The Rancher and the Redhead by Suzannah Davis

next day.
    Yawning, she headed for bed, kicking off her shorts and tennis shoes just inside Jessie’s door. She felt her way blindly in the darkness—and whacked her shin on the metal bed frame.
    â€œOuch!” Hopping, trying to suppress a whimper of pain, Roni reached for the bed and found nothing but air. Disoriented, she patted around until she found the small lamp on the bedside table and flicked it on. The soiled mattresses were missing—evidently moved out to air by Sam—and so was Jessie.
    Too tired to think now, moving strictly on instinct, Roni stumbled down the hall to Sam’s bedroom and peeked in. In the stream of light from the hall, she could see him sprawled out on the massive king-size bed, his bare chest and legs dark against the white sheet pulled over his middle. Miraculously, Jessie slept peacefully beside him, thumb in her mouth and bottom poked at the ceiling.
    They both looked so relaxed, and the bed so delicious, Roni didn’t even think. She crawled in beside her husband and daughter, gave a sigh and went right to sleep.
    * * *
    A cattleman’s instincts usually woke him up before dawn, but as Sam surfaced from the haze of sleep, he knew that something was different this morning.
    That something had warm silky skin and rounded curves and soft breasts, which at the moment were pressed against his side. Sam drew a careful breath, inhaling the fragrant scent of sleep-warmed woman, and opened one eye.
    Jessie had rolled away during the night and was lodged against the headboard, snoring softly, her cheeks pink, but not the hectic fever red of the past few days. Roni, the sneak thief of sleep, lay snuggled against Sam’s chest, the breath from her slightly open mouth wafting over his nipples, the hem of her cotton T-shirt shrugged up to reveal the long slender length of her legs and a glimpse of turquoise satin panties.
    Sam swallowed and shut his eyes again with an inner groan. Fire stirred in his middle. It would be nothing to roll her beneath him and quench that fire once and for all. Dammit, it felt so right to hold her, as if she truly belonged in his arms. And somehow she must feel it, too, or else why would she have sought him out in her sleep?
    Shifting slightly, he explored the fantasy, drifting his fingertips across the ruffled mass of her whiskey-brown curls, down her shoulder in a feather’s caress, softly, softly stroking the luscious curve of female flesh. He felt like a thief himself, stealing sensations while she slept on, but he could no more refrain himself than stop the flow of the Flat Fork River.
    He grazed his knuckles across the crest of her breast, watching in fascination as the nubby tip contracted, poking against the soft cotton knit with a will of its own. Almost imperceptibly, her breathing accelerated, but still she didn’t stir. Emboldened, he let his palm cup the heavy weight, thinking that nothing had ever fit his hand so well.
    Would they fit as well in other places? The question nearly drove him wild, and he groaned aloud.
    Roni jumped, awake yet not awake, her newly acquired mother’s instincts on instantaneous alert. Lifting herself with a hand splayed in the middle of his chest, she blinked owlishly at Sam. “Huh? What is it? Jessie—?”
    â€œShh. She’s all right.” His voice was husky, and he didn’t dare move, for the tight bud of her nipple pressed against his palm like a burning brand. “Go back to sleep.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Happy to take the suggestion, she shifted, fitting her head into the crook of Sam’s shoulder and resting her updrawn knee on his thigh with a voluptuous sigh of contentment.
    Sweat popped out on the back of his neck, and he gritted his teeth with the pleasure/pain of pure arousal. But she was oblivious, unaware what her innocent embrace was doing to his overloaded circuits, and he’d be the world’s worst kind of heel if he took any further advantage.