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“It was bound to happen.” The truth slipped out, my words unplanned and likely ill-advised.
I’d been fighting our attraction with all my strength. Hell, the other night at The Pub, I’d almost shattered the beer bottle in my hand while watching her dance. It was impressive we’d lasted this long without trying to rip each other’s clothes off.
“Why do you say that?” She looked at me like I had the answers.
Not sure what I had were answers, but I’d share my thoughts.
“Chemistry.”
“That simple.”
“Darling, there is nothing simple about it.” I adjusted the front of my jeans that dug into my still-hard dick. “It’s pheromones and a whole bunch of other things that polite society ignores because animal attraction is for animals. Not people.”
I’d never wanted a woman at first sight or touch like her. It wasn’t a thing I could explain as anything but pure, savage lust. Raw emotion. It filled my head with possessive thoughts that made me, a full-grown, middle-aged man, nervous.
“What do we do about it?” She cocked her head at the perfect angle. I could kiss her again and show her what we could do about it.
The sound of men’s voices and approaching footsteps interrupted anything I was about to do. Jameson’s loud laugh rang through the barn as I ducked into a stall. My guys catching me with a raging hard-on would start a rash of shit I didn’t want to deal with.
“Rae, you are a cool breeze on this hot Texas morning.” Jameson made a show of kissing her hand like a gallant knight. Jackass.
“Hey boss.” He nodded in my direction while petting Major. I jutted my chin at him in reply.
The other four guys all added a chorus of good mornings to Rae, then me. She returned their greetings with an ease I found astonishing. Seconds ago, she’d been in my arms about tocombust; now she was cool as a cucumber while I was hiding in a stall trying to get my dick to relax and my brain to function.
“I’ll be over at your place this afternoon to install those lights. The FedEx man just delivered them,” Leroy told her.
“I’m not sure what lights you’re talking about, but thank you.”
“It’s these nifty solar ones for the pathway from the parking area to the guest house. Atley said you wanted them.”
“He did, did he?” She bent and swiped my hat from the ground, dusting it off.
“Yes, ma’am.” Leroy looked at me, eyes wide, concerned he shouldn’t have said anything.
My guys already had an idea something was up between Rae and me. Rumors about us had started the day she arrived; I blamed the loose-lipped sheriff’s deputy. And after I told them to keep an eye on her the other night at The Pub… well, they weren’t stupid.
“Did you all know that the first cowboy hats weren’t pinched like this on the crown?” She pointed to the crease on the top of the hat.
“No,” Jameson answered for all of us.
“The Boss of the Plains was a flat-topped, flat-brimmed hat that was the precursor to today’s modern Stetson hats.” As she spoke, she walked toward me, her back to the guys. She stopped in front of the stall, and I reached for my hat over the door, but she held it back.
“Thank you for my pathway lights.” The raw sincerity in her words caught me by surprise.
I nodded, the dip of my head slight and slow. It could have meant anything from ‘you’re welcome’ to ‘my dick is too hard and I can’t formulate a sentence with all the blood below my belt buckle.’ I ran a hand over my hair; I felt exposed without a hat brim to duck behind.
“There’s a lot of lore about cowboys and their hats, isn’t there?” She held mine, inspecting it.
“Yes, ma’am.” I fell back on my standard answer.
She smiled a crooked grin and rolled her eyes at me before slowly flipping my hat over and placing it on her head.
Damn, she looked really good in my hat.
“Woo-hoo! You may not know it, Rae, but that is a bold move.” Jameson couldn’t keep the glee from his voice.
“Really?” She stretched out the one word to about five slow sexy syllables, her eyes on me the whole time. No way my queen of trivia didn’t know what Jameson was about to tell her.
