Because he was just standing there as if incapable of speech, Hope sighed again and took the proposal from him. She glanced through it, handed it back and then handed him a paper she took from the table.
“I was going to bring this over to you after Karlee left,” Hope explained.
It was a nearly identical version of his for a deal with a livestock broker, Lucky McCord, over in Spring Hill. “It’s not ideal. Lucky can only get us a fraction of what we need. And it’ll cost more than we want to spend because he’ll have to get them from out of state.”
She nodded as if she’d already suspected that, sank down at the table and bit into a cookie. Considering the amount of crumbs on the table and plate, it wasn’t her first of the day, and it wouldn’t be her last. If Josh had thought they would help, he’d eat the contents of all the boxes.
“Let’s think on this deal with McCord for a day or two,” she finally said. “Maybe in the meantime, something else will come up.”
It’d been the very advice he’d been about to give her, proof once again that when it came to business, they were on the same page. Their operation was fine just as it was, and there was no urgency.
Well, not with the horses, anyway.
Looking at her caused some urgency to start building in his body. No red dress today. She was in her usual jeans and a blue top and was barefooted. There was nothing particularly glamorous about how she looked, but because this was Hope, the hotness was automatic.
She bit into the cookie, licking a crumb off her bottom lip, but she missed another one. She looked up at him as if waiting for him to do something. Maybe for him to talk about what he’d heard while eavesdropping at the door.
That wasn’t going to happen.
If the subject came up, it would come from her, and then she could laugh and dismiss it as girl talk. She could assure him that she didn’t have feelings for him that would complicate the hell out of everything. Then he could assure her he felt the same and then they could have sex on those cookie crumbs.
He frowned, pushed away that last thought.
Hope didn’t help with that thought pushing, though. She kept up the cookie nibbling, kept staring at him. Kept looking good enough that he wanted her mouth to nibble at him like that. His heartbeat decided to return in full force. That was a big-ass warning for him to get out of there.
“I’ve got a few more calls to make,” he told her. They were past the long-shot stage when it came to horse deals and into the realm of astronomical probability, but he kept that to himself, and he walked out, heading back to the office in his cabin. He made it all the way, too. Even managed to get inside when he heard the hurried footsteps.
“That’s it?” Hope asked, coming through the door. “You hear me admit that I’m falling in love with you and you don’t say anything?”
Josh weighed his answers. He could admit he didn’t know what to say. He could ask her if she was sure. He could prattle on with reminders about how this wasn’t a good thing for the ranch. Or he could do something, well, stupid.
He took the stupid option.
Josh leaned in and licked that cookie crumb right off her bottom lip.
*
SPOILING FOR A FIGHT, Hope had stomped her way over to Josh’s cabin to have it out with him, but that lip lick caused her anger to vanish. Some confusion came in its place. She hadn’t even known that she was walking around with a cookie bit until she saw it disappear into Josh’s mouth.
“Cinnamon,” he commented.
It wasn’t the right comment, but then, anything he said that wasn’t related to the overheard conversation would fall into the wrong category. That’s why she stood there scowling at him.
Josh stood there and stared. And stared. “I think it’s this that’s messing with our heads.” He motioned at their zipper areas. “It’s like those beepers that go off on the fryers at fast-food places when you’re waiting in line to order.”
While she wasn’t totally sure she agreed with him, she’d followed him on the first part. Not the last, though. “Fryers?”
He nodded. “They just keep beeping and beeping when the fries are ready and no one’s taken them out yet. Beep, beep, beep.” Josh made the noise, though an audio cue hadn’t been necessary. “And after a while, the racket is so distracting that you forget about the hot delicious fries and think only about the blasted beeps.”
Okay, she understood that. The sound was annoying, but she couldn’t see how that fit their situation...
Oh.
“This is like the beeper.” Hope motioned to their zipper areas. “And until we stop the noise, we can’t deal with the fries.”
Fries equaled feelings. Specifically, all that falling she’d been doing for him. And maybe it also included getting back to being fully focused on the ranch.
Which brought her to the bottom line of the point he was almost certainly trying to make. He was saying they should just have sex and try to stop that beeper.
That was it, right?
She hoped this wasn’t some kind of life lesson that would lead to him not getting in her pants.
Thankfully, it wasn’t.
Josh went to her, sliding his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her to him as he kicked the front door shut. He did all of that in the blink of an eye, and Hope might have seen what he was doing if he hadn’t rendered her blind with that molten-lava kiss. Judging from the rattling sound, though, he’d locked the door. Good. She had just enough sense left to know that she didn’t want anyone walking in on them.
Her shred of common sense vanished, however, when he put her back against the door and pressed his body to hers. Not quite zipper to zipper because he was taller than she was, but she stood on her tiptoes to try to get a better feel of what was in store for her.
Oh, my.
There was a lot in store for her.
She wouldn’t have minded having that then and there, but Josh obviously had some more licking to do. On her mouth, then her neck, and then he shoved up her top and did his mouth trick on her nipples. Hope hadn’t thought it could get any better or that he could build the heat any hotter.
But she was wrong.
He stopped kissing her and, while looking her straight in the eyes and with his warm breath gusting against her mouth, he got in her pants. Part of him did, anyway. She was so thankful she was wearing her loose jeans because he slipped his hand right past the waist and into her panties.
“Pay dirt,” he drawled.
She’d never heard that part of her body called that before, and she didn’t care. Pay dirt worked, and so did his fingers. He touched and watched her face while his breath felt as if he were kissing her all over. Just when Hope thought he was going to finish her off with his hand, he didn’t.
Josh dragged her into his arms, his hands moving to her butt, and they started walking. Well, he walked, and he sort of dragged her along since Hope could no longer feel her feet. Thankfully, she could feel the rest of herself just fine.