Read Online And Cowboy Makes Three (Cowboys To The Rescue 2) by Martha Shields - Free Book Online Page A

now I was wrong. Sorry, I can’t marry a man without a sense of humor. With my family, it’s absolutely necessary.”
    Feeling like he’d just taken several steps backward, Jake followed her. He captured her hand as she reached to open the refrigerator door. “I’m sorry. You pushed one of my hot buttons.”
    He knew his face looked harsh as she studied him over her shoulder.
    “I don’t understand why you hate your money so much,” she said.
    “I don’t hate the money. I hate the way it makes people treat me. But I only discovered that recently, which makes the button that much hotter for being new.”
    “How did you discover it?”
    “Alan’s will. And you.”
    Claire blinked. “Me? What did I do?”
    He smiled faintly. “You treat me like dirt.”
    “And you like this?”
    “Let’s just say it makes you a challenge. And I never could resist a challenge.”
    His arm crept around her waist, and he turned her to face him. Another thing he’d discovered was that his hands had a will of their own when he was around Claire. If she was within reach, they reached for her—her hair, her arms, her hands, her back. The physical connection soothed him and excited him at the same time. It excited her, too. Though she tried to pretend she was in control, he recognized the signs of desire.
    Satisfaction swept through him now as her lips parted slightly and her breathing became a little more rapid, a little more shallow.
    “I was just going to get some juice,” she said with studied nonchalance. “Want some?”
    He shook his head and leaned into her, pressing her back against the kitchen cabinet. “You’re avoiding the subject. You were naming the reasons you want to marry me.”
    Her gaze fell to his lips. “I was?”
    As he nodded, her eyes followed his mouth up and down. Jake felt his pulse picking up speed as her obvious desire ignited his. “Surely you can think of something else.”
    Color seeped into her cheeks. “I’ll get to have a baby.”
    His voice deepened. “True. Anything else?”
    She looked up to find him watching her. She must’ve liked whatever she saw in his eyes because she relaxed into him and smiled mischievously. “You’re a good kisser.”
    He took the hint, his mouth closing over hers. The desire nagging at the corners of the day bit deep as her warmth flowed into him. The sensations riding the hot waves of his blood were sharper and sweeter than he’d experienced with any other woman.
    “Well?” he murmured against her mouth.
    “Well what?”
    “How do you rate me as a kisser—on a scale of one to ten?”
    Claire pulled back far enough to peer into his hooded eyes. About three million. Aloud, she said, “I don’t have enough experience to put a number to it.”
    His head lowered. “Then by all means let me—”
    She placed her fingers over his lips. “Okay, okay, you’re at the upper end of the scale. Satisfied?”
    “Hardly.” But he smiled like a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. “So you’ll marry me?”
    “I didn’t say that.” She turned her back to him and reached into a cabinet for a glass.
    He wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered next to her ear, “What’s it going to take to convince you? Shall I carry you upstairs and make love to you?”
    The image of his naked body looming over her, pressing her into a soft mattress, popped into Claire’s head. She could feel his heat pressing against her, hear the harshness of his breathing, taste the saltiness of his skin—She shook her head to clear it from the fog of desire. “That would only confuse me more.”
    “Claire,...”
    “I know. There are so many reasons I should marry you.”
    He turned her back around. “I hear a but in there some place.”
    Because she couldn’t look at his lips without remembering what they did to her, Claire’s eyes fixed on the third button of his shirt. She knew she was putting off the inevitable. Still... “I know you think it’s stupid. I just always