“I’m not,” she gasped.

His body convulsed. “Don’t say that.”

“Okay.” A pause. “I won’t.”

He sucked in a couple of deep, deep breaths, forcing his hand to fall away from her cheek. Then he regretfully touched his forehead to hers. “I was out of line.”

“Why are you blaming yourself?” Her breathing was as deep as his. “There are two of us here.”

“I’m trying to be a gentleman.”

She drew slowly back. Wisps of blond hair had worked free from her ponytail. Her lips were swollen red, cheeks flushed, eyes bedroom-soft with a sensual message. “In some circumstances, being a gentlemen is overrated.”

Reed groaned his frustration. “You’re killing me, Katrina.”

“Not exactly what I was going for.”

“You want me to kiss you again?” he demanded, knowing he couldn’t take much more of her flirtatious teasing.

“You want to kiss me again, cowboy?”

“More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

They stared at each other in charged silence.

“But I won’t,” he determined, gritting his teeth.

He wouldn’t, because if he kissed her again, he knew he wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t matter that the bedroom of his future house was nothing but a few stakes in the ground-he’d make passionate love to her, right here in the thick grass of the meadow. And then he’d have to build a different house, in a different location, because she’d be all he ever remembered here.

Katrina wasn’t completely without experience when it came to men.

Okay, so she was mostly without experience when it came to men. But it wasn’t her fault. She’d gone to an all-girls school until she was eighteen, graduating straight into the Liberty Ballet company. Until graduation, she’d been surrounded by girls and the few male dancers who’d participated in performances. The male dancers were nice guys, many of them fun and funny, but none of them interested her romantically.