But f**king-damn, it was hard. Too hard. He couldn't do it.
She was in her underwear.
Looking hotter than hell. Looking long and lean and firm, bronzed and beautiful. Looking like all she needed was a spritz of oil all over her and she could be on the cover of Maxim. Her panties couldn't be serving any other purpose than ensuring her shorts could zip, because they only covered the absolute essentials. She had small, firm br**sts, and her bra was shoving them up and out of the half-moon cotton cup.
He was helpless. He was hopeless. He was a quivering blob of ball-busting lust.
Lips on hers, kissing, biting, hands sinking inside the back of her panties, stroking, stroking. His throbbing c**k pressing, pressing, while he tried to think rational thoughts.
"Yes," she said in a whoosh of hot air. "Yes, yes, damn it all to hell and back, yes."
He swore his knees went weak with gratitude. "Are you sure?" he asked like a dumb ass.
"Oh, yeah. I'm as sure as sure can get. But if you want, I'll put it in writing." And she nipped his bottom lip.
"Not necessary," he panted, giving her another quick kiss. That turned into another. And another.
While the kisses grew hotter and longer, his fingers somehow managed to stroll to the front of her panties. He cupped her, felt her heat against his hand, while she jerked an inch back and looked at him with glazed eyes.
For a split second he thought they could finish this right then and there. He could just undo his jeans, pull her panties aside, lean against the unpainted wall and be there together in about sixty seconds.
Then sanity returned. He had learned something in nine years.
Lust was empty and selfish.
He didn't want that with Amanda. Those were not the feelings he had for her. He wanted to show her how special she was, how he cared, how he wanted to see her happy.
"Sorry. Damn, sorry, Princess." Pulling his hand out of her panties, he took a step away. Grabbed a deep breath. Put his hands behind his back and into his pockets so he wouldn't lose control and reach for her.
She gave him a suspicious look. "Sorry for what?" she growled.
They'd had this conversation before. And she hadn't liked his answer that time. Crap, he couldn't remember what he'd said and how he'd done it wrong. But she hadn't liked the whole apology thing.
"I just mean that I'm sorry that… it's not tonight. Because then I would…" He was really having a hard time with this. He was not a seductive kind of guy, and if he tried to be sexy, he was going to sound like Romeo, the p**n version.
She didn't look impressed either. Her hand had snuck up to her bare hip and her lips pursed.
Maybe if he wasn't looking her in the eye he could do this. But when he did, right after noticing the little blue horse stitched on her panties, he thought about how many suave and sophisticated men she must have encountered in her life, and he froze up solid.
So he pulled her toward him, tempted himself by fitting her right along the length of him. Nuzzling his mouth into her hair, he grasped for some courage and the right words.
He whispered in her ear, "I would make love to you. I really, really want to right now, but I'm going to wait because I want to take my time. I want to satisfy you."
"Nice save," she said.
Damn. She wasn't buying it.
But it was true. So he said exactly what he'd been thinking, in his own words. "I mean it. Sure, it entered my mind to just unzip, scoot your panties over, and go at it right now, but I figured that would be cheating both of us. So I pulled back and said I was sorry. Sorry. I want you to get everything out of it, that, ah, you need."
Amanda gave a husky laugh and ran her lips over his chin. "Mr. Unselfish."
"I try." Danny stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it on Piper's bed.
"What are you doing?" Amanda shot him a nervous look, at the same time she dropped her eyes and ogled his chest.
He was grateful for all the hours of manual labor he put in. He never needed to work out—pitching hay and other chores kept him in shape. But now wasn't the time for her to be exploring his chest. Later on that night he planned to carve out plenty of time for that. "I'm going to help you paint."
"Oh. Right. Of course."
Danny pulled a drawer open on the dresser and removed one of his large T-shirts that had two tears near the hem. Gathering the shirt up toward the neck hole, he yanked it over Amanda's head. Her hair spread across her face, and she blew at it.
"What the hell?"
"A paint shirt. Whole dresser full of them. Feel free to use them whenever you want to paint, or clean, or whatever."
She stuck her arms through the sleeves and tugged it down. "Paint shirt. Wow. What a concept."
He surveyed the room so far. "It looks like you're doing pretty good." If he ignored the paint droplets from one end of the room to the other, the streaky wall, and the various big blobs of dried paint on Amanda's body. She looked like she'd been in a paintball war and lost.
It was time to raise the flag and surrender.
"Flattery will get you everywhere." Amanda reached for the roller. "The problem here is that the wall just like sucks the paint up."
Danny liked that Amanda didn't pout or give up. She just fought her way through, but when help was offered, she wasn't too stubborn to take it either. "You actually have too much paint on the roller. You need to roll until there isn't any more coming off."
He put his hand over hers and pushed hard on the roller, up and down with her until they had covered a three-foot-wide area. "Start at the bottom and work your way up, using a pattern so there won't be streaks."
Hip bumping into her backside, their arms aligned, her hair falling over her shoulder, Danny found himself leaning forward. And she was leaning back.
She looked cute in his shirt. Felt good in his arms. Had a way with his daughter.
"I never thought that manual labor could be sexy, but I'm thinking that it is."
"Tell me about it." He was glad he'd taken his shirt off. He was sweating.
"So… do you have any sort of like, explanation for what is going on between us?"
"Nope."
"Oh."
He brought the roller to a stop, out of paint. Out of patience. He wanted her.
"Then I can take it from here, because we're about to end up in the same place we were before."
Danny froze with his free hand two inches from her ass, which he had been about to grab and grind against. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Uh-huh." She nudged him with her hip. "Move it, Tucker. I'll see you after dinner."