Branded. Tori Carrington

      He looked at her over his shoulder. “I see a lot I like.”

      She was a Southern rock kind of girl, the louder the better. But somehow she got the impression that he wasn’t talking about her taste in music.

      He raised a CD case. “Do you mind?”

      “Go ahead.”

      He fed the disc into the player located under the TV, and within moments strains of the Eagles filled the room. He switched off the television, then sat down on the love seat and held up a glass in her direction.

      Jo rounded the coffee table and sat down next to him, accepting his offering. She coughed when she got a mouthful of plain soda. She lifted a brow.

      “You told me to get you what I was having,” he stated.

      “So I did.”

      He stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing his boots at the ankle. Jo watched the move, appreciating the hard line of his thighs, the way his jeans bunched at his crotch. Damn, but he was a tall glass of sweet tea. She could climb on top of him right now and not want for a single thing for the next six hours.

      Instead, she stayed right where she was, allowing her right arm to brush against his left, the only sounds those of the CD and the ice clinking in their glasses.

      “Is this a date?” she asked, staring at their reflection in the blank TV screen.

      “Date?”

      She shifted on the cushion, folding her right foot under her other knee and resting her elbow on the back of the sofa. “Yeah, you know, those things that people go on or schedule in order to talk or eat before they screw.”

      His grin was as filthy as her words. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a crude mouth?”

      She smiled back. “Just about everybody I come across.”

      She rubbed her eyebrow with the pad of her thumb, remarkably satisfied to be sitting there looking at him. Just looking at him.

      She’d never been a girl given to mooning over a man. She was either attracted to someone or she wasn’t. And things pretty much escalated after that. Even in high school, she hadn’t been the hand-holding, meandering-down-the-hall-and-staring-up-into-her-beau’s-eyes type. She had too little time on her hands, so she’d figured out pretty quickly that she’d have to learn how to put those same hands to good use with the time she did have.

      She glanced at her knee. Of course, there were other reasons for her actions. Mostly, she’d been needed at home. And when she hadn’t been home, she’d been thinking about what she’d have to do when she got there.

      “Uh-oh. No filthy words now?” Trace asked.

      “Huh?” She looked at him. “Oh.” She offered up a smile. “What, do you want to hear me say the word screw again?”

      He chuckled.

      “I don’t know what it is with men. You’d think women never used profanity, the way y’all react.”

      “Tell me, is it something that you and your girlfriends do frequently?”

      “Cuss? Hell yeah.”

      Of course, she really didn’t have any girlfriends. She’d learned a long time ago that it was better to fly solo than to face uncomfortable explanations.

      “But enough about me,” she said. “I want to hear more about this brother.”

      His eyes darkened. “I didn’t realize we were talking about you.”

      Jo got the impression that his change in expression had everything to do with her mention of his brother.

      She held up her hand. “I don’t need to know all that,” she said. “So what’s say we keep it simple.”

      He cleared his throat and reached for his soda. “Fair enough. Just so long as you know that I’m going to be asking a few questions of my own…”