Page 18 of Haunted Spurs

“Sorry…” he murmurs, his voice dark and muffled behind the plastic. “I can’t decide what character to play in our intro video.”

He pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the bed and, with one fluid motion, pulls the mask off over his head. As he does, the muscles in his back flex. His bicep flexes, pulling the skin taut in a way so obscene I physically have to gasp for air.

“But… weren’t you obsessed with the whole cowboy thing?” I ask, forcing out a normal voice that doesn’t sound like the wheeze of a woman on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Hey, I’m a real cowboy!” he protests, a lopsided grin lighting up his face.

I roll my eyes.

He sighs, turning the mask over in his hands. “Just… do you think it works?”

He tosses it onto the rumpled covers, reaches for the desk, and grabs his black Stetson, pulling it low over his brow with a deliberate, measured gesture.

God.

Cowboy hat. Bare chest. Ripped abs that look carved out of marble.

That night at the saloon, I’d felt the heat of his body and the power of his muscles, but I hadn’t really seen Ron shirtless.

But now? Now I have to physically force my jaw shut to keep from drooling on the rug.

We’re cooped up in his room at The Snowed Inn. He had to move out of the ranch because the production crew has already swarmed the place for the reality show’s set prep, so his friends, Rae and Grant, offered him a room here at the inn. A room that, for the moment, has also become our recording studio to shoot our couple’s intro trailer.

And… Ron Willers, bathed in this fucking red light, shirtless, staring at me from under the brim of his hat? I want to cry. I want to scream into a pillow.

Yeah… I think I’m officially, painfully sexually frustrated right now.

“And couldn’t you at least put a shirt on?” I complain, crossing my legs to scrape together some shred of composure.

Yeah, I keep complaining. Constantly. Otherwise the only logical alternative would be getting out of this chair, closing the distance between us, pushing him back onto the mattress, and running my tongue over every single pulsing vein on his body.

Ron tilts his head, and the blue of his eyes catches the red light, making him look like the devil himself. “Am I distracting you?”

God, he’s infuriating.

“You know they gave me strict instructions…” he adds, shrugging with a casualness that makes me want to strangle him. “Production wants me shirtless for the video.”

He says it like he couldn’t care less. Like he’s perfectly used to sitting half-naked in front of a woman who is losing her damn mind.

Well, maybe he doesn’t care.

But I do. Big time.

Ron

I’m trying to play it cool—I swear to God I am—but it’s really, really fucking hard.

Having Selene Dusk stuck in my room, wearing that damn little black satin slip dress? God… it’s absolute torture.

She is the woman of my wildest dreams. I’m dead serious. For years, I’ve been following her book releases, devouring those pages dripping with darkness, control, and passion, practically drooling over the brilliant mind that wrote them.

But ever since I actually had her? Ever since I felt the heat of her skin against mine and heard my name breaking on her lips? I haven’t been able to get her out of my head for a single fucking second.

Selene huffs, stepping out from behind the camera and walking over to the bed.

“Wait, move a little more this way,” she orders.

She leans toward me, reaching over the edge of the mattress. I keep my gaze on the wall in front of me, refusing to look at the reflection in the glass, refusing to peek at just how high that microscopic dress has ridden up her thighs. I’m sweating. And it has nothing to do with the heating at The Snowed Inn.