Page 57 of The Rogue

She couldn’t deny what the feeling was. Not anymore.

It wasn’t just attraction. She felt... attractedtohim.

She could not let this happen. She could not let her fixation about sex, about her own issues with sex, transfer to her friend and ruin the most important relationship in her life.

Sex was disappointing. Justice never was. If she wanted to go and figure things out...

It couldn’t be with him.

But what about trust...?

Screw trust. She needed her ho phase, like Fia said. She needed it. It was the only thing that would fix this. She felt that now with a wild-eyed fervor. Because if she was sitting here thinking Justice was viable... just no. She needed to get out of her bubble. That was it.

So she said the only reasonable thing she could think of.

“I want to go out tonight.”

Chapter Twelve

Rue wanted to go out tonight. He couldn’t get the manic light in her eyes out of his head. The way she’d looked at him and then... declared she wanted to go out.

Well, much like the polar plunge, he’d be there for that too. And then he had gone off to do some farm chores to try and work the tension out of his system because he was still trying to ignore the thought process that had been dogging him ever since.

Which was how he found himself in the brew works with Bix, Daughtry, Landry and Denver trying to focus on the task at hand, and failing miserably.

“Have you figured out what to do about Rue’s house?” Bix asked. “We didn’t talk about that the other night.”

“You didn’t?” he asked.

“No, I felt like it was insensitive. We could only talk about one catastrophe at a time.”

He was still angry about this, and the anger about it was much easier to deal with than all the other feelings rolling around inside him. That was for damn sure.

So in the moment, he’d embrace the rage.

He wanted to find her parents and he wanted to...

He wanted to figure out if there was a way he could send them to prison.

Poor Rue. She’d earned the perfect life she’d had only a few days ago, the life that was gone now.

Was it all that perfect if her sex life was shit?

Well, he didn’t need to go thinking about that.

“Yeah, it’s unbelievable,” Justice said.

“Poor Rue,” said Bix. “Although, there are worse things than being taken in by one of you.”

Daughtry looked at her sideways and smiled. “I’m not sure this is the kind of life Rue had in mind.”

“Definitely not,” he said.

“Well, at least she has you,” Denver pointed out.

“Yeah. Great. I’m a great help. Except I can’t fix any of it. She did everything right. I do nothing but bullshit, and here I am with a ranch and without a canceled wedding.”

“In fairness, you weren’t engaged,” Denver pointed out.

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