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Well, shit. And now I’m sitting in front of him, practically in his lap, surrounded by the scent of his sweat.
Fuck me.
“Too bad.” My voice is sharper than I intend, too defensive for how fast my heart’s hammering against my ribcage. “You offered to teach me. I accepted. Suck it up.”
He exhales slowly like he’s trying to remember how to breathe. His hands don’t move from my hips.
“I should’ve let Harper do it,” I mutter, and Logan goes rigid.
“Would you have really fucked him if he asked?”
There's an accusatory tone to his voice that has a flame of anger igniting in my chest, but I tamp it down and force a nonchalant shrug. “Why not? He's hot and interested. I'm single. Maybe a roll in the hay is exactly what I need.”
Logan taps his heels against the horse’s side. Rusty Ranger jolts forward, causing me to scrabble for purchase.
“Reins,” he says suddenly, reaching around me. His hand brushes mine, placing the leather straps into my grip. “Loosen your elbows. Let your arms move with him. He’ll respond better if you’re not holding on like you’re about to fall off.”
“I am about to fall off.”
“You’re fine. I’ve got you.”
Those three words make something sharp twist in my chest. I shift in the saddle, trying to distract myself with the horse's rhythm instead of the fact that Logan’s body is flush against mine, that ring on his finger like a brand to my skin.
He helps me steer for a moment before letting his fingers slide away, up from my wrists to my ribs. The tender touch raises goosebumps on my skin, but I grit my teeth and ignore it as we ride silently for a few minutes.
Eventually, Logan speaks again in my ear. "You don't actually want the cowboy.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
The horse trots steadily beneath us, Ranger’s hooves crunching softly over dirt as we move in a slow circle. Logan keeps us guided with subtle shifts of pressure behind me, his posture stiff. “Our marriage means nothing to you then?”
Twisting around, I glare into his honeyed eyes. “What marriage, Logan? We got drunk and signed a paper in Vegas. That's all this is.”
“Not to me,” he husks, tightening his grip on my waist.
With a scoff, I face forward again. “I don't give a shit. It was an accident. I don't even remember my vows, and neither do you.”
And you fucking left me.
The silence that follows isn’t quiet. It’s packed and loaded with all the things we’ve never said—and the ones we can’t take back.
“Maybe I don’t remember the exact words,” he responds, mouth against my jaw. “But I remember how you looked at me when you said them.”
My throat constricts painfully. I hate him for that, for remembering something that I’ve tried so hard to forget.
Logan shifts behind me, and I inhale sharply when I feel the stiff length of his cock pressing into my lower back. His lips brush the side of my neck, leaving a trail of fire in their wake as he peppers kisses across my heated skin. “There were stars in your eyes, and it made me feel like I hung the moon.”
I clench the reins—and my thighs, fingers digging into the worn leather. “I was drunk. We were both drunk.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “But I meant it.”
The horse keeps moving, entirely at ease. I wish I could say the same for myself. My pulse thuds in my ears, every inch of my body aware of him—of the way his voice shakes, the way his palm rubs my sternum, arm brushing the underside of my tits. Heat pools in my lower stomach.
“You left,” I whisper, feeling breathless and irritably turned on by the way he's touching me.
Logan doesn’t answer right away. Seconds pass as we start another lap around the corral. Then quietly, too quietly, he says, “You wanted me to.”
Those words are like a bucket of ice down my back, snapping me out of whatever lust-fueled daze he’d entranced me with. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
