And just like that, she was back on that couch with him, making out, all that coiled heat and energy she could see in his gait right now unleashed on her body. On her mouth, on her pulse, on her brain. His strong fingers biting into her hips and tugging at her waist and grazing across her nipples.

“Oh, here he is,” her mother said. “My…he walks like he owns the world, doesn’t he?”

Oh yeah. Suzanne couldn’t have put it better herself. His stride was so damn sure. So damn male. It made her hot just watching him prowl ever closer, his Wranglers hugging his thighs in ways that were utterly indecent. Suzanne flattened her palms to her stomach, very much afraid her clothes were going to fall right off the closer he got.

He wasn’t smiling. He was supposed to be smiling. But she doubted that anyone was obtuse enough not to see that intensity in his eyes and know exactly what it was.

Pure, unadulterated sexual interest.

Holy crap. Give the man an Oscar. “Babe,” she said, plastering a smile on her face as he got within arm’s reach.

Suzanne didn’t wait for him to make the first move, not sure, despite the set of his jaw and his forward momentum, if he would or not. With her pulse tripping madly, she slid a hand up his arm to his shoulder, stepped into his space, rose on her tiptoes, and pressed her mouth to his.

She felt the jolt go through him, felt the brief edge of his resistance before he let it go and kissed her back, his hands sliding around her, pulling her closer. He didn’t deepen the kiss, neither did she, but it smoldered, then it sparked, then it roared to life between them, the hardness of his body like fuel to the flame, the aromas of saddle leather and hay and soap adding to the inferno.

But as abruptly as he’d lit the fuse, he snuffed it out, pulling back, chuckling light and easy against her temple, saying, “Where are our manners, babe,” before kissing near her ear and whispering, “that’s one.”

While Suzanne’s body cried out against the sudden cessation of pleasure and her brain scrambled to compute what he’d whispered, he was holding out his hand to her father. “Hello, sir, I’m Grady. Nice to meet you.”

Suzanne blinked as her father said, “Albie. Albie St. Michelle.” Had Grady just been…keeping score? While she’d been swept away by the intensity of a closed-mouth kiss, had he been ticking off his fake rancher boyfriend checklist?

One kiss down, two to go?

That was cold. Really freaking cold. Note to self—her fake rancher boyfriend could switch it on and off at random.

Consider yourself warned, Suzanne.