“I’ve said I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it?”
“As many times as you need to until I believe you. Or you fucking leave.”
“Lina.” I reached over and gripped her reins above her hands, bringing her horse closer. Close enough that she could see myeyes in the dark. With the sun gone, the high desert night had chilled the air enough that our breaths mingled in puffs between us. Our eyes locked, and I could see the flare of her nostrils as if it were painful to be this close to me. “I’m so fucking sorry. You have to know that I never meant for any of that to go down the way it did.”
“You fucked me in front of your wife, and then you fucked up my run.”
I heaved a deep sigh. She didn’t mince words. How could I explain it all and hope she’d understand? How could I explain that I set out to hurt Elise because she hurt me? That in my twisted head—and inebriated judgment—I thought that if I could make my ex jealous enough, she wouldn’t leave and take Penn with her? I hadn’t set out to find someone whom I was so attracted to … someone who could flip my whole world upside down and make me grateful that my ex was leaving. To end up kissing someone who caused my gut to twist and my heart to clench.
I’d lost my ever-fucking mind that night. I hadn’t expected to feel anything. I thought I could win some cash to follow Elise wherever she went and prove to myself that the wild barrel racer had meant nothing. That was the only reason I ended up making a bet against her run. How could I explain any of that to her when I didn’t totally get it myself?
“Ex-wife,” I corrected. It was the only thing I thought I could say.Dumbass.
Lina’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“I’ve been told that a time or two.”
Lina pulled on her reins, causing Mushu to shift away, and I let go.
“Tired of it yet?” she asked.
“Tired of what?”
“Me calling you on it. I don’t know why you’ve stuck around as long as you have. There are other ranches. Why can’t you go be an asshole somewhere else?”
“Maybe I like someone calling me on my shit.” In fact, I loved it. My cock was throbbing with every bratty word that spewed from her perfectly fuckable mouth.
Lina groaned in exasperation, but I wanted to make her moan for other reasons. It didn’t help being out here arguing in the dark. It only caused severe déjà vu. But at this point, I’d played that scene out so many times while fisting my cock in the shower, I should be used to it by now. Shutting my eyes, it all came rushing back.
Her chest roseand fell in anger while I held my breath to keep from saying the one thing that was on the tip of my tongue.
“You can’t even apologize like a normal person without some ridiculous snide remark!” she yelled at me. “Why the hell do you care if I meet a guy at the bar anyway?”
I growled. I couldn’t help it. My blood was boiling. “You don’t fucking tell a girl to meet you at a bar for a date without expecting them to put out. That’s all he wants from you, Lina.”
“Again, why the hell do you care? And who’s to say I don’t want to put out. I don’t think it’s any of your goddamn business who I hook up with.”
Frustrated, I pushed her against the fence post, biting my tongue until I tasted copper. There was so much I wanted to say, but all it did was make my blood boil.
She twisted my shirt in her grasp, tugging me closer to her. Her sneer melted, her lips parting with her heaving breaths. Fuck, I wanted to kiss her. Her eyes bounced to my mouthbefore returning to my eyes. If I didn’t know better, her heated anger looked a whole lot like desire.
“Who’s to say I don’t want to put out?” she said again, her other hand wrapping around my forearm and tugging my hand away from where I pinned her shoulders against the post.
Her fingertips trailed down my arm, sending goose bumps down my flesh until she could take my hand and place it on her hip. My heart started to beat rapidly. My body went hot. And my breath was stolen right from my lungs. What the hell was she doing?
I hadn’t touched her since that first night, and now with my hands on her, I didn’t think I could ever let her go.
My grip on her tightened, my fingers digging into the denim at her hip when her own hands went to her pants, unfastening the button and lowering the zipper. “Do you not want me to go on this date?”
“No, I don’t want you to go on this fucking date,” I told her honestly. My chest heaved.
“You expect me to be a good girl and not hook up with guys in bars?”Fuck!Her eyebrows quirked in question, but her stare bore into me intensely.
“I should’ve been the last fucking guy you picked up at a bar.” I was getting too close to the truth, and my gut clenched.
“What if I wanted to get picked up? What should I do then?” she asked, taking my hand and bringing it to the bare skin between her shirt hem and waistband.
She was so soft.
