Page 55 of Mister Cowboy
“Too nervous to eat. Should have known better.” Her words came out in broken sentences. Each syllable making her more tired.
His hands were gentle as he lathered the soap across her body. It was the only time he’d ever touched her that her body hadn’t reacted with wanton desire. Letting her head fall forward, she smiled at his erect penis. Even in her drunk stupor, smelling like puke and desperately needing a breath mint, she admired what a perfect specimen he was.
He laughed gently against her ear. “Stop staring at my penis.”
“Can’t help it.”
“Neither can I.”
Turning off the water and grabbing a towel from the hook on the outside wall, he billowed it out over her head, dropping it around her shoulders. She started to shuffle across the tile to the bed, only to have her feet swept out from under her again as he picked her back up. Protesting seemed silly since he’d already taken such tender care of her, so she nuzzled against his chest and let him put her to bed like a child.
30
Brecken
His arm tingledand his shoulder ached under the weight of her. January had been asleep him for the past hour. Listening to her even breathing and feeling the soft exhale against his chest, he felt completely at peace. His arm might have been on its way to falling off, but he’d be the happiest one-armed fellow ever.
It was the first time in a very long time that he’d laid beside a woman without having sex, and it was also the first time he didn’t give a damn. Just lying next to January was better than the orgasms he’d had with any other woman.
A soft moan escaped her lips, and January rolled over, putting her back to him.
He thought of his father’s uncovered journal. Not that he’d really forgotten, it’d been in the back of his mind all night. Looking across the room to where it lay on the dresser, he could see the bound book that matched the one his father had given him on graduation.
Rubbing a hand over his late-night scruff, he weighed the pros and cons of reading it. On one hand, there was nothing it could say to make up for the lies and deceit he still felt deep down in his bones. On the other, he was curious about what his father could have possibly written about for the last eighteen years. There were only so many ways to say I’m sorry. Not that his proud father had tried to apologize. It had been more like a bullshit speech about how he was too young to understand.
Resolving to keep his heart hard, he stood with a false confidence and retrieved the journal. The smooth leather was reassuring as he ran his hand over the cover. Old, worn, comfortable. They were characteristics he’d loved about his father’s lifestyle, and ones he’d worked the hardest to eradicate from his own.
Climbing back into bed with January and propping his cell phone flashlight on his chest, he opened to his father’s scribbled handwriting. The first words, the familiar greeting, “Dear Son,” knocked him in the gut, and he shut the book with a snap.
Maybe he didn’t want to forgive him. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but as he sat there with a book that possibly contained all the answers to the million questions he’d asked himself over and over the last eighteen years, he couldn’t bring himself to read it. This was onlyhisversion—his father’s side of the story didn’t include the way his mistakes changed Brecken’s life.
Running a hand through his hair, he tossed the book on the floor next to the bed and then brought January’s warm body closer to his. He wasn’t going to give his father the satisfaction of messing with his head again. He’d come too far.
* * *
Her eyes fluttered open, and her face peered up at him, chin resting on his chest.
“Hi,” she said timidly.
Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled, pinning her underneath him. He wanted to wipe that unsure expression off her face. It threatened to destroy him.
“Good morning. Can we get a ruling on the field?”
Her brows furrowed, and the corners of her eyes crinkled. “What?”
“Last night, you called time out. A flag was thrown on the play, and I’m demanding time to be added back to the clock.”
She covered her face with both hands. “Oh my God. I’m so embarrassed.”
“I had no idea you were such a sports fan, but you threw that T like you had done it before. Volleyball? Football? Oh, please tell me you’re into that whole women’s lingerie football and all my dreams just came true.”
She dropped her hands and smiled up at him. “Lingerie Football League? Seriously? That’s what you think I do in my spare time?”
“A man can hope.” His dick twitched just picturing her in a pair of pads and…well, nothing else.
She rolled her eyes. “I played basketball. I was tall—coaches loved me.”
“Correction. Youaretall.”
