Page 49 of The Naughty List

She races toward him, mirroring his moves to always keep right in line with him, but that’s not going to happen. Not on my watch.

I cut through the arena, running up the center toward her as my heart pounds, but no longer from the thrill of the race. I’m just exhausted. This is more running than I’ve ever had to do in New York.

I’m going to need a good drink after this, and it better be strong.

My pace slows, and I try to push myself a little faster. Realizing she might just beat me to him before I get my shot at taking her out. I feel like I’m racing at a snail’s pace, but I ignore the way my lungs burn and push past it. Then just as she’s about to cross in front of me, I throw myself forward, tumbling over my own feet and skidding along the dirtied snow of the arena putting me right into her path.

Nick is only a few paces to my other side, probably having watched my spectacular downfall. I cry out in pain as my hip takes the brunt of my fall, but I have no time to even think about it as the redhead is on me.

It happens all too fast. Her eyes are locked on Nick, and she reaches out her hand, ready to grab him, but not getting the chance to adjust herself, she’s forced to try and leap over me, only her diamante studded cowgirl boots hit my shoulder and she tumbles over, face planting into the snow just as Nick sidesteps, quickly avoiding using her fallen body as a runway, leaving him no choice but to jump over me.

But he’s not getting away with it that easily, and I’m sure as hell not about to let him get this close to me only to let him race away with a trail of girls heavy on his heels.

As he flies over my head, I throw my hand up, praying to the coordination Gods that I can somehow pull this off, and then in a moment of sheer luck, my fingers curl around the bottom of his boots and I grip on with everything I have.

His momentum has me all but flying up behind him, but as his ankle catches the whole weight of my body, he falls forward into the snow. I scream, barely able to hold on, and hoping like hell I haven’t hurt him, but the second he’s down, I scurry before any of these other girls can claim my victory.

I throw myself over his back, practically collapsing onto him as the exhaustion weighs heavily on my body. Hell, I can’t even take a minute to enjoy the fact that I have my hands all over his half-naked body. “Ouch,” he mutters from beneath me, his face covered in snow.

My forehead falls forward onto his back, my mouth squished against his skin as the rowdy crowd roars their approval. “I think I popped a tit.”

“You don’t have fake tits to pop,” he reminds me as the other girls hover around, some collapsing to the ground as others brace their hands against their thighs and take big heaving breaths.

“I could have fake tits.”

Nick groans and reaches for me, yanking me off his back and throwing me down into the freezing snow, but for once, it’s welcomed. Then before I can even ask him what he’s doing, his body is hovering over mine with my hand braced against his chest, his racing heart thumping heavily beneath my palm. “I committed every fucking curve of your body to memory, and these fucking tits are the same exact tits I’ve spent six years jerking off to, so don’t try and tell me they’re not real. I know your fucking body better than you do.”

Heat burns between us, and my tongue rolls out over my bottom lip, not even caring if he wanted to fuck me right here in the snow in front of all these people. I’ve never been so worked up in my life. But before I get a chance to tell him just how much I want him, a rush of cold air hits my body as he pulls away from me and gets to his feet.

Barely a second passes when he reaches down and grabs my hand, hauling me up with him before inching my shorts down over my hip and checking for any damage from my fall. “You good?” he asks as Bessy booms through the speakers about finding Blushing’s latest winner of our infamous Catch A Cowboy event.

“More than good,” I murmur, bracing my hand on his shoulder as a grin tears across my face. “Amazing actually. You owe me a date.”

Nick grins right back at me. “It seems I do.”

18

NICK

Thecanopyoffairylights over Oxley and Ben’s backyard sparkles like a million stars in the night sky, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—second to only one. Blair.

She stands across the yard, her gaze locked firmly on Oxley as he drops to his knee in front of all our family and friends on this wondrous Christmas Eve, taking Ben’s hand and promising to love him for the rest of his life. All eyes are locked on them, watching in awe and happiness, but mine are locked on her.

There’s a sadness in her eyes, a hollowness that mirrors the feeling deep inside my chest.

Oxley proposes to the love of his life, and it’s clouded by the fact that I can’t be with mine.

Last night at the fair was amazing. I knew Blair was going to go hard to prove something to herself, but in the end, she was proving something to the rest of the world. She’s just not brave enough to say it out loud—that we still belong together after all of these years.

Our gathered family and friends cheer for the happy couple as Ben falls into Oxley’s arms, but when all eyes are supposed to be on them, Blair shifts her gaze to mine, and I see in her eyes, exactly what’s been messing with my head since the moment we got here—that should have always been us.

Blair presses her lips into a tight line, trying and failing to give me a small smile, but the heaviness is weighing her down. As her eyes pool with unshed tears, she slips through the crowd before making her way up the side of the property.

I try to give her space, but the second she disappears out of sight, my control slips, just as it always does with her, and I follow her out to the front of the property, finding her seated on the swinging love seat that used to belong to my mom. She has one foot beneath her while the other braces against the ground, gently swinging herself back and forth as she stares out into the night.

“You okay?” I murmur, leaning up against the frame of the old double porch swing.

She lets out a barely audible sigh, and the heaviness is even clearer. “I screwed everything up,” she tells me. “I know you felt it back there, just like I did. That was supposed to be us. If I’d stayed, we would have had a whole life together, and I’m only now just realizing how much I lost. We could have had kids by now. Been married and built the home we always talked about, but I was selfish. I was thinking about the things I wanted and wasn’t capable of seeing that there could have been other ways to get it. I should have stayed. You should have made me stay.”

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