Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
The two cups of still steaming hot food were now pressed against his back—which I just now realized he wasn’t wearing a rain slicker any longer—and he had to feel it. Yet he held firm as he spoke to the man that had downright terrified me. His hand never strayed up or down, but the position his hand was in was almost intimate.
Other things inside of me started to throb.
I licked my lips, then placed my forehead against the soft material of his t-shirt, directly in the middle of his shoulder blades.
Then I inhaled and forgot what I was doing.
He smelled so good.
Laundry detergent—Tide, the same as mine—a spicy smell that was likely his deodorant, and sweat.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Yet, it did things to me inside that I hadn’t felt in quite a long time—not even with my husband.
Matt, after a while, had always felt like a job for me. Something I had to do to keep him interested—which obviously hadn’t worked, so who was I kidding?
But just standing there, pressed against Steel’s body while he spoke to a man in front of him, I realized what I was missing with Matt after a while.
The intense attraction.
This feelings that I had for Steel? They had the potential to be overwhelming.
Hell, it was damn near at that point already, and I’d only just realized my desire for him over a few weeks.
None of those times that I spent with him, though, were anything I could quite point my finger at as to why I was feeling this for him.
There had been no overt advances on his part, and hell, sometimes I wasn’t even sure he liked me.
Yet, the longer he stayed there, his hand on the curve of my ass, the more I realized that the attraction to him was only getting stronger and stronger.
The man at Steel’s side shifted, and I heard him start to speak.
“Civilians are being moved out by bus to a different location,” the Texas Ranger, Griffin, explained. “The next bus out, you’re on it.”
“I’m a volunteer,” he argued.
“You’re not a volunteer,” Griffin countered. “You’ve been standing outside the tent all day, and at first I thought it was because someone you knew was here, but there’s not. You’re alone, and you haven’t done a damn thing to help all day. The next bus that leaves, you’re on it.”
The bus under discussion pulled up as if Griffin had called it.
They were using the city buses to haul the people out, taking them to a temporary holding facility. Once they made room at the shelter, they’d be moved from the temporary holding facility to the newest shelter.
“I’m here with my sister.”
“Who’s your sister?” Steel questioned.
The man opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Get on the bus now,” Steel growled.
The man narrowed his eyes, his gaze scanning from the tips of Steel’s toes to the top of his head. Then took note of the arm that he had around my ass and the eyes that I now had aimed at him.
Then smiled.
“Yes, sir.”
Then he walked to the bus and got on it, all the while whistling an upbeat tune.
“Fucker has been creeping me out all damn day,” Griffin growled.
Suddenly Steel turned, and I had to raise the cups up high in the air to keep him from knocking them to the floor with the suddenness of his movements.
“Whoa,” I said, swaying slightly.
He caught me around the hip and his hands came to a rest on my sides, which were now exposed due to me lifting my arms in the air.
He squeezed lightly, making sure I was steady, and then let me go.
His eyes, though…those eyes of his said he’d rather do anything but let me go.
But the look was gone in a blink of his eyes, and his careful expression was back on my face.
“Are you okay?”
I felt his concern in the pit of my belly, and I wanted nothing more than to launch myself into his arms.
I was scared.
That man…he brought up terrible memories.
I was so lost in my own mind, my hands still in the air, that I didn’t realize when Steel’s face turned from assessing to concerned.
The cups were removed from my hands, and Steel handed them over to Griffin.
“Winnie?”
He took my arms and brought them down, curling one hand around both of mine with room to spare.
I blinked, coming back to myself, and said, “Yeah?”
That’s when I realized he’d flattened both of my hands to the hard plane of his chest.
Jesus Christ.
Now my mind was lost for an altogether different reason.
I knew that Steel was older. Hell, it was hard to miss the silvering gray hair, and the way his beard was more gray than brown at this point.
But I hadn’t really realized how in shape he was—now I knew differently. Steel was just that…steel.
His muscular chest didn’t have an ounce of fat on it.