Seeds of Desire by Karenna Colcroft Page A

my mercy. I didn’t take advantage of you,
did I?”
    “Nope, you acted like a perfect gentleman,” she admitted.
    “Yeah. I must be slipping.”
    “So, um, you wanted to scream?”
    He chuckled. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to speak of it ever
again. Yes, I wanted to scream. I’ve never had a woman fuck me like that. I
came so hard I pretty much blacked out, and then you walked out that door, and
I— Anyway, yes.”
    Then she’d walked out that door and slammed it on any chance
either of them might have had to be honest about their feelings. She’d cheated
both of them.
    He stepped closer and massaged the shampoo into her hair,
keeping his fingers well away from her bandage. It felt heavenly, better even
than when she had her hair done at a salon. She closed her eyes and leaned back
slightly, enjoying the tingles that radiated through her from his touch. Why
not let herself be turned-on now that she’d discovered she’d been wrong about
him? It wasn’t as if anything would happen.
    “I hope I can rinse all this shampoo out,” Jared complained.
“Your hair is thicker than it looks.”
    “That’s why I keep it shoulder length or shorter,” she
murmured. “Otherwise it gives me neck cramps.”
    He laughed. “I can imagine. Does this feel okay? I’m not
hurting you, am I?”
    “It’s great.” A splotch of shampoo landed beside her eye.
“Except you’re making things a bit messy.”
    “Nothing wrong with messy sometimes.” She shuddered at his
husky tone. He removed the splotch with a finger. “Okay, look. I want to
straighten this out with you. Figure out where we stand with each other, all
right?”
    Where he stood with her. Good question. She didn’t know
anymore herself. If someone had asked her that morning, she would have called
him a complete asshole who sponged off Daddy’s money and only had a job because
Daddy pitied him. In fact, she’d said pretty much just that to Jared’s face a
few minutes earlier.
    She cringed. She had been cruel to him. Even though she’d
thought he didn’t like her, that didn’t excuse the way she’d treated him.
    “Why do you act the way you do?” she asked after a moment.
If she wanted to understand her feelings about him, she needed to understand
him.
    Jared wrung out the washcloth and started wiping the shampoo
out of her hair. “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “Cocky, arrogant, full of yourself.” She ticked off each
item on her fingers.
    “Is that how I come across?” He sounded stunned.
    “You said yesterday that I look like someone jammed a stick
up my ass,” she reminded him. “That isn’t exactly something most people would
say to a woman they’re interested in.”
    “Well, you did in that damn suit,” he muttered. “If I
recall, I also said you looked good in jeans and a T-shirt, didn’t I?”
    “The insult outweighed the good part,” she replied. “You’re
dripping water in my eyes.”
    “Sorry.” He wiped her forehead gently with his hand. “This
isn’t going to be easy. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried washing your hair this
way.”
    “It’s better than having all the dirt and stuff in it,” she
pointed out. “It’s a little too late now to decide not to do it.”
    “I guess.” He ran the cloth over her hair again. “I’m sorry
I insulted you. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say around you. Besides, by
then I’d figured you already disliked me, so I didn’t think it would really
matter what I said. You wouldn’t be able to dislike me more than you already
did.”
    She thought over what he’d said. He didn’t know what to say
around her. Apparently she flustered him to the point that he acted like an idiot.
Either she should just stay away from him so she didn’t confuse him, or she
should take it as a compliment. She’d never had an effect like that on a guy
before and didn’t know how to respond. So she turned it into a joke. “I bet
when you were a little kid, you pulled girls’ hair when you