Page 47

The dress is tight, hugging her body. She’s in incredible shape from her physically demanding job, and she’s got a great ass, luscious hips, and these cute little tits that’d make the perfect handful.

I notice her nipples are peaked to hard, visible points, poking through the thin fabric of the dress. Almost like I’m actually touching her instead of thinking about it.

I should not be thinking about it. If I keep thinking about it, I’m going to think about sucking on those nipples, nicking them with my teeth through the fabric so it ruined her dress and no one would ever get to see her in it again—because to see her in it is to want her in an indecent way. I’m gonna think about the way her head would fall back, how she’d fist her hand in my hair and roll her hips?—

Aw, shit, I’m gonna be hard in two seconds. I have to stop.

I wrap my real hand around her nape instead, giving it a squeeze. “A drink?”

“Fuck yes.”

I smirk. “Such a lady.”

“You were no gentleman until, well, tonight, I guess.”

“Hey.I contain multitudes.”

She grins up at me, our mouths inches apart. “Another way of saying you’re full of shit.”

“You’re too fuckin’ smart for your own good, you know that?” I give her nape another squeeze. I could be imagining it, but I think I see that hot glimmer move across her eyes again. “Cider?”

“Sure, since you’re driving.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. You have as much fun as you want tonight, sugar.”

I look up just in time to see everyone within a twenty-foot radius suddenly avert their eyes from watching us. I see Duke and Wheeler together. She’s in town a lot these days, working with Mollie on their cowboy boot company, Bellamy Brooks. Sawyer is chatting up a pretty girl I don’t recognize. Goody is setting out dishes on the long food table.

Life in a small town: everyone is nosy as all get-out. Should piss me off. Embarrass me. Sally and I didn’t talk about how we’d handle the gossip that’s sure to circulate after tonight. Guess we could say we’re having a fun little fling before Sally goes off to New York for good?

Instead, the attention makes me smile. A not-so-small part of me likes people thinking Sally and I are together. She’s way outta my league, too smart and ambitious and successful for a ranch hand like me. She’s the kind of good girl who knows better than to mess with Wyatt Rivers.

Only she is messing with me, and I fucking love it.

Fucking love the way Goody, who also happens to be Tallulah’s wife, fights a grin as we pass her on our way to get drinks.

Fucking love the way Tallulah’s eyes go wide and her face splits into a big old smile when we belly up to the bar.

But the thing I love the most? The disgruntled look on Beck Wallace’s face when he spots us from across the room.

“Well,hey,y’all. This looks”—Tallulah’s eyes flick to the hand I have on Sally’s nape—“fun.”

Without prompting, Sally slips a hand underneath my arm, bending her elbow so that she cups the ball of my shoulder. The motion has her curling her body into mine so we’re hip to hip, her head tucked against my collarbone.

“The more fun we have, the more money we’ll raise,” Sally replies.

My skin ignites at the abundance of contact that is soft and yet somehow searing.

My heart though? That nearly explodes at Sally’s sudden burst of confidence. The easy, casual way she touches me is sexy as hell, and it makes me think she knows what she’s doing. She just needs to feel comfortable—desired—to do it.

That’s my job then: make Sally feel so comfortable, so irresistibly sexy, that she does what she wants. She ain’t clamming up or pulling back on my watch.

Not when I have so little time left to enjoy her company. Because even though this date is fake, the time I get to spend with Sally is real. And I love being around her more than I love pretty much anything else.

So I do what I do best. I pull her closer. Guide my thumb up the column of her neck, circling the spot underneath her ear. I hear her breath catch, feel her breasts press into my side.

Aw, yeah.

“I’ll take a cider. Spiked, please,” Sally breathes.