Ty cleared his throat and half rolled, half flopped to a sitting position. Straining against his neck brace as much as he dared, he lifted his flat stare to hers. “I told you I’d pay you back.”
“You really should know me better than that. I’m not worried about the money.” With cautious steps, she moved to the edge of the bed.
“Then, what is it that has you so worried you’re in my room at—” he looked at the clock “—barely six thirty in the morning?”
“May I sit?”
Before he could deny her request, his erection punched at the single-button fly of his flannel sleep pants. The damn thing would leap into her hands if Ty didn’t keep it quarantined.
She noticed his physical reaction. Her answering smile revealed a single dimple. Years of knowing each other as intimately as they had created another private joke they would laugh over in the future.
There is no future.
Ty struggled to keep from shifting toward Kenzie as the mattress dipped with her slight weight. Their hips brushed. His erection strained toward her.
Eyes crinkling in unabashed amusement, she tipped her chin toward his lap. “I assume New Mexico has strict laws about keeping crotch creatures like that chained for the public’s well-being.”
He barked out a laugh. “Crotch creatures?”
She shrugged. “You have a better name for it?”
“As a matter of fact...” he started.
Kenzie waved him off. “Of course you do. Pretend I didn’t ask.” Twisting her fingers together, she settled her hands in her lap and trained her gaze on them.
The longer she sat like that, Ty wondered if he should prod her to say or do something. After all, she’d come to him. Then she spoke.
“I have a proposition for you.”
Used to be conversations that started like that would have been full of promise. Now? Not so much. Anger burned through him, its heat far more brilliant than the sun on the pristine snow. “There’s no point propositioning a broken man, Mackenzie. And in case you somehow failed to notice,I am broken.” The words lashed out with enough force they could have—should have—drawn blood.
Her chin snapped up, those fiery eyes blazing. “You aren’t broken.”
He chuffed out a bitter laugh and closed his eyes.Instant anger—just add a dose of disabled cowboy. “Right. Just go, Mackenzie.”
“Don’t know what I was thinking.” She pushed off the bed, nearly toppling him over.
“Go easy there, Sasquatch,” he muttered as he regained his balance.
Halfway to the door, she froze. Her steps were slow, precise and measured as she rounded on him. “Go. Easy.” She arched a shaped brow with more sarcasm than had likely ever been conveyed by a single facial gesture. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I—hell, ifeveryone—went ‘easy’ on you.” A wicked smile curled her lips up. “How long are we supposed to dance around you and your fragile psyche, Covington? What’s the timeline here, because it’s already getting old.”
“What, you need to know how long you should pretend compassion?” The second he said it, he realized he’d pushed her too far.
Kenzie’s eyes narrowed to furious slits. “Pretend compassion, is that what this is? When have Ieverpretended? When have Ieverbeen anything other than sincere with you?” She flinched, a shadow flitting through her gaze. He started to call her on it, demand an explanation, but she was already moving towardhim with a hip-swinging grace any blues singer would have been proud to work. Closing the distance, she gently pushed him backward on the bed before crawling up his body like the lithe lover she’d once been to him. She braced one hand on either side of his head and leaned forward until their eyes met.
Heart in his throat, Ty reached up and pulled her hair loose so it cascaded around them. The thick curtain of waves hid them from the world. He tucked a rogue curl behind her ear. “What are you doing, Malone?”
“Making a point.” With extreme gentleness, she slid her jean-clad core up and then down the length of his erection.
He hissed. “Which is?”
Leaning into him, she stopped with less than a breath between them. When she spoke, her lips moved over his. “This doesn’t feel like the body of a broken man.”
He began to breathe heavily, his eyes widening. “I can’t do this.”
She brushed a featherlight kiss over his lips. “At some point you’ve got to get back in the saddle, cowboy. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Kenzie,” he started, her name little more than a growl. “If this is about Gizmo—”