. How crazy was that? To even contemplate doing such a thing showed just how close to the edge he was.

Of his four brothers he was the one who could generally take a woman or leave her just where she stood. His love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude unnerved his siblings who thought he spent more time sleeping with his sheep than with women. Considering the time he’d done duty as a sheepherder over the past year, that accusation was not a lie. But it really wasn’t any of their business. And he had been quick to point out—especially to his brothers and male cousins—that they were spending enough time chasing women without him, boosting profits for the condom industries and making it quite obvious they were men on the prowl the majority of the time. He cringed at the reputations some of them had.

And he had been quick to assure them that his decision to not bed women as often as they did had nothing to do with Danielle McKay, the woman who had walked off, leaving him standing at the altar ten years ago at a church filled with over two hundred guests. The really sad thing was that his family had liked her, until they’d discovered the truth as to why she had walked out on him in front of everyone with an “I’m sorry,” instead of an “I do.”

She had later confessed to having an affair that had resulted in a pregnancy. To her credit, at least she’d had the decency to not go through with the wedding instead of passing the kid off as his. But what his family hadn’t known and what he’d kept hidden was that it had been a sense of obligation and not love that had driven him to ask Danielle to marry him in the first place. So in reality, her calling off the wedding had been a blessing in disguise.