Page 6 of The Bachelor

Wonderful. He had thought she was basically a teenager. “My mama always tells me one day I’ll be glad I look young, but at the same time it would be nice if just once a man looked at me and thought—”

Avery cut herself off. What was she doing? Shane didn’t need to know that she was desperately afraid no one would ever think she was sexy. She’d never been the hot girl, who had guys jostling to get her attention. Clearly Ben had even gone so far as to create an elaborate “wait until marriage” ruse in order to avoid getting naked with her. Sure, they’d fooled around, but not much more. She had once wondered if he was secretly gay, but given the other women, that wasn’t the true story. He just hadn’t been attracted to her.

Only Shane-the-stranger didn’t need to know any of that.

Unfortunately, he didn’t let it go.

“What?” he asked. “What do you want a man to think when he looks at you?”

“Never mind.” She felt pinned beneath his intense gaze, like he could tease out all of her secrets. The man never blinked. He just watched her like he knew exactly what she was thinking. Like he knew she wanted a man to strip her naked and make her his. Avery broke eye contact and felt herself blushing as she looked down at her cup. Damn, she wished it had some sugar in it. It was a bitter liquid, much like the pill she was swallowing. The sugar packets and creamers were just sitting there on the table taunting her, but she ignored them. “I just don’t get why Ben even bothered to stay with me. That’s just wrong. It’s rude to string someone along. Unnecessary. Who does that?”

“Like I said, some people want to have their cake and to eat it too.” He sat back, letting his long legs sprawl out. His arm came up to adjust something in the pocket of his jeans, and she saw again the ripple of corded muscles in his arms.

It should be terrifying to sit with him, but Avery was too upset to even care about being nervous. Instead, she was just fascinated. She’d never been this close to a man who wasn’t someone she’d known her whole life. Hell, she really was the epitome of a sheltered, small-town girl. And Shane seemed like the men she saw in magazine underwear ads, on TV shows, or at concerts she had been to in Nashville. He looked like a man who made it his business to flirt. And she would bet every dime of the four grand she had spent the last six years saving up that he was not into waiting until marriage. He would want to have sex with the women he dated. Know them completely. Be satisfied.

He would fuck.

The thought made her blush harder, yet made her want to be that woman. Just once, she wanted to be that woman.

“I’m not so sure I’m cake,” she said, tilting her head as she thought about it. “More like banana bread.”

He started laughing. “I don’t even know what that means.” He walked his long fingers over the tabletop and turned his phone screen, pushing it on. “It’s been twenty minutes. I think it’s safe to say that Ben isn’t coming back for you. What do you want to do?”

She wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to hear her musings on her ex, or if he was tired, or just trying to be thoughtful of her, but she realized she had to make a decision. She couldn’t sit here all night and expect Shane to fix the situation, or for it to fix itself.

She wanted to stay with Shane, because for some reason it felt safe to be around him. But that wasn’t smart. He was nice, and he was attractive, but she didn’t know anything else about him.

An idea occurred to her. “Can I use your phone to log in to my social app? I can send Ben a message. He’ll get the notification.”

“Sure. I don’t really use any of that stuff. Not my thing.” He unlocked the phone and turned it back toward her.

“What is your thing?” she asked, curious. His screen was a picture of the Smokey Mountains.

“Music. Motorcycles.” He smiled. “And a few other things.”

“Do you have a motorcycle?” She had no problem picturing him on the back of a bike, straddling it, in control. Strong, sexy. “I prefer horses myself.”

Shane moistened the tip of his finger and reached out and rolled it over his half-used sugar, getting the crystals on his finger. He brought it back to suck the sugar off and Avery’s mouth went dry. He had just merged adorable and hot as hell into one sexy move.

“I enjoy riding horses too. But I like the noise of my bike. It drowns out the world around me. Sometimes I need that.”

Avery knew what she needed and it was definitely a ride. She forced herself to clear her throat and focus on their conversation. “Is it hard to live in the city?” she asked, wondering if she would eventually get used to it. “I mean, that sounds awkward, but I have to admit that while I love the energy here, I feel like a hick sometimes.”

“I felt like that too when we first moved. This is your dream, though, right? To be here?”

“Yeah.” She busied herself with his phone, logging in to her various accounts before messaging Ben. “It is.” It was all she’d ever wanted—to be a songwriter. Well, that, and to find her father’s family.

That was a secret she had kept from everyone, including Ben. She didn’t plan to try and meet them. She just wanted to see them with her own two eyes. To see if they walked like she did or talked like her, or shared the same laugh.

It was a long shot. Men like Buddy and Chance Rivers were untouchable to common folk like her. The truth of that was the reason everyone scoffed at her mother’s claims to an affair with Buck Rivers. They lived behind gates and tall hedges and moved around town with bodyguards and didn’t co-mingle with catering assistants like her mother had been.

But finding them, at least catching a glimpse of them, was her dream, even if Buck, her father, had passed away in a car accident years earlier. Buddy was her grandfather, Chance her half-brother, and she just wanted to see them.

Didn’t every woman have a secret fantasy or two?

She had two, and she wasn’t sure which one was more realistic or possible. The first was to see her family, the second was to finally understand what it was like to know the secrets of sex, to experience the intimacy Ben wouldn’t give her.

Avery stared at the screen and willed Ben to respond to her. Miraculously, he did.

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