Page 30 of The First Day of Breeding Season
“You should, you know. Look at me.” Her voice is full of steel.
I almost smile. Almost. “Should I?”
“Are you afraid of what you’ll see?”
It’s more accurate that I’m afraid of what I’lldo. But sure. I shrug and then nod.
“Because you knew my dad.” The fact that she’s having both sides of this conversation doesn’t seem to bother her, so I let her have another nod.
He’d want better for her.
I don’t say that out loud, because I don’t want her to argue that I’m a pretty successful rancher. That’s beside the point. She can’t see the parts of me that aren’t acceptable for her.
I take a deep breath and change the subject. “Tell me about your tattoo.”
“Okay. It’s pretty wild that we have matching tattoos, isn’t it? Especially because yours is probably the same age as me.”
“Older,” I grind out.
She makes a pleased little sound that makes my dick go hard.
I cross my arms over my chest. “And just how fucking fresh is yours?”
“I got it almost four years ago, on my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t know there would be someone else out there with the same one. Kind of weird to think about us sharing a tattoo for so long and having no idea, huh?”
Yeah. It’s fucking weird as hell.
I rub at the back of my neck. “How’d you pick it?”
“I have his sketches. A dozen notebooks. The rope has always been my favorite.”
“Must have been one of his first sketches that you saw.” I kick my heel against the ground and step forward, right to the edgeof the tarp. The wind blows raindrops on my overheated skin. “Probably at the front of a sketchbook or something, right?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brynn turn to stare at me. “Why do you say it like that?”
I growl something that doesn’t rise to the standard ofwords, but functions just as effectively as a rejection of the premise.
And then I stalk into the rain, because there’s only so much earnest, smart girl energy I can withstand before I do something incredibly stupid.
“Hey!”
I ignore her, which is really fucking hard to do.
“You’re getting wet!”
That’s fine. Maybe the rain will wash the lust fever away.
I tip my face up to the sky, letting the cool water slash under the brim of my hat.
“Do you want our connection to be an accident that badly?” Brynn asks breathlessly from right behind me.
Yes.
“I knew as soon as I saw your tattoo that I was meant to be here.”
“As astudent,” I roar, turning around. “Not as temptation.”
She just stares at me.
