Page 55 of Texas Hold Em'
The fire I saw in him burned in me as pleasure coursed through my body and curled my toes. When he was done, Tex stroked my hair off my forehead and kissed me like I was a breakable thing made of glass, and in that moment, I became aware of a new truth that startled me.
The only person who could break me was him, and if he wanted to?
I’d let him.
CHAPTER 23
JAMESON
The guys settled into comfortable places in Grant’s shop. Mason leaned against the cabinets on the far wall beside Jackson and Brody. Abel nursed a beer while perching on an old shop stool with a peeling seat. Beside him, Gabriel sat inches off the floor on a crawler, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he rolled the crawler back and forth, back and forth.
Abel shot him an irritated glance. “Joker, will you fucking sit still? This isn’t grade school.”
Gabriel looked up innocently from where he rolled on his crawler. “Who shit in your cereal this morning, Snake?”
Abel rolled his eyes to the ceiling and drank more beer. “This is serious.”
Knox stood with both hands in the pockets of his club jacket. His bored expression suggested this was the mood Abel and Gabriel had been in all damn day.
Nobody seemed willing to start the conversation off. We all knew why we were there, which was to talk about the plan. Not the Friday-night plan, but the bigger, higher risk plan of stopping my heart and convincing Bates I was dead.
For the first time since I proposed the idea, I felt a flutter of nerves in my gut.
I cast a glance over my shoulder out the bay doors of Grant’s shop. Up on the porch, Carrie sat with Suzie and Samantha. She was in the corner of one of the outdoor sofas and she’d drawn her knees all the way up to her chest. She’d had a hard time leaving the house this morning to come here. After our afternoon and night together yesterday, she’d begged me once more not to do this, but when she saw how fixed I was on the plan, she relented and agreed to tag along.
“If I can’t talk you out of it,”she’d said, “the least I can do is be there to make sure nobody talks you into anything even dumber.”
I’d told her to calm down and that she was clearly obsessed with me, but if she wanted to come and play my babysitter? Well, that was just fine by me.
She’d slapped my shoulder and called me an ass.
Currently, she had her head tilted to the side as she listened to a story Suzie was telling animatedly. Her hands moved with enthusiasm and her expressions shifted from one emotion to the other. From where I was standing, it was pretty obvious that Suzie was doing her best to keep Carrie distracted from what me and the men were talking about.
I’d have to thank her for that later.
“Tex.”
I turned back to the group of men and found Jackson staring expectantly at me.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Brody chuckled. “Crushing on the Ranger for real now, huh?”
I rolled my shoulders. “We have more important things to talk about.”
“She looks stressed,” Knox said, leaning to the side to peer past me and get a look at Carrie up on Grant’s porch. “Is she getting cold feet?”
“You mean colder feet than she already had?” I asked. “No, she can handle it.”
Jackson pushed off the cabinets and stood with his arms crossed. “Let’s stay on subject. We have a lot to get through today. First orderof business. Tex, are you sure you want to go through with this? Say your piece now. There will be no shame in changing your mind.”
Shame? Perhaps not. At least not from my brothers. But me?
I wasn’t one to turn my back on a chance like this.
“I want to move ahead with the plan,” I said with finality.
Jackson studied me quietly for a moment, and I wondered if he’d been hopeful I would back out. “So be it,” he said. “How are we going to make this work?”
