Page 29 of Stud Ranch

For a moment, no one moved. Then Dylan’s mouth moved as he said something quiet to Sloane. She nodded, and he flicked his fingers at Shaw to join them.

His feet carried him swiftly, but his brain wasn’t even involved in the physical motion. At the edge of the blanket, he stopped and slowly sank to the far corner opposite the couple.

Inwardly, he winced at the thought of them as a couple. Sloane would always belong to him. From the first time he laid eyes on her at the party following the game, he couldn’t take his eyes off her, let alone quit thinking about her.

And Dylan… Fuck, the man stirred a dark need in Shaw that he didn’t know what to do with. Acting on it—especially right now—was an even worse idea than trying to talk things through with Sloane.

His stare latched on to the most beautiful thing in all of Alaska. “Hi, Sloane.”

“Shaw.”

He dipped his head. “I wanted to apologize for earlier today. The things I said—”

She cut him off by grabbing the wine bottle and the corkscrew. She inserted it into the cork and began working it free.

Her hands shook. Trapping her bottom lip in her teeth revealed just how frustrated she felt, and it wasn’t her taking issue with a stubborn cork.

“Here, sweetheart. Let me do it.” Dylan rested a hand over hers. When she looked up at him gratefully, a knife sliced deep through Shaw.

She trusted Dylan. As she should. But it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Relinquishing the bottle and opener to her Boot Knocker, she had no choice but to look at Shaw.

“I apologize, Sloane. I was out of line. I didn’t mean any of it.”

She searched his eyes as if looking for a lie. He’d never lied to her, not even when he told her that he wasn’t cut out to be a single dad with custody on the weekends, and their daughter would be better off without that in her life.

Her breathing grew deep. Finally, she nodded. “Thank you for your apology.”

Dylan popped the cork and passed the wine back to Sloane. She wrapped her slender fingers around the neck and brought it right to her lips.

When Dylan chuckled, Shaw’s gut bottomed out. The sound reminded him far too much of the night they’d shared. How many times had he wanted to seek Dylan out for another round since then?

Dipping his head, he hid his own smile at Sloane drinking straight from the bottle. She took another swig and then held out the bottle.

Dylan cocked a brow at Shaw.

They were including him in what should be their private moment?

He nodded for Dylan to go first, and the man placed his lips at the rim. Shaw watched his throat work in a long swallow, then another.

Fuck, he’d taken every drop of Shaw’s second orgasm that night. His cock stirred again, eager for more.

For things he couldn’t have.

What was stopping him from taking what he wanted from Dylan? He was attractive. He turned Shaw on.

And the gleam in Dylan’s eyes when he passed the bottle to him showed Shaw that he was more than willing to go for another round.

Both people watched to see what Shaw would do. When he reached out a hand to take the bottle, the dimple Dylan was known for with the ladies winked in and out of his cheek.

He was much too hard for such a thing as a dimple. The man was hard all over, from his rugged features to his callused hands…and his very hard, rigid, throbbing, veined cock.

Shaw’s stiffened without any hope of stopping it. All he had to do was see Sloane run her tongue over her full bottom lip to reach full erection.

Taking a swig from the bottle, he savored the knowledge that two people he’d loved thoroughly had wrapped their lips around the same spot.

Damn—he hadn’t thought of that night with Dylan as connecting on any level but the physical. Thinking about it over and over again had left him feeling as if it was…more. The revelation left his heart hammering.

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