Page 66 of His Cowboy Heart

“What areyou doing locked away in here?” my lawyer, Louis, asked. I could hear the slur in his words, so I wasn’t surprised when he placed a glass of champagne on my desk. It joined the other two still-full glasses that Louis had brought me in the last half hour.

“Just finishing up a few things,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on whatever document was on the computer screen in front of me.

Louis lumbered around the desk and gave me a gentle slap on the back. “Your uncle would be proud, kid,” the older man said.

“Thank you, Louis. For everything,” I responded. “Tell everyone out there to go home and be with their families. We can celebrate our win on Monday.”

“Good plan,” he responded. “You coming?”

“Um, in a few. I’ve got to finish some stuff up here.”

Louis sent me a thumbs-up, but before he could leave my office, common sense hit me. “Louis, hold up. I’ll walk you down and make sure you get a cab.”

I sighed because my plan had been to cry like a baby as soon as Louis shut the door behind him, but that wasn’t an option at the moment. I was responsible for making sure that everyone, including Louis, made it safely home. The impromptu celebration my legal team had decided to throw themselves in one of my conference rooms hadn’t been my idea. Thankfully, the majority of my employees who’d decided to work on the day before Christmas hadn’t stuck around past noon, so I’d only had a handful of people I’d needed to pour into cabs or confirm they were safe to drive themselves home.

At least an empty office building would mean I could cry my eyes out in any room and not be discovered. Hell, I could lie down on the floor of my office and do nothing else for the next several days and no one would know. As I got up to follow Louis, my cell phone rang. The sight of Brooks’s name on the screen made it all the harder to tamp down my emotions. I hadn’t spoken to my friend since I’d left the ranch in the middle of the night other than to send him a text to apologize for taking the Range Rover and that I’d paid the rental company to return it to him as soon as possible. After that, I’d mostly kept my phone powered off, and I’d bought a second phone to communicate with my staff and legal team. I’d only turned my regular phone on when I’d been disgustingly desperate to see if the one person I wanted to call me ever did.

He didn’t.

I didn’t really pay attention as Louis regaled me with all the trial’s biggest moments over the past couple of months because I’d been there through all of them. I hummed whenever he took a breath so he’d think I was listening as we made our way to the conference room. I was surprised to find it empty.

“Oh yeah, they went home,” Louis said.

“When?” I asked as I took in the empty bottles of champagne and half dozen glasses on the table.

Louis simply shrugged and then swallowed the rest of the champagne in his glass. “Guess I gotta go home and face the music,” he said with a goofy smile. The sight of one of the most powerful, talented, and very expensive corporate attorneys in the city blabbering like a toddler would have been amusing if I were capable of feeling that particular emotion.

“Okay then, let’s get you a cab,” I said as I led Louis to an elevator.

“The missus is comin’ to get me,” he responded. “Think she’s been out front for a couple minutes. She’s gonna bemaaaaad.” Louis let out an ungodly belch and then whispered, “Got the in-laws staying over. ’Least they won’t be expectin’ me to go to mass like this. Wait, don’t they have wine in church?”

Thankfully, the elevators in the building moved fast and with everyone else gone, there were no stops between the top floor and the lobby.

“Hey look, it’s Santa,” Louis said with a hearty laugh as we walked through the sliding doors that led outside. I looked up to see a helicopter hovering over a spot a couple blocks down the street.

“Yes, it is. Go home and tell your kids,” I said. Since the man’s wife was a no-show, I gave Louis a slap on the back as I got him settled in a cab and paid the driver after giving him Louis’s address.

The sound of sirens wailing in the distance was just another reminder of how much I hated New York. I’d been back for five months and every day of it had been hell. All the noise and chaos that I’d once lived for only served to pull me deeper into the pit of despair that I’d dug for myself. Even on a snowy Christmas Eve, terrible things were still happening all over the city. The sirens and news chopper could be for anything from a murder to an accident to a drunken brawl. The list of possibilities was endless.

An image of lying in a soft bed of snow next to Flynn as we stared at the stars that lit up the sky while silent snowflakes fell all around us hit me hard. Hard enough to make me lose my shit the second the elevator doors closed. I didn’t care that there were cameras in the elevator. I didn’t care if someone got a still shot of me from the video as I slid down the smooth wall, tucked my knees against my chest and cried an entire day’s worth of tears. It'd been like that every day since I’d fled the ranch. Work responsibilities would often distract me enough to get through the day, but the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was to sob like a child.

I’d always gone through the ritual of dialing Flynn’s number each day, but I’d never hit the send button. I hadn’t texted him either. I’d cut off all contact with Brooks too. Since he had no idea what my real name was, once he’d found out that I hadn’t returned tohisoffice, he wouldn’t have known how to find me. Not easily, anyway.

Once the elevator reached the top floor, I pulled myself together enough that I’d be able to make it back to my office. I had a couch with a body pillow that I pretended was Flynn whenever I felt the need to hang on to him.

Which was all the time.

I had the same in my bed at my apartment.

They were the only times I let myself remember the time I’d spent on Black Hills Ranch. I’d relived the experience of being rescued by a hot cowboy from a bunch of ignorant thugs all the way to the last time he’d made love to me. I’d asked him to make it last, which he had, but not to drive my body to the edge before pulling it back again. No, he’d cherished every part of me with his mouth and touch—like he’d been trying to memorize me. I hadn’t been wearing any makeup or sexy outfit. I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted to be naked in every way as he loved me. And loved me he had.

By the time he’d gently pushed himself inside of me, I’d experienced two soul-wrenching orgasms while Flynn hadn’t taken any pleasure for himself. He’d proceeded to fuck me slow and deep, making it so my next orgasm started as a slow burn. I’d felt him everywhere. By the time I’d orgasmed for the third time, that time without his mouth or hand on me, I’d been certain it’d been the last time. Except Flynn had still been hot and hard inside of me. That was when he’d rolled us so that I was on top. He’d given me the final control of how and when he climaxed. I’d taken my time since my own dick had needed to recover. I’d been sobbing by the time our orgasms had hit us, nearly in sync. Flynn had assumed the tears had been because of how beautiful those final hours had been with him, though he hadn’t known they were our last hours together. The passionate lovemaking had been the cover I’d needed, but telling him how much I loved him just before I’d fallen asleep had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

My body felt heavy and weak as I climbed to my feet and stepped out of the elevator. That was when my phone rang… the new phone. I sighed when I saw Louis’s name on the caller ID.

“Louis, go home,” I said.

“Yeah, um, no, I gotta tell you something…”

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