Texas Big Man - Penny Wylder Page 0,2

plans to call in the contractors to start working on the place. Assess the ranch together so once the contractors arrive they can get right to work. This is just like Trevor, changing plans depending on how the wind blows.

This stranger doesn’t notice me yet, he’s so focused on his work. Using a crowbar to pry away old rotten boards, and hammering in new boards to make functional steps. Despite the nails he has pinched between his lips, I can see that he’s attractive. He’s got on jeans that show off a perfect ass as he bends over and the heat seems to have evaporated his shirt. Sweat shines on his back as he raises his arm to hammer in the nails—how can a back even have that many muscles? Is that possible? And then he turns, and I feel vaguely faint, because holy shit he is hot. And not in an abstract, generic, model way. In a way that is real and rugged. This man doesn’t go to the gym to work out. His body is fucking fit from hard, masculine work. Work under the beating sun, yet he doesn’t seem to be fatigued in the least. Even though the reality of the hard labor I’ll be doing is setting in, and I’m feeling a little unsure about whether I can be useful, suddenly grabbing a hammer and crouching down beside those steps is the only thing I want to do.

Still, though, the question remains. Who the hell is this man? And why am I just staring at him, with my pulse quickening and a sudden, urgent feeling growing between my legs. My body doesn’t normally react like this. Ever, really.

Stepping out of the car, I cross the yard to him, trying to ignore the sensation of an even sharper heat than the Texas air as he looks me up and down. Maybe this is a hallucination. A mirage of some kind. It’s so hot, the drive was so long, that I had invented this man straight out of my imagination—maybe the character in my soon-to-be-written book?

His eyes move up and down my body again, this time slower. And the grin on his face practically makes me tingle. He wears a hat—that classic Texas cowboy hat that does nothing to dull his stunning face and the intensity of his dark eyes.

I need to get myself in control. These feelings are dangerous. Especially for me. Some people may call me old-fashioned, others have called me a prude, but I just consider myself sensible. Dependable. I decided years ago that I would save myself for marriage. I’m a virgin. I won’t have sex before I get married. And that is a promise I made to myself that I intend to keep. So I date carefully, and although I’ve fooled around with guys before, I’ve never had sex. And that’s really weeded out the losers. It’s not often a man my age will agree to date a woman who doesn’t intend on sleeping with him in the first month of dating, let alone a woman who is waiting for her wedding night.

Standing here though, watching his eyes rake over my body, he’s the first person that ever made me feel like I might be willing to reconsider my virginity pledge. I’m not sure what it is about him that can make me feel that way, but it does.

The man speaks before I can even open my mouth. “You don’t look like the kind of woman that spends a lot of time in the country, but if you stick around for a week, I’m sure I could have you begging for some country cock.”

An inferno erupts in my core as he winks, and very intentionally adjusts his belt. Of course I look, and see that his pants are tight—tighter than they should be. Because of me. My cheeks flame, and I shove down the attraction and arousal that has seemed to overtake me out of nowhere. I replace those feeling with revulsion and indignance, at least I try to replace all those former feelings. His words have left me disoriented, and not entirely in a bad way. “Who the hell are you that you can talk to me that way? What are you doing here?”

He raises one eyebrow, looking me slowly up and down again. “I could ask you the same thing. Seems a little strange for someone like you to be out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Why, because I’m a woman?”

He