Page 15 of Her Cowboy Prince Charming

“So what? I don’t care what Levi thinks.”

“Because Levi is your brother no matter what,” he said. “And Levi could go from being my friend to my enemy pretty damn quick. If you don’t think your brother would absolutely kick my ass for this, you don’t know him very well.”

“He doesn’t own me,” she said.

“No. He doesn’t.”

“I bet if you quizzed him, he would think that I’d probably had sex already.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. And I’m not suggesting that your brother thinks that you’re never gonna have sex. But I do think he figures his friend who is twelve years your senior is not the one doing the honors.”

“What does it matter?”

“I’ve known you since you were a kid. It matters because I’m supposed to protect you.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman? That’s bullshit.”

Him and his overprotective nonsense. He thought that he knew more because he’d had more sex than her?

“It’s not bullshit,” he said.

“The orgasm felt good. How was it harming me?”

“Because you could get hurt. Because I knew what my limitations were, and what I was interested in and what I wasn’t.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.”

He rubbed his hand over his face, and he looked tired. “Am I wrong about them? Do you want a family, Jessie?”

“I don’t know. I wanted you. I didn’t really think about what else there was.”

She felt really stupid having said that.

“Well, I was never headed toward family life. What I wanted was to build a business. That’s my focus.”

“You’re assuming a hell of a lot about me. That I can’t just have sex for fun.”

“I’m not sure if you can because—”

And suddenly, they heard the front door open, and mutually froze.

And heard footsteps.

Then Jessie started to hurriedly run circles around the tree, wrapping the lights, as if demonstrating a little bit more progress might make it believable that they hadn’t just been talking about sex.

And there was Levi, looking exhausted from the day.

“Nice,” he said.

“Yeah,” Damien practically grunted.

“I was thinking maybe we could have pizza?”

“Such a long drive,” Jessie said.

“No. I order it, and have them deliver it to a friend of mine’s address that’s on the outskirts of the edge of where they deliver. And it cuts my drive time in half.”

“That’s brilliant,” Damien said.

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