Read Online Snowbound with the Boss by Maureen Child - Free Book Online Page B

laughter under control, she said, “Relax, Sean. I’m not expecting a proposal and a vow of eternal devotion. God, you should see your face. You look like you’re ready to chew off a cartoon ball and chain from around your ankle.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous.” If anything, his frown deepened as he took a long drink of coffee. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œSure,” she said, shaking her head as she sipped at her coffee. “You stick with that. Anyway... I was talking about the hotel’s future, not ours.”
    He stiffened and pushed away from the counter with a move that was too studiedly casual to be real. “I knew that.”
    â€œPlease.” She laughed again, waved that away and took another hit of her coffee. “When you walked in here, you were braced for some emotional meltdown from me. You figured I’d throw myself at your feet and beg you to marry me or some weird thing.”
    â€œWeird?” His eyebrows lifted.
    â€œWell, you have no worries on that front,” she assured him, meeting those icy blue eyes squarely. “I’m not interested in a husband and if I was, it wouldn’t be you .”
    He just looked at her for a long minute before blurting, “What the hell’s wrong with me?”
    Kate laughed again. “Wow. Now you’re insulted.”
    â€œNo. Yeah. I guess I am. Why wouldn’t you want to marry me?”
    â€œLet’s see,” she said thoughtfully, tipping her head to one side to look up at him. “For one thing, your first thought was to bolt out of the room when you thought I might be swooning over you.”
    â€œI wouldn’t bolt,” he told her stiffly. “It’s snowing.”
    â€œUh-huh. For another, you’re irritating.”
    â€œHa!” He flashed a quick grin. “Hello, pot? This is kettle. You’re black.”
    â€œFunny,” she admitted. “Fine. We irritate each other. Good enough reason to steer clear. Another is the fact that you’re California and I’m Wyoming. Not exactly geographically desirable. And then there’s the fact that anytime I see you in some magazine, you’ve got a hot blonde with boobs bigger than her IQ on your arm.”
    â€œThat’s sexist,” he pointed out wryly.
    â€œI’m a woman. I can say it,” she said. “Face it, Sean. You’re just not marriage material. You don’t want a permanent woman and I have no use for a permanent man, so why on earth would I want to marry you?”
    He looked at her for a long moment, then set down his coffee cup and reached for her. She went willingly enough because hey, Kate already knew how amazing he could make her feel.
    â€œAll very logical,” he said, nodding. “Good points, too. But you left one thing out.”
    â€œYeah? What’s that?”
    â€œSex,” he said with a shrug. “Between us, it’s incredible.”
    â€œNot enough to build a marriage on and why are we still talking about this?” she asked.
    â€œBecause I want you to admit you want me.”
    â€œI do—just not as a husband.”
    â€œI can live with that,” he said, one corner of his amazing mouth tipping up into a smile that tugged at something deep inside her. Kate felt herself melting. Sean Ryan was so bad for her. Maybe that’s why she was enjoying him so much.
    His gaze fixed on her mouth, and she licked her lips in anticipation. When he bent his head and kissed her, she sank into it. This thing between them was powerful, energizing, and she would be a fool not to take everything she could from this interlude before her world went back to normal.
    * * *
    A few hours later, the memory of Kate’s laughter was sharp and bright in Sean’s mind. He hated knowing that she’d been right about his reaction when she talked about a future. It was knee-jerk for most men, probably. They