Cinderella's Big Sky Groom by Christine Rimmer Page A

the same. Only instead of a queen, you’re a prince. My prince. For a night.” She lifted her shoulders in a teasing shrug. “Sorry, I’m fresh out of washer/dryer combinations. All you get is me.”
    The news that he wouldn’t get more didn’t seem to worry him. He went right on stroking her foot, sending little heated shivers beneath her nylon stockings, little shivers that ran from her toes, along her arch, over the curve of her heel and right on up the back of her leg.
    She hitched in a pleasured breath, then whispered, “Face it. You’re the one. My Prince for a Night.”
    He raised her foot and lightly nipped her toe between his white teeth. A delicious weakness shivered through her. She had to rest back on her hands.
    His palm cupped her heel. And then traveled, warm and encompassing, up the back of her calf to the tender spot behind her knee.
    â€œAll right.” He said the words low, like a growl, from the back of his throat. A growl that sent her senses shimmering. “I’ll be your Prince for a Night.”
    â€œDid I mention you don’t get the cape or the crown, either?”
    â€œNo. But you did say the cape had fur trim—and a train, right?”
    â€œUm-hmm.”
    â€œI think I can get by without that. And the crown…?”
    â€œA diamond tiara, if I remember correctly.”
    â€œDo I look like a man who’d wear a diamond tiara?”
    She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Not your style, huh?”
    â€œNo, not my style.”
    â€œWell, good, then. It’s settled. You get no crown, no cape, no prizes—except me. Temporarily.”
    â€œDo you hear me complaining?”
    â€œWell, of course not. A prince never complains.”
    He didn’t reply to that. Not in words. But his hand moved on, stroking beneath the silvered cashmere of her skirt, running up her thigh, eliciting a sharp gasp from her, and then sliding over, moving down the other thigh, appearing once more at her knee.
    His head was bent again, watching what he touched. And then it came up. His eyes burned now, with a feral light.
    He rose from a crouch to his knees. And then fully to his feet.
    Still leaning back on her hands, she stared at him. He began to undress.
    First he took off that platinum watch of his and set it on the stand by the bed. Then he pulled off his sweater and tossed it toward a chair, where it landed with a soft rustling sound. Next came the shirt he wore underneath it. He unbuttoned the sleeves with quick, almost brutal efficiency, then dispensed with the buttons that ran down the front. He shrugged out of the shirt and threw it toward the chair where his sweater lay.
    He was naked from the waist up.
    Without his shirt he seemed somehow too real.
    Not her dream prince at all. But a man. A man shedidn’t really know. A man who was going to do things to her that had never been done to her before.
    Lynn realized that she didn’t feel quite so naughty and free as she had a few seconds earlier.
    His chest was…so broad and powerful, patterned lightly with dark hair that lay in a midnight shadow across his pectorals, then went down in a trail over his hard belly. Her gaze wandered lower. She saw that his…interest in this activity remained acute.
    Her lips felt dry. She rubbed them together, dared to touch them with the moisture of her tongue.
    He said one word low; she couldn’t quite make it out, but it had a savage sound to it. A sound that matched the look in his eyes.
    He held out his hand, palm out. A careful, controlled movement.
    Lynn was a town girl, but she had grown up around men who worked with animals. She’d visited a few of the local ranches, gone to stock shows and rodeos. The way Ross reached for her now reminded her of the way a good cowhand will approach a skittish horse, every move cautious and deliberate, in order not to send it whinnying and wheeling away.
    â€œTake my