Cathy Thacker - One Wild Cowboy and A Cowboy To Marry - One Wild Cowboy / A Cowboy to Marry

The only thing Dylan liked less than being put on the spot was seeing a strong, independent woman like Emily reduced to making up stories simply to get her interfering family out of her business.

“I can’t believe you would even think that!” Emily sputtered.

Something about her vulnerability got to Dylan.

He’d never been prone to rescuing damsels in distress—because that could only lead to trouble. But this was different.

So he did the only thing that he knew would shut everyone up.

He wrapped his arm around Emily’s slender shoulders, pivoted her slightly and brought her all the way against him.

Chapter Two

Shock rendered Emily completely still. She couldn’t believe Dylan was about to kiss her, but she could not deny the electric jolt of the first brush of his lips. Suddenly breathless, she found herself closing her eyes and parting her lips. Darn it all, this reckless cowboy was one fine kisser. And she was susceptible as could be to the seductive heat of his mouth, combined with the masculine certainty of his tall, strong body pressed against hers. Despite her efforts to remain immune to this ridiculously false display of affection, she impulsively wound her arms around his neck. And still he kept on kissing her, until she shivered with sheer pleasure and the rest of the world literally fell away...

Dylan hadn’t meant to get so caught up in the moment. And maybe he wouldn’t have, had Emily’s lips not been so incredibly sweet, her body so warm and womanly.... This was supposed to be his chance to put the audacious heiress in her place and make sure she never made false claims about the two of them again.

And yet, the kiss that had started out merely as a way to knock her off balance and show her who was boss swiftly turned into much, much more. It was an invitation to delve further into the chemistry between them. A lightning bolt of desire that instinct told him neither of them would soon forget.

He might not be the right kind of guy for her, or she the right kind of woman for him, but the passion between them was potent. Too potent, Dylan decided, for the kiss to continue.

It took everything he had to let the passionate embrace come to a halt. And a second after that he was reminded that they had an audience.

All three of her big brothers looked at him as if they wanted to clock him.

Dylan could hardly blame them.

Had Emily been his wildly impetuous baby sister...

Blushing, Emily stepped back slightly, grabbed Dylan’s sleeve and held on tight. “You know,” she said, seemingly making up words on the fly with the same impetuousness that had him kissing her, “that wasn’t the smartest move either of us has ever made, Dylan. But,” she continued before any of the four males around her could interrupt, “that’s what happens when you’re in love.” She paused to beam at him. “Right, Dylan?”

Once again, he had a chance to put her in place. All he had to do was disavow having any feelings at all for her. Tell the truth about their “date.”

Certainly, it would have been the wise thing to do—if he wanted to end this craziness.

For some reason, he didn’t.

Dylan rocked back on his heels, braced his hands on his waist and shrugged in the direction of her outraged brothers. “I’m not sure there are words that would ever adequately explain this situation,” he said.

“You’ve got that right,” Emily concurred. “Besides, we should get a move on. We have to go back to the café and pick up the rest of the desserts for the buffet.” She dropped her grip on his sleeve, clasped his hand in hers and tugged Dylan away from her still-scowling, perplexed brothers. “See you later, guys!” She tossed the dismissive words over her shoulder.

Seconds later, Dylan felt Emily begin to disengage her hand from his.

Loath to let her go—because that would have meant he was letting her call all the shots, which was not a good precedent to set—Dylan held tight.

She turned, flashed a smile that did not reach her pretty eyes and then whirled around and kept going.

Half a block of historic downtown buildings later, she had unlocked the front door to the Daybreak Café, stormed inside and shut the door behind them. Still fuming, she promptly wrested her hands from his. “All right, cowboy!” she snapped, pausing only to give him a long, withering glare. “You have one heck of a lot of explaining to do!”

* * *

EMILY EXPECTED AN APOLOGY. It was, after all, the only decent thing to do, given the outlandishly passionate way Dylan had just kissed her. In front of an audience of her family and countless others, no less!

“Hey.” Dylan mocked her impudently. “I’m not the one still claiming to have a date with a person who’s already rejected me!”

Indignation warmed Emily’s cheeks. “Claim what you like, cowboy, if it soothes your ruffled feelings, but there was nothing ‘rejecting’ about that kiss you just gave me.”

“I never said I didn’t desire you,” Dylan volleyed back in a low, rich voice that practically oozed testosterone.

He was acting as if their madcap embrace was a good thing. “How dare you, anyway!”

He stepped forward and further invaded her space. “How dare you?”

With effort, Emily ignored the sexual tremors starting deep inside her. Determined to get command of a situation that was fast escalating out of control, she extended her index finger and tapped him on the center of his rock-solid chest. “Let’s get something straight, Dylan.” She waited until she was certain she had his full attention. “My request for help did not include anything sexual.”

He winked at her facetiously. “Too bad, ’cause if it had, I might have said yes.”

Emily curtailed the urge to deck him for that remark. She didn’t know what he was up to now, but she did not like it one bit. “Furthermore, you are incredibly ill-mannered.”

“Never claimed to be otherwise,” Dylan said with a careless shrug.

Emily arched her eyebrows and ignored his pronouncement. “And you owe me an apology for that kiss.”

“You owe me an apology for that kiss!” he countered just as emphatically, even as her knees grew weaker still.

“Really.” She lifted her chin, drew a deep breath. “Really?”

Dylan looked at her as if he already knew what it felt like to make love to her. “You bet your hot temper you do!”

“Listen, cowboy, I did not start that!”

He moved closer, once again towering over her. “You sure continued it enthusiastically though, didn’t you?”

Darned if he hadn’t made her flush all over again.

Emily’s spine stiffened. “Only because I didn’t want to make my brothers suspicious,” she retorted, hanging on to her composure by a thread.

“Yeah, well,” he pointed out glibly, “you sure failed on that count.”

Emily blinked. “Are you kidding? They thought our embrace was so genuinely hot they wanted to punch you out.”

And whether Dylan wanted to admit it or not, their clinch had been genuinely hot. As well as definitely misguided, Emily thought, pushing aside the potent fantasy this discussion was evoking.

The last thing she needed to be thinking about was kissing him again, she reminded herself firmly.

And she certainly didn’t need to be imagining Dylan’s beautifully muscled body stretched out alongside her own.

Or fixate on the fact that everywhere she was soft, he’d be hard. Everywhere he was male, she’d be female....

He regarded her with a devil-may-care glint in his eyes. “Your siblings wanted to throttle me because they suspected it wasn’t a real date and therefore felt I had no place making out with you—on the town square no less.”

“They had a point about that, Dylan. You did not have a right to haul me into your arms and plant one on me.”