Want Me, Cowboy. Maisey Yates

approachable. Because without it, she had a feeling he would be too pretty. And his lips...

      She had kissed those lips.

      He was just staring at her.

      “I’m emotional.”

      He said nothing to that.

      “I might actually throw myself onto the ground at any moment in a serious display of said emotion, and you won’t like it at all. So you should probably leave.”

      Those gray eyes were level with hers, sparking heat within her, stoking a deep ache of desire inside her stomach.

      “Reconsider.” His voice was low and enticing, and made her want to agree to whatever commandment he issued.

      “Quitting or marrying you?” She took a step back from him. She couldn’t be trusted to be too close to him. Couldn’t be trusted to keep her hands to herself. To keep from flinging herself at him—either to beat him or kiss him she didn’t know.

      “Both. Either.”

      Just when she thought he couldn’t make it worse.

      “That’s not exactly the world’s most compelling proposal.”

      “I already know that my proposal wasn’t all that compelling. You made it clear.”

      “I mean, I’ve heard of bosses offering to give a raise to keep an employee from leaving. But offering marriage...”

      “That’s not the only reason I asked you to marry me,” he said.

      She made a scoffing sound. “You could’ve fooled me.”

      “I’m not trying to fool you,” he said.

      Her heart twisted. This was one of the things she liked about Isaiah. It was tempting to focus on his rather grumpy exterior, and when she did that, the question of why she loved him became a lot more muddled. Because he was hot? A lot of men were hot. That wasn’t it. There was something incredibly endearing about the fact that he said what he meant. He didn’t play games. It simply wasn’t in him. He was a man who didn’t manipulate. And that made her accusation from earlier feel...wrong.

      Manipulation wasn’t really the right way to look at it. But he was used to being in charge. Unquestioned.

      And he would do whatever he needed to do to get his way, that much she knew.

      “Did you take the kiss as far as you did because you wanted to prove something to me?”

      “No,” he said. “I kissed you to try and prove something to me. Because you’re right. If we were going to get married, then an attraction would have to be there.”

      “Yes,” she said, her throat dry.

      “I can honestly say that I never thought about you that way.”

      She felt like she’d just been stabbed through the chest with a kitchen knife. “Right,” she said, instead of letting out the groan of pain that she was tempted to issue.

      “We definitely have chemistry,” he said. “I was genuinely caught off guard by it. I assume it was the same for you.”

      She blinked. He really had no idea? Did he really not know that her response to him wasn’t sudden or random?

      No. She could see that he didn’t.

      Isaiah often seemed insensitive because he simply didn’t bother to blunt his statements to make them palatable for other people. Because he either didn’t understand or care what people found offensive. Which meant, if backed into a corner about whether or not he had been using the kiss against her, he would have told her.

      “I’m sorry,” she said.

      Now he looked genuinely confused. “You’re apologizing to me. Why?”

      “I’m apologizing to you because I assumed the worst about you. And that wasn’t fair. You’re not underhanded. You’re not always sweet or cuddly or sensitive. But you’re not underhanded.”

      “You like me,” he pointed out.

      He looked smug about that.

      “Obviously. I wouldn’t have put up with you for the past ten years. Good paying job or not. But then, I assume you like me too. At least to a degree.”

      “We’re a smart match,” he said. “I don’t think you can deny that.”

      “Just a few hours ago you were thinking that one of those bottle blondes was your smart match. You can see why I’m not exactly thrilled by your sudden proposal to me.”

      “Are you in love with someone else?”

      The idea was laughable. She hadn’t even been on a date in...

      She wasn’t counting. It was too depressing.

      “No,” she said, her throat tightening. “But is it so wrong to want the possibility of love?”

      “I think love is good for the right kind of people. Though my observation is that people mostly settle into a partnership anyway. The healthiest marriage is a partnership.”

      “Love is also kind of a thing.”