Read In Your Arms for Free Online Page B

shooting sparks.
    She couldn’t look at him and expect to stand under such intense scrutiny. Dropping her gaze, she tried to go around him once again, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her into Pete’s stall. The horse looked at them with mild interest.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.
    “Keeping you here with me until we settle this.” Dropping the bucket, he crossed his arms on his chest and blocked the exit with his large body.
    “What do you want?” Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide. If he didn’t get out of her way and let her leave, she might shame herself by begging for him to kiss her once again.
    “If you knew the answer to that,” he said, grinning wickedly as a fire suddenly lit behind his eyes, “you’d slap me senseless and jump on Pete to escape me.”
    His words only made her heart beat faster. He wasn’t wearing his guns at the moment, but Marcus was a dangerous man, with or without them.
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means I’m still taking you to the dance, sugar,” he whispered. “I don’t… want… Shirley.” He paused after each word, as if to emphasize that what he spoke was the truth.
    “Why are you telling me this?” She held up her hands to her face and felt tears sting her eyes. Steeling herself, she tried her best not to show them in front of Marcus.
    “Look, Lissa,” he said, his tone gentler. “I’m sorry I kissed you the other night. I had no right or business to do so. Can you forgive me?”
    “Forgive you for what, Marcus? For kissing me, or for regretting that you kissed me?”
    “I don’t regret it.”
    Sighing, Melissa shook her head and glared at the straw-covered floor.
    “You don’t believe me, do you?”
    “I believe you took advantage of the situation. If any other woman had been out there with you, you would have done the same. You might not regret kissing me, Marcus, but you regret it was me and not someone else.”
    “Do you do that often?”
    “Do what?” she said, on edge at his harsh tone.
    “Feel sorry for yourself.”
    Her cheeks pinkened with rage. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a twenty-four-year-old woman--almost twenty-five--who’s never once been proposed to. I’ve never been courted; I’ve never even been kissed. Yours was my first, I’ll have you know. Men do not look at me. It’s a fact I’ve come to terms with--a fact I know to be true. All my life I’ve been the plain sister, the one everyone feels sorry for because all the good men get snared by Shirley. Didn’t you notice the townsfolk gawking at me the day I introduced you around? They had awe and wonder on their faces. Do you know why? Because… because…”
    Unable to keep up her façade any longer, Melissa turned and leaned against the wall behind her. Tears poured out of her, and she couldn’t stop them. Her legs gave way and she fell, but not before Marcus’s arms curled around her, pulling her against his chest.
    “Lissa…”
    “They thought you were my fiancé .” Melissa curled her arms around his neck and sobbed pathetically into his shoulder. She could vaguely hear his soft, soothing words as he stroked her hair, rocking back and forth on the straw.
    She was trembling as she held him, unwilling to let him go even for a second. It was rare that she sobbed her heart out. She felt as if she were falling off a precipice with Marcus her only anchor.
    “I don’t want to feel sorry for myself,” she said. “I don’t want you to see me cry.”
    “Why not?” His voice rolled over her, calming her somewhat.
    “Because I don’t want your pity.”
    Framing her face in his hands, he wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “I don’t pity you, sugar. I admire you.”
    “You do?” Her voice cracked in disbelief.
    Giving her a grin, he nodded. “I do. You’re a strong woman who’s not afraid of getting your hands dirty. You aren’t afraid to butt heads with me, something not even a lot of men do. You work hard