Page 38 of Rough Ride

“Here’s the thing,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t really make a good ranch water. It’s just tequila, lime juice, and sparkling water. That’s just the excuse I would use to get you back here.”

“So you could do what?” I asked. I was close enough to feel the warmth coming off his body, banishing the chill in the air. “It’s a pretext forwhat,exactly?”

There was a sparkle in his baby blue eyes as he gazed down at me. I held my breath. For a moment in time, both of us frozen just a few inches apart, our minds were on the same wavelength. I felt like I knew exactly what he was thinking, the imagination behind those lively eyes.

“Then I would kiss you,” he said softly.

I bit my lip. “Oh?”

“Mmm hmm,” he rumbled. “And depending on how the kiss went, we would go from there.”

From a distance, Johnny seemed kind and sweet. But this close to him? I could feel his quiet strength, with the faded scent of leather and sweat. This was an undeniably powerful man, a fact which was easy to forget when he was laughing and giving me that easy smile.

I wanted to reach out and grab him, to run my hands over the muscles I knew were beneath his flannel shirt. But I held myself back and said, “What kind of kiss?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There are lots of kinds of kisses,” I explained, my pulse quickening. “A polite kiss on the cheek, a peck on the lips. You have to be more specific—”

“Thisis what I mean.”

And then he showed me.

17

Sophie

Johnny grabbed me by the waist, whirled me to the side, and pushed me up against the trailer. It was the perfect amount of rough manhandling that I loved.

Andthenhe kissed me.

My world crashed down around me, but I didn’t care. Johnny laid claim to every inch of my mouth, with deft flicks of his tongue that devastated me in the absolute best way. The way he surged forward, wedging me against the trailer, made me stop caring about my stupid rule about hooking up with cowboys. The only thing I cared about was that he never stop, that he kept grinding his lips against mine.

But then hedidpull away from my mouth, keeping his forehead pressed against mine. His cowboy hat had been pushed back, but it covered us both in a little bit of shade from the harsh overhead lights of the rodeo camp.

“That,” he whispered in a deep rumble, “is how I was planning on kissing you at the end of tomorrow’s date.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Wow. I can’t wait, then.”

“So it’s the right kind of kiss?” he asked.

“It is,” I managed to grit out. “That’s the kind of kiss that leads to more.”

“Oh? More what?” Johnny asked, feigning ignorance.

“More ofwhateveryou want.”

“I thought you don’t go out with cowboys,” he said with a smirk.

“You might be worth an exception to my rule.”

He raised a blond eyebrow. “Mightbe?”

I gave him an evil smile. “Depends on how the rest of tomorrow’s date goes. Too bad we have to wait.”

“Yeah, too bad,” he said, smiling deeper.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

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