Page 38 of His Cowboy Heart

When Flynn lifted me from the horse’s back, our bodies were aligned.

Then they weren’t.

Flynn released me the second my feet hit the ground. There were no lingering looks or touches, no final words, no attempt to delay the inevitable with awkward conversation. Flynn merely took BJ’s reins and led the horse out of the woods.

My chest hurt so bad, I almost sank to the ground then and there. I managed to lock my knees, which kept me upright, but it wasn’t until I saw a strange car come to a stop in front of the farmhouse that I woke up from my haze. I didn’t recognize the vehicle, but I did recognize the man who got out and sprinted up the steps.

My problems with Flynn forgotten, I ran to the house. By the time I’d reached the kitchen, I could hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. It was Brooks.

“What’s happening?” I asked as Brooks brushed past me and reached into the refrigerator.

“It was a lie. All of it,” Brooks practically shouted. “All these years and he let me believe?—”

“Brooks, sweetie, I don’t understand?—”

“I need to go.” Brooks glanced at his watch. “He’s not going to wait for me if I’m not there!”

“Who? Where?”

“Dad!” Brooks shouted like that one word was supposed to clear it all up.

“You’re going to see your dad? Are you leaving Wyoming? I thought you and Xavier?—”

Brooks grabbed my upper arms. I hadn’t told him about the injury on my arm so when he grabbed me, it made that arm bang against my side. I hid the pain as best I could.

“I love you, Jules, but I don’t have time to explain. I need to get to the airport and if I don’t find the keys to the fucking Range Rover…”

Brooks was sweating and shaking. I’d gotten so familiar with him being so calm and submissive when we’d first met, it was hard to watch the emotions play out on his face. “They’re in my coat,” I said. “Grab me a water,” I added as I went to the mudroom where the coats were kept.

“Jules, I can go?—”

“It’ll do me some good to get out of the land that time forgot,” I muttered. “I’ll drive, you explain,” I said as I jingled the keys, then headed for the Range Rover. The second I stepped outside, I knew I was being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and goose bumps were popping up all over my arms.

I knew what it felt like to be watched, to have every move scrutinized, but none of those times had left me breathless with excitement.

Finding Flynn was the exact opposite of finding Waldo, the famous cartoon character. It was like there was something connecting the two of us; something that made finding him in a crowd easy. It wouldn’t matter if we were lost in a sea of people, all it would take was feeling his eyes on me and I’d know he was there. I’d find him each and every time.

At present, my confounding, mesmerizing, confusing as fuck, drop dead gorgeous one-time savior was standing just outside the barn, his eyes locked on me. Knowing that Flynn was watching me sent a wave of heat through my body. My dick was throbbing with anticipation while saliva filled my mouth as I thought about what it would be like to lock eyes with Flynn as he was fucking my mouth. I could almost hear his words of praise as he fed me more and more of his length. Would he fuck my mouth however he wanted or would he make me work to pleasure him? I wanted it both ways. No matter what he did to my body, I wanted it to be hard and rough but slow and deep at the same time. I wanted to know that when he did finally end up balls deep inside of me for the first time, would he bend me over something and fuck me senseless from behind or would his strong body be pinning me to the bed as he slid in and out of me in long, deep, strong lunges that left me incapable of doing anything but taking it? Would he kiss me as he came inside of me or would he be too far gone to do anything but cling to me as he made us one?

I was so caught up in my haze of lust that when I finally turned my head to meet his gaze head-on, it took me several long seconds to realize my intense fantasies were one-sided. The huge lamp that hung over the barn shed enough light on Flynn for me to see that unlike my own eyes that had to be burning with need, there was nothing in Flynn’s. He may as well have been looking right through me.

Given everything that had happened just hours earlier, I’d expected to seesomethingin his expression.

Anything.

But there was nothing.

Not even contempt.

At most, the only thing I saw just before he turned and disappeared into the barn was the reflection of my own self-disgust. All the terrible things I’d said to Flynn had worked. My words had driven him away, and I now had legitimate proof that I was as ugly on the inside as I so often felt on the outside.

The porch door slamming just behind me forced me to straighten my shoulders and bite back the sting of tears.

“You ready?” I called without looking over my shoulder. It was a futile attempt to get control of myself. Thankfully, Brooks was too preoccupied to notice the catch in my voice.

As soon as Brooks got in the passenger seat, he began talking about the events of the day. What had started out as an outing with Xavier and his younger sister, Sara, to check out the county fair had ended in the discovery of a web of lies and deceit that had changed the trajectory of Xavier and Brooks’s budding romance when they’d still been teenagers.

Brooks was talking so fast that it was hard to keep up with all of it, but the bottom line was that James Cunningham, Brooks’s father, had used his political and financial influence to railroad officials into prosecuting Xavier as an adult rather than as a juvenile for a crime that it was no longer clear that the then sixteen-year-old had even committed. Xavier had ended up in prison and Brooks had been manipulated into believing the older boy he’d fallen hard and fast for had betrayed him.

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