Page 12 of His Last Nerve

I unpeeled myself from the barn, ignoring the tingles and heat that spread throughout from the cowboy’s hold.

“Excuse me?” I asked, following him. Shit. My tablet. I spun back around and bent down, scooping up the device. When I stood again, I felt heat at my back.

Hisheat.

“That wasn’t an invitation to follow me,” the cowboy growled, his voice low. I felt his breath flowing over the top of my head.

“I—”

A hand landed on my elbow again and then we were moving. He all but dragged me across the gravel, his hand holding a firm—but not painful—grip on my elbow.

“Hey!” I protested. “Let me go!”

“You and your long legs with your fancy shoes and your fancy fuckin’ hair need to the hell off this property,” he barked back at me.

We got to the front of the barn, and he spun me around. My back was against my rental car and his arms were on either side of me, caging me in. We were both taller than the vehicle, but he made me feel tiny against it as he towered over me.

Seriously? How tall was this cowboy?

“The answer is no, City Girl. Go on back to your paved roads and dirty air. Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want it. The answer will always be no. Go back to your city. Go get your suit wearing boyfriend to lay you down and fuck you until you fake it. Then, in a year or so, he’ll put a ring on your finger and a baby in your belly. You’ll be a stay-at-home wife. You’ll go to yoga and hire a nanny. You’ll be living off his money, so you won’t have to deal with men like me.”

I was stunned, but only for a second.Then,I was a fucking angry.

My hands found the center of his broad chest, and I pushed with all my might. He staggered back a step or two, his thick brows raising a fraction of an inch in surprise.

“Who in the hell do you think that you are?” I snapped.

He stared for a second and then, he was on me again. He bared his teeth—white, straight, and perfect—at me. The next words out of his mouth were spoken in a tone that should have scared me away. Instead, it sent tingles flying across my body.

“The owner of the ranch your fancy ass is standing on. Getthe fuckoff my property,” he clipped.

The man in front of me was Denver Langston.

This was Denver Langston?

He was nothing like I expected.

Then again, he was nothing like any of the other ranchers I had done business with. Most ranchers would be working, and I would come across a ranch hand. They would direct me to the house and then from there, I would be greeted by a member of the family—except for the rancher in West Texas. I had found him drinking whiskey on his porch at nine in the morning. Nevertheless, everyone was kind—at first. After they learned who I was, half of them would seem interested and the other half would just blow me off.

Denver Langston didn’t seem interested at all.

He was blowing me off from the start.

“Sir, I’m here as a representative of Moo—”

“Bitch,” he quipped.

I flinched at his harshness.

I have been called a lot of names in the past,bitchbeing one of them. Usually, I was able to shrug it off, but the man in front of me? The one towering over me with his smoke gray eyes and strong jaw. I didn’t like hearing that word from him. I didn’t like that it was directed at me.

This man just called me a bitch and it stung.

A stranger just hurt my feelings. The last stranger to hurt my feelings was my mother’s doctor the day he told me she had cancer.

“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to fucking hear it,” he growled.

“Sir, please,” I whispered. His features were hard—cold. “I just need a moment of your time.”

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