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For a moment, everything was easy.
Nash was not fighting against all the shit he ran from. His cockiness had vanished. His need to prove he had won was gone.
For this one second, there was only the perfection where two souls touched and knew each other wholly. In that pure moment, she lost herself fully, free falling into the pleasure he offered. She came against him in a hot rush of emotion and satisfaction, with Nash following right behind with a low groan.
Many, many minutes later, she found the strength to reopen her eyes and face reality. Everything beautiful and sweet vanished at the arrogance coupled with determination in Nash’s expression. She knew that look well. She hated that look. “Just tonight,” she reminded him, trying so hard to find her ironclad walls. “This can never happen again.”
Megan caught his smug grin before his lips sealed across hers again. He feverishly kissed her, returning all that heat in an instant, and then he chuckled against her mouth. “Good luck with that, Freckles.”
Chapter 1
Wanting Nash was easy. Ignoring him was so damn hard.
Everything inside of Megan urged her to look left at Nash, the man watching her intently. That had been an added piece of hell since they’d been together at Chase and Harper’s wedding. She knew whenever he was near by the hair rising on the back of her neck.
She sighed and set the beer down in front of the guy with the black cowboy hat whose cologne was too strong. Her stomach turned a little. Any strong scents lately sent her tummy tumbling. The man sat atop a metal stool at the shiny, reclaimed-wood slab bar in Kinky Spurs, the western-themed bar she owned in the heart of River Rock, Colorado. Her cowboy boots crunched against the peanut shells littering the ground. Her red T-shirt with KINKY SPURS written across her chest rested low over jean shorts that barely covered her butt. She had put the uniform into place back when she bought the rectangular space bookended by two stages two years ago. She had loved every minute during those years, but she began to regret her decision about the uniform when her shorts rode up in places they shouldn’t. The uniform lately seemed . . . tight.
Still, the rest she loved.
Rows of liquor bottles lined the back wall to keep the customers ready for a party. Above those, a bright-pink neon KINKY SPURS sign rested below large deer antlers. The greasy aroma wafting out of the kitchen was perfection, especially when nursing a hangover. Over the past few weeks, Megan had developed an addiction to burgers. All kinds. Who was she kidding. Every kind.
The bar was rough, not classy. From the wood-paneled walls, the mechanical bull on one stage and the live band on the other, to the testosterone oozing off the cowboys, Kinky Spurs was all hers. Well, minus the mortgage she had on the property. Which was lowered with the inheritance her grandmother had left her when she passed a few years back.
Only, tonight there was something she could do without. Cowboys. Scratch that, one cowboy in particular.
It didn’t matter that Nash was on the other side of the bar sitting with his two brothers, Shep, the oldest, and Chase, the middle Blackshaw brother. The weight of his stare felt like a thousand pounds pressing down on her. There was a giant elephant in the room. She knew it. He knew it. Hell, everyone knew it.
Every second his gaze followed her. Every minute that he stared intently only made her heart beat faster. She began to imagine plucking out his eyeballs just to stop feeling the way his gaze caressed over her, making her want things she should not want.
“What can I get ya?” she asked the woman next to her last customer, raising her voice over the Chris Stapleton song the live band belted out.
“A cosmopolitan,” the woman yelled back.
Megan turned to fetch the woman’s drink when her gaze connected with Nash. Dammit. Those eyes locked on her, making her belly flip and flop. She quickly glanced away, her hands shaking when she reached for the vodka and triple sec.
When the hell did she become this pining woman?
Megan Harrison had her stuff together, buying her own bar at only twenty-five, working long, hard hours without ever complaining. She’d been the girl with a good head on her shoulders. The woman who knew better than to get with men like Nash Blackshaw. She had seen men at their worst, drunk, belligerent, and broken. Those men never shook her, but Nash rattled her right down to her bones.
She sighed . . . again, grabbed the martini glass, and began pouring the vodka first. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been able to handle Nash before. All through high school when he laid on the charm, she turned him down. Every single time. Even into her twenties, before he left to join the professional bull-riding circuit, she cleverly thwarted his attention. Until her twenty-seventh year. Apparently, this was the year that would change everything.
Most of all, her and her life.
There was no refusing the way her body and heart craved him anymore.
Which was entirely the problem. She never should have let that night happen. And yet, she didn’t regret it either. Good things came from that night.
The first few weeks of ignoring Nash had been easy. She’d whipped up some snappy lines and kept him at a safe distance. Life returned to what it had been before she’d had a lapse in judgment and let Nash win for a night.
Things were good. They were back to normal. Until she was into the fourth week after their night together. Everything changed then. And ensuring Nash got nowhere near her heart had proved harder. He seemed to invade cracks in her walls. More and more, she forgot all the reasons they shouldn’t be together.
Wide awake,
he was there. In her dreams, he was there. He would not go away. Ever.
When the fifth week came along, she had a softness for him that was utterly dangerous for the power it gave him. Without a doubt, the moment he spotted that weakness, he’d exploit it to his advantage. Her heart had never been at a greater risk. For one thing, he had a terrible track record with women. For another, he was a man who didn’t fight for a damn thing but himself. A man who took and took and took, until all that was left was the crumpled-up women he left behind.
No, thanks.
