Page 1 of A Show of Love (The Cowboy Gangster)

One

Where are you taking us?” Clint sat in the passenger seat, steeped in suspicion. In the backseat, Cochise sat across from Kane, equally suspicious of their destination.

“It’s a surprise.” Thetwinklein Axel’s eye and his impish tone didn’t bode well with the cowboy.

“I don’t like surprises.”

The Egyptian scrutinized his fiancé seated next to him. “Neither do I,” he muttered.

Kane patted his knee. “This is a fun surprise. You’ll like it.” He caught Axel’s eye in the rearview mirror and both men appeared to suppress smiles.

This isn’t good.

“Relax, baby.” Axel chuckled. “We’re going to have fun tonight, I promise.”

There was thatimpishtone again. Whatever lay ahead, Clint was convinced he would not find itfun.Which was surely why neither Axel nor Kane so much as hinted at their plans for this evening.

ClintfeltCochise’s tension from the rear seat. They were not the type who enjoyed social interaction, except amongst those within their small, private circle. Axel and Kane’s idea offunlikely clashed with their interpretation.

“Maybe we’re not the men tosurprise,”Clint growled. “It’s best you tell us where we’re going.”

Axel smiled and stared forward as they left the suburbs behind and entered the city. “You should be more open tonew things.” The boy squinted at him, further heightening the cowboy’s unease. “Expand your horizons.”

“I don’t like new things,” Clint grumbled. “And myhorizonsare just fine where they are.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Axel queried.

Clint stared at him for a long, silent moment. “No,” he muttered. “Not right now, I don’t.”

“Ah, that hurts.” He pursed his lips in a smile. “Why don’t you trust me?”

Clint glanced in the rearview mirror, catching the Egyptian’s stern stare—he didn’t trusthisman tonight, either. “Because you’re being cagey tonight. And that can’t mean anything good for us.”

“Cagey?” Axel laughed. “I’m notcagey.Secretive, perhaps. But notcagey.”

“Same difference, in my book,” the cowboy mumbled.

“Well, not in mine,” Axel replied with a cutesy smile.

Though wary of the young man’s intentions, Clint remained at the mercy of Axel’s playful smiles. No one else but Axel could have gotten him in the car, headed toward an unknown destination, knowing he probably wouldn’t like what was waiting for him. He hadn’t yet built up a resistance to the young man’s charms and suspected he never would—which afforded Axel far too much power over him. Unfortunately, Axel knew exactly how to wield that power so it worked in his favor.

A quick look in the backseat at Cochise, Clint understood the same was true for his Egyptian brother when it came to Kane. The badass gangster was no match for his counterpart.

Clint sagged against the seat and looked out the front windshield.

We’re fucked.

Two

Axel and Kane agreed—ithadto be a surprise. Otherwise… it would’ve taken a crowbar and crane to get the men out of the house and into the car. Even then, it was unlikely they could have budged the two gangsters. Planning a surprise like this was precarious at best. Insisting the men would have fun was more wishful thinking than anything else.

Clint is going to kick your ass.

Probably, but the risk was worth it. At least, that’s how Axel feltnow.Later… he might have a change of heart. Hischarmmay not get him out of the doghouse on this one.

Clint shifted in the passenger seat, his brow cinched and scrunched low above tight, narrowed jade eyes that stared forward. The cowboy anticipated an unpleasant surprise… nevertheless, he had come along.Begrudgingly, but still, here he was. That bit of reality told Axel all he would ever need to know about how much the man loved him.

The cowboy’shunchwasn’t wrong; he wouldn’t like the surprise—initially.It was Axel’s hope, though, that the men would warm to it once they got over their initial resistance. Granted, it was aslimhope, but he would take his chances.

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