Page 39

You'll beg me to kiss you, his voice says somewhere in the back of my head, from the parking lot, from the pool table, from every charged second since.

In your dreams, I tell it back.

"You're distracted today," he says, stepping back, watching me too closely.

"Maybe your horrible coaching is to blame."

"Nah." He sounds entirely too sure of himself.

I study him for a second, sliding down from Dusty. Fine. Two can play this game.

Before he can step away, I reach across him to straighten the band of Dusty's bridle. It's completely unnecessary. There’s nothing wrong with it, and Chace knows it. My breasts brush his chest as I lean in, slow and deliberate. "Oops," I murmur.

His laugh rumbles low, right through his chest and into mine where we're still a breath apart. "That's your move?"

I ignore him, taking my sweet time fussing with a buckle that doesn't need adjusting, letting my fingers linger.

"Careful, Sunshine." His voice drops, rough at the edges, and he goes rigid under me, every muscle in his chest pulled tight, like he's holding himself completely still on purpose.

"Why?" I ask, all innocence, not moving an inch.

"You look like you enjoy being this close to me." His breath catches slightly on the last word. "And I just might take you up on the offer."

The air between us thickens and warms. I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, feel the exact moment his heartbeat picks up under my chest. My own pulse is doing something reckless and heat pools low in my belly, spreading before I can stop it. I should step back. I know I should step back. "Maybe I want you to," I say, before I can think better of it.

Something shifts in his eyes. It’s dark, focused, all this easy humor burning off in an instant. For one long second neither of us moves, the two of us standing there with Dusty shifting patiently behind us like he's the only one in this whole exchange who hasn't lost his mind.

Chace seems to snap out of it first, clears his throat, and steps to the side without a word.

I spin toward him. "Ha! I win."

He schools his expression back into his standard full-of-shit grin. "Sunshine, you’ll win when you beg."

He turns to walk away, and for the life of me I can't figure out why, but I don't want him to go just yet, so I blurt out, "We need to get packed up and on the road."

He stops. Turns back around. "Oh, forgot to tell you. We're not leaving today."

"What?" This wasn't part of the plan.

"There's a jackpot about an hour out. I got you entered." He says it like it's nothing, like he didn't just rearrange our entire schedule without asking. "We'll head out first thing tomorrow, crash there for the night, then push on to Cheyenne after."

"You entered me. Without telling me?" He has some nerve.

"I'm telling you now."

"That's not—" I cross my arms. "You can't just sign me up for things, Chace." Suddenly my irritation towards him comes roaring back.

"You could use the boost." He shrugs, unbothered by my glare. "Your standings are tight. A clean run before Cheyenne doesn't hurt anything, and worst case you get a warm-up before the big one. Best case, you earn enough to close the gap in rankings."

I open my mouth to argue on pure instinct and then actually think about it. Annoyingly, he's right. It's not a bad call. It might genuinely help. "Fine," I say, like it costs me something to admit it. "But you ask first next time."

"Noted." He's already turning to head back toward camp, hands in his pockets, that easy stride that means he thinks he's won something.

Nobody's ever paid that kind of attention to my season but me. I don't know what to do with that, so I just watch him walk away and pretend the thought never crossed my mind at all.

By the time I’m done with Dusty and get him back to the barn, camp is still mostly how I left it. Chace has already packed everything except the coffee pot and coolers, anticipating an early-morning exit. I don’t see him around, but then I hear laughter drifting over from a few sites down.

He's sitting around someone else's campfire with a couple of guys I don't recognize. Chace is right in the middle of them, hands moving as he tells some wildly animated story. Every few seconds another laugh erupts around the fire, and judging by the way they're hanging on every word, you'd think he was the best storyteller they'd ever met.