MisplacedCowboy Read Online Free Page B

joining me on a shindig to the local pub?”
    The exaggerated Australianisms, so far removed from how
Dylan normally spoke, made Monet laugh, and as it had before, his body reacted
to the husky, warm sound. “Oh Dylan. You had me at ‘g’day’.”
    He chuckled, his hand instinctually coming up to steady her
as she nudged him with her shoulder. The second his palm smoothed over the dip
of her slim waist, the second his fingers brushed the subtle curve of the top
of her backside, his breath caught in his throat and—completely indifferent to
the fact she wasn’t the woman he was here to meet—his cock grew thick in
his jeans.
    Fuck a bloody duck, Sullivan. Get your hands off her,
now.
    But he couldn’t. He stared down into Monet’s face, into eyes
the color of the Outback sky, and wanted more than life to kiss her.
    To slide his arms around her waist, pull her to his body and
capture her lips with his. To delve into her mouth with his tongue. To taste
her sweetness…
    She gazed up at him, her laughing smile slowly fading.
Fading until she stared at him, her lips parted, her breath ragged, her hands
smoothing over his chest, up to his shoulders—
    “Ms. Carmichael?” a female voice shouted behind them. “The
caterer’s here.”
    Monet all but jumped away from Dylan, as if he’d suddenly
started shooting live electricity from his body. She blinked, her teeth
catching her bottom lip before, with a glance at Phillip, she hurried across
the gallery.
    Dylan watched her go, his heart not just thumping in his
throat but bloody well slamming around in there. Like a sledgehammer swung by a
maniac on steroids.
    “Well, that was fun.”
    He turned back to the man beside him, Phillip’s smirk once
again pissing him off. “Fun?”
    Phillip slid his gaze to where Monet stood talking to the caterer.
“You know, the whole I’m-a-sexy-Aussie-cowboy seduction thing you got going.
Pity it’s wasted on Monet.”
    “Stockman,” Dylan said. “And tell me, why’s it wasted?”
    It was idiocy of course. There was no point to the
conversation. He wasn’t trying to seduce Monet. But for some bloody reason, his
brain—perhaps jet-lagged, perhaps still trying to deal with the fact Annie was
on the other side of the planet—decided the best course of action right now was
to poke at Phillip’s disdainful conceit the way he used to poke at red-belly
black snakes when he was a kid, just to see what they would do.
    Phillip adjusted his cuffs. “Because Monet is a woman of
style, taste and class who needs a man of the same caliber to satisfy her.” He
smiled, apparently satisfied with his argument. “And you…are a cowboy.”
    “Stockman,” Monet said as she slid between them, saving
Dylan from doing something he was bound to regret. Something stupid, like
knocking Phillip to the ground with a swift punch. “Now if you’ll excuse us,
Phillip, I think we all know this conversation is over.”
    Phillip’s eyebrows shot up again. He stared at Monet and
then let out a snort. “Now I see why you wouldn’t let me get past first base.
You’re not frigid or a lesbo like I thought. You’re just into—”
    Dylan smashed his fist into the bloke’s jaw.
    He couldn’t help himself. One second he was standing there,
listening to the moron carry on and wondering if it was politically correct to
tell him he was a dick. The next, shocked hurt crossed Monet’s beautiful face
and Dylan was balling his hand into a fist and slamming it hard into Phillip’s
clean-shaven jaw.
    There was a dull bone-hitting thud, a collective gasp from
the people setting up Monet’s exhibition and then Phillip dropped to the floor.
    Holy shit, Sullivan. You’re in trouble now.

Chapter Three
     
    Monet gaped at him. She’d never gaped at anyone before in
her life, but here she was, gaping at Dylan, eyes wide, hands frozen halfway to
her face, as if they didn’t know whether to clap together or cover her open
mouth.
    Oh God, he’d punched the crap out