Page 67 of Rope Me In

Her friend whacks her on the shoulder. “Oh my god; I did, too!” They both dissolve into buzzed giggles.

“Did you see his ass in those tight Wranglers?”

“Girl, if he asked me to go out to his truck right now, I would.”

Their tinkling laughter grates on my nerves as I push the shots toward them. “Here you are. Do you have a tab?”

“Yes, under Annie.”

I nod, and they lay down some cash for a tip before she distributes the glasses to her friends. They clink their glasses and down their shots before going back out to the dance floor.

Kade is surrounded by women, but they manage to work their way back in. I expect Kade to throw his arm around one of them or shoot them a flirty gaze, but instead, his head lifts, and our eyes lock.

He winks at me, and I think my heart stops in my chest. Was he looking for me? No. Why would he? We’re just—I don’t know what we are. But I don’t think we’re seeing each other.

It’s not like we’ve had a chance to talk about last night that much. After we finished our horseback-riding lesson, Kade exercised a few more horses while I watched, then we helped with the early-evening clean and feed of the horses.

He disappeared after that while I took a shower and got ready for work, but when he came back, we rode together to Night Hawk, and he was quiet the entire ride. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I got the vibe he didn’t want to talk about it. I wondered if it had something to do with what he told me about his relationship with his brother. Maybe they got into an argument or something else happened when we were apart for those couple of hours.

The blonde woman, Annie, throws her arms around Kade’s neck, and his body wavers under her weight. I bite the inside of my cheek, my hand gripping the bottle of tequila as my stomach sours.

Am I jealous? That can’t be what I’m feeling. I don’t have any claim on him. I shake my head and let go of the tequila bottle, not wanting to address that thought. After I’ve sucked in a calming breath, I walk over to the POS system so I can add the shots to Annie’s tab before I forget.

“Hey, Stu, do you mind if I borrow Presley for ten minutes?” My head pops up to see Kade in front of me. He’s grinning from beneath the brim of a dark-brown cowboy hat, the white T-shirt he’s wearing instead of the usual black Night Hawk uniform clinging to his muscles. The sweat he’s accumulated from teaching line dancing for the last hour only accentuates his lean form. My mouth goes dry, and thoughts of other women hanging on him go out the window.

“Yep, I’ll get Dan to cover,” Stu yells over the noise, grinning while he looks between me and Kade.

“Come on, Lemon,” Kade says. He’s standing next to me now, holding out his hand.

“Why?”

The words are out of me before I can think it through, and Kade chuckles. “I need a dance partner.”

I scan all the women on the dance floor before my eyes land on Annie, who is shooting me evil daggers with her dark-brown eyes. “You have lots of women to choose from.”

Kade crosses his arms over his chest, and I watch the way his forearms and biceps bulge. It has me thinking of what they looked like as he spanked me, as he held me by the throat, gently squeezing. I inhale a sharp breath, as if I can feel his hands on me again right now, and my eyes close.

“Presley,” Kade says, his mouth closer to my ear now. “Are you thinking about our time in the barn loft?”

My eyes fly open, and embarrassment floods me, but I don’t step back. “No.”

He raises one eyebrow. “Hmm, another fib to pay for. Now, come on. Let’s dance.”

This is the second time now he’s said something about paying for my little white lies, but he grabs my hand and tugs on it so I can’t think too much about it. I tug back. “Kade, I’m not a good dancer. You have other options.”

He stops and turns to face me. “I don’t want other options.”

His words freeze my heart again, and my stomach flutters. My ears don’t—can’t—believe the words that just came out of his mouth. Then the two-man band starts to play a slow song, “Something in the Orange” by Zach Bryan, and I hear a few groans.

“Trust me.” He smiles so I can see a tease of his dimples. “This will be easier than riding Big John.” I relent and mirror his joy. It’s nice to see him acting more like the Kade I know after that quiet car ride.

“Okay, fine.”

He whoops a silly holler and tugs me to the floor. There are a few couples dancing, but Annie and her friends have grouped off to the side. They’re still staring at me.

“I thought this was line-dancing night,” I say quietly, watching the couples dance around us.

“I’m done for the night. Now it’s free dance before we do bull riding at ten.”

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