Heiress for Hire (21 page)

Danny laughed. "I'm making sure none of the eggs have been fertilized. We can't eat those."

"Why not?" She was trying to keep up, but animal husbandry courses hadn't been offered at her boarding school.

"Because they will have embryos in them if they've been fertilized. The ones we eat don't. If they've been fertilized, we let them hatch into chicks."

She didn't really care, honestly she didn't. But she couldn't help but be curious. "Sooo, how come some are fertilized and some aren't?"

Danny stopped and looked over at her. His ruddy cheeks split into a grin, and his brown eyes had a sexy little glint to them. "If they're fertilized, it means Rudy had a little midnight visit to that hen's nest, and not to play checkers."

Amanda froze with her hand reaching for an egg. "Oh my God. You mean, rocking the nest? That's so frightening. Chicken sex. I'm getting a whole world of information I could do without."

"There's a lot of sex on a farm, Amanda." And he winked at her, the dork. Like a chicken coop was a place to be flirting with her.

"Spare me the details."

When she turned, she almost dropped the two eggs she was holding. Danny was right behind her, preventing her from going left or right. He always prevented her from breathing whenever he got that close to her.

"Jesus, what? Give me some room."

But he didn't back up. "Why are you upset with me, Amanda? You've been avoiding me ever since…" Danny adjusted the bill of his baseball hat and cleared his throat.

"Since we kissed? Sucked face? Swapped spit? Is that what you're referring to?" Upset was an understatement. She felt stupid. Like a big dumb blonde who had thrown herself into the strong, silent type's arms and trembled over his touch.

Gag.

"Yes. Since we kissed. I already apologized… and I meant it. I really am sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

She had no idea what he was talking about, and it was absolutely ridiculous that they were having this conversation in a chicken tenement.

"What supposedly made me uncomfortable?" And why couldn't he back up? She could smell him, and it wasn't sweat. It was musky man, and a lingering hint of soap. The urge to squeeze his pecs was starting to make her twitch.

His brow furrowed. "When I kissed you. Here you gave me this sweet little comforting kiss, and I came back at you with tongue. It was rude and tacky. I'm sorry."

Her every instinct screamed for her to deny her reaction. To just accept his apology and consider the whole embarrassing little episode closed. She did not want to give another man emotional ammunition to use against her.

But Danny was different. Just different. And she couldn't let him think he had mashed mouths with her for no reason. Even if he had turned the first kiss into something more, she had been just as responsible. She had given him signals, and she couldn't believe that somehow now he had it all twisted around that he had taken advantage of her.

She was no innocent maiden. "I wanted you to kiss me, Danny!" Hello.

"You did?"

"Yes. That could explain why I was kissing you back, or didn't you notice?"

He scratched the side of his head and frowned. "Well, sure, I guess… yeah, I noticed. So you really wanted me to?"

"Yes. Duh."

"So why did you pull away?"

"Because Piper was in the yard and I didn't want her running in and seeing us tugging each other's clothes off."

"Oh." His eyes darkened. "Oh. Would we have been tugging each other's clothes off?"

Given the husky tone of his voice, he knew the answer to that. Danny plunked the bucket down next to the sextuplet's nest and took another step toward her. Which there was no room to do.

"Maybe. I might have considered it," she said. He kissed the side of her neck. Just like that, he was there, doing warm and sexy little things with his tongue. "Oh, yes, I was definitely considering it."

And move lower, lower, yes. Danny hit the swell of the top of her breast, peeking up out of her dress. He sucked her flesh into his mouth, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

Then suddenly he jerked back and swore, while Amanda stood there with a wet boob and a raging case of confusion.

"I can't believe this. I don't understand what you do to me." He grabbed the bucket of eggs and starting scooting back. "This is insane. I'm standing in chicken shit, and I'm turned on."

Amanda looked down. First she saw the big bulge in his jeans. Turned on, yes, that was clear. Then she went farther. His hiking boots were stuck in something… chicken shit. Yep, even she could tell that.

"Well, I don't think it's the chicken shit that turned you on, so there's no reason to get so upset. Let's just get the hell out of here."

She grabbed two eggs and left the other four in the nest. Poor hen deserved something for all her trouble. The thought of shooting out an egg every day just made Amanda want to cross her legs.

"I can't have sex with you, Amanda."

Since her back was to Danny, Amanda just froze for a second and stared at a gigantic cobweb forming in the cloudy little window of the coop. She did not just hear another man say he couldn't stand the thought of having sex with her. Surely, that wasn't what he meant.

"Or get involved with you or anything." His hands landed on her arms, and she flinched.

"Quit touching me, or I'll shove an egg up your nose." She couldn't take his friendly, pal-sy, cheerful touching right now. Not when she was feeling humiliation she had sworn she would never allow again.

"I want you, Amanda."

Yeah, right. She closed her eyes. There was something wrong with her. She was unlovable, unsexy, and dumb enough to fall into the same bad pattern every time. She was still trying to prove she was worthy of a man's attention and affection.

"I want you so bad I can't stand it," he whispered from behind her ear. "But if I sleep with you, I'm going to want all of you, all of the time. I'm going to want you to stay."

It sounded so sincere, so sensual, so compelling, that voice murmuring to her while her vision went spotty behind her closed eyelids and her body went warm in the confines of Danny's strong hold. If she slept with a man like Danny Tucker, there would be no hiding, no preening, no protective distance. It would be sweet, emotional, consuming, like that kiss had been.

"I'm going to want you to be mine, and you can't be. You won't stay, and I can't ask you to…"

Amanda sighed, letting her eyes drift open. No, she couldn't stay, and he wasn't asking her to. For a split second she had thought that there might be something to be said for staying with a man like Danny, but that was the chicken fumes going to her head. Making her light-headed.

"And I can't do that to Piper, I can't let her think there could be a chance… I can't let myself be distracted from her. She's my priority right now."

"I understand. I agree." Her voice sounded calm and rational, even though she felt anything but. She felt like kicking the crap out of some hay in these clod-hopper boots she was wearing.

Amanda turned a little so she could see Danny's face. She gave him a tight smile. "I care about Piper. I don't want to hurt her—I would never hurt her."

"I know that."

His lips were so close to her face as they stood, her back still to him. She could see the bristly stubble of his blond beard. His breath was intermingling with hers.

"That's why we can't." He kissed her lightly. "Do this." Another brush. "At all."

Something was pressing into her butt, and it wasn't a bucket. It was harder, and totally the wrong shape.

He was going to make her be the bad guy again. Which should tick her off, and did, in theory, but while she was simultaneously upset that they couldn't explore anything between them, she was pleased that he really did want her.

Which was lame, but there it was.

But they couldn't do this, he was right. There was absolutely no future for an easy-going farmer and a high-maintenance rich girl.

And she was going to have to be the one to stop it, since he was slipping his tongue into her mouth.

Not to mention her head was about to snap off from the position she was in.

It was such a shame, since it really felt so wonderful. But she could be the bitch, for Piper's sake. She absolutely did not want to hurt Piper in any way.

Amanda yanked her mouth back from his and turned to face front. "Danny."

His lips connected with her hair. His hands were trying to turn her back around. "Just once, please, just one time."

Damn her body for leaping in excitement. Every cell revved up and waited for the starting gun.

Sorry, folks, there wasn't going to be a race today.

"No."

God knew she wanted to, but there were so few things in her life Amanda could point to and claim were done out of selflessness. But this was. This was freaking noble. She had to do what was right for Danny and Piper, and that meant keeping her distance.

Both of them deserved someone better than her in their lives. She was a helpless, hopeless, spoiled woman with nothing endearing about her at all.

Danny would figure it out soon enough, but by then it would be too late. Someone would have gotten hurt.

And if it wound up being her, she wasn't sure she could recover.

"No? Do you really mean that?" His thumbs were rolling back and forth across the top of her dress, peeling the fabric down so he could see the tops of her breasts. His lips nuzzled her neck.

"I mean it." Even if it was hard, hard, hard, damn it, and her fingernails dug into the flesh of her palms.

"Bwack!"

The chickens had returned from their all-you-can-eat buffet.

Danny's answer, which he was pretty sure was going to involve begging, was drowned out by the screeching of half a dozen hens tumbling home engorged on carbs, only to find humans making out in their house.

Amanda wrenched away from him and clomped toward the door, frantically shooing a hen that ran toward her. He sighed and reached for the bucket. He should be grateful for the interruption and for Amanda's resolve.

Instead, he was just chock full of regret, and horny besides.

"Oh my God, where's Baby?" Amanda sounded hysterical as she scanned the coop for her dog.

Danny didn't see the poodle anywhere, sure her white fur or her red leash would be easy to spot in the coop.

"Danny, what if they ate her?" Amanda took great gulping breathes and lurched toward the door.

"They won't eat her." He didn't think. Another thought occurred to him. "They might peck her to death, though."

Fortunately, Amanda was way out in the yard already and didn't hear him. He realized the minute it was out of his mouth that it wouldn't be a good plan to stress her out any further. She was standing in the middle of the yard, walking backward, looking around desperately. "What did you do with my dog, you nasty, ugly, stupid birds?"

The chickens clucked and kept moving toward the coop. Danny stepped out onto the grass and lifted the bill of his baseball hat. There was a lot of space on a farm for a little spit of a dog to get lost.