Asha King by Wild Horses Page A

Stirling so we can run some errands before church. He’s already waiting in the truck for me.” He bowed deeply. “Have fun, clean up the blood when you’re done, bye.” Dewey skirted the table breakfast bar, scooped his hat off the dining room table, and exited out the front door.
    Dani glared at Adam, fury threading through her veins. “What the hell was that about?”
    “You have to carry your weight around here, princess, just like the rest of us.”
    “Once. I have slept in once . I’m sorry. I’m sure everyone does it once in a while so please try to untwist your panties and chill the hell out.”
    He rose, his eyes darkening.
    She planted her hands on her hips, undaunted. “Do you really think I did it on—” Suddenly the connections started forming in her brain and she couldn’t help but grin. “Oh my God. What, you thought I was going to lounge about doing nothing because I all but got in bed with the boss man’s second in command? Oh please.”
    Adam said nothing, and the longer he stayed silent, the more her brain started spinning.
    “Were you sitting here thinking I didn’t show up to do chores because I just decided to slack off due to last night, or were you sitting here thinking last night even happened so that I could slack off on stuff?” Her heart was thudding hard, face flushing, hurt and anger welling, and she started to back up. “You know what? Just don’t even answer that. If you think I’m a whore as well as a princess—”
    He was moving around the breakfast bar and caught her in the doorway, his large, strong arms trapping her against him. When his lips came down, she met them with her own, still angry but completely forgetting why. Her arms circled around his neck and she leaned into him, losing the sense of everything around her except him and his exquisite mouth. His face was soft against hers, freshly shaven, and he smelled like the coffee he’d been drinking.
    “I didn’t mean to imply anything.” He pulled his face back but didn’t let her go, and she might’ve remained clinging to him if he’d tried. “I’m sorry.”
    Dani blinked. “Did you just apologize? For real? Again ?”
    Adam rolled his eyes and tried to disentangle himself from her but she wouldn’t let go. “I don’t intend to make it a habit.”
    “Of course not. That would be adult of you.”
    This time he succeeded in removing himself from her embrace but not without dropping another heart-stopping kiss on her lips. He sat at the breakfast bar and moved a stack of pancakes onto his plate.
    Dani went for the coffee pot. “So what chores are there to do in the rain and mud?”
    “Still stalls to be shoveled—the usual.”
    She made a face but didn’t grumble. Much.
    “And you’re to be at my place at one.”
    Dani glanced sharply over her shoulder. “Excuse me?”
    He held her gaze as he lifted a cup of coffee to his lips. “I won, remember.”
    That, he did. Heat rolled over her cheeks, down her neck. A deal was a deal, after all, and she was not-so-secretly thrilled at the prospect of finding out what he had in mind.
     
    ****
     
     
    Danyiah couldn’t tell any longer if she still smelled like a barn or clean—she’d all but given up worrying about it. After showering and freshly moisturizing her hair, she called Therese and left a message. What she really needed was some stereotypical girl talk but her friend didn’t answer, so she gushed excitedly about Needing to Talk About Boys, and left it at that.
    It wasn’t that she thought, realistically, anything would come of them. She had a life in the city. A job. A persona to return to when any threats were taken care of—she wasn’t a ranch girl permanently. He probably thought it was a fling as well. But she loved the nervous turn to her stomach and giddy giggle threatening to leave her lips as she walked toward the house’s exit—those bubbly, exciting feelings were familiar yet foreign, gone too long from her life. Sure,