Page 2 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

“The ranch has a website?” Now I was just fucking with her, for no particular reason other than I wanted to. As it had been a good ten months since I had wanted to doanythingwith a woman, much less fuck with them, I leaned into it.

She pursed her lips. “I left you several messages,” she repeated.

“And I didn’t receive a single one of them, but I’ll let you tell me all about it over a beer. How’s that?” I posed.

Her gaze fell to my mouth, where I still held the napkin to stem the bleeding. She looked at me like she was thinking unflattering things. “Is that wise?”

“Fuck no, it ain’t wise,” I said. “The Painted Cat is not a place people go to seek wisdom, Hannah Bell. However, I do have an open wound on my face, and it was put there by a man whosehygiene I have reason to doubt. So maybe it’s not wise to add alcohol to injury, but at least it might kill some germs.”

Every time I called her by her full name, her cheeks pinked up a bit. It made me feel inclined to keep doing it.

She scrunched her nose like a judgmental bunny. I figured that meant she was about to say no, thank you, she would rather not further partake of my company this evening. I didn’t care. There were plenty of better ways to spend the night than conversing with a prim librarian about…well, whatdidshe want to talk to me about, anyway? It couldn’t be books. She wouldn’t have hunted me down in an April snowstorm for a ten-second conversation.

“All right.” She plopped down on a barstool. “What are you having?”

Her brown boots peeked out from under her skirt. She rocked her weight from one hipbone to the other and tugged at her skirt, loosening the fabric that had stretched tight over her thighs. I caught a glimpse of pale, slim ankles and my dick twitched to life.

I sent a baffled look to my crotch.The stacked brunette who offered to suck you off in the bathroom did nothing for you, but a fucking ankle wakes you up?Goddamn. My dick was every bit as broken as my leg.

With a shake of my head, I eased onto the barstool next to her. “Any beer on tap will do. I’m not picky.”

Hannah waved to Janie, who was sweeping up a glass that had shattered during the fight. Janie dumped the shards into the wastebasket, rinsed off her hands, and faced us behind the bar, leaning forward on her elbows with a genuine smile. “Hey, babe. What can I get you?”

Hannah smiled. “Water for me, a beer for Zack.”

Janie looked at me like she was suddenly realizing we were sitting next to each other on purpose. Her eyes narrowedsuspiciously before she turned her attention back to Hannah. “Sorry, can’t do it. He’s already had three, and Brax made me promise I wouldn’t let him get to four without a designated driver present. So unless that’s you, I’m cutting him off.”

Hannah blinked. “Oh. Um?—”

“I’m not drunk,” I protested. Maybe I wasn’t entirely sober, either, but I knew the twisty mountain roads leading from town to the ranch like the back of my hand. Not that my older brother would care about either of those points, seeing as he was a stickler for rules and bossy as hell. “Anyway, just because Brax knows laws and shit doesn’t mean you have to do what he says.”

Janie smirked. “That’s not why. Anyway, it’s snowing, the road is hazardous, and you might be a pain in my ass, but I’d rather keep you alive a while longer.” She patted my hand. “You’re a good tipper.”

Hannah sighed. “It would take me nearly two hours to get him to Lodestar and then drive all the way back to town.” She chewed her lip. “I guess you could stay on my couch? Would that be okay?”

My leg ached just thinking about spending the night on a cramped couch. Not going to happen. “No, it would not be okay, Hannah Bell. Haven’t you ever heard of stranger danger?”

“We aren’t strangers, remember?” Cheeks pink, she pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at me. “Anyway, your reputation precedes you. Dozens of women have spent the night with you, and they all came out alive.”

The way she said it all blunt like that, without the slightest hint of disapproval or embarrassment, caught me off guard. I was used to people having strong opinions about my sex life, thanks to that damn profile Sport Magazine did on me three years ago. People tended to be either appalled or…interested. Hannah was neither.

“I wasn’t insinuating thatyouwere the one in danger, darlin’.” I leaned in, enjoying the momentary confusion in her blonde-fringed blue eyes as she worked through exactly what Iwasimplying. When she blinked those pale eyelashes at me, my stomach did some sort of nonsense fluttering. “As for the other women, I want it on record that they came out alive and they camehappily.”

I said it to get a rise out of her. A reaction of some kind. Maybe a blush. But instead she regarded me with all the resigned patience of a kindergarten teacher.

“Good for you,” she said.

Encouragingly.

Like she didn’t quite believe me, but didn’t want to wound my feelings.

That put me back on my heels a bit. I was of a sudden mind to slip my hand under that ridiculous skirt of hers and lay those doubts to rest. Maybe an orgasm would wipe that condescending look right off her face.

I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to even try. Women had never been something I had totryfor, and I wasn’t about to start now. Anyway, my skin was starting to itch again and I wanted another drink. And I was still curious what had brought her here to begin with.

“There’s an empty cabin at Lodestar,” I said. “You can stay there tonight and drive me back here in the morning to get my truck.”

She wrinkled her nose again. “Or you could not drink,” she suggested.

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