Page 28 of My Cowboy Trouble (The Cowboy Romantic Comedies #1)

Her skin is warm under my fingers, soft despite the calluses she's developing. I can feel her pulse racing, can see her pupils dilate when I touch her.

"Trent—"

"Don't." My voice is barely controlled, rough with want and frustration and everything I'm trying not to feel. "Don't say whatever you're about to say."

"I was just going to ask if you're okay. You've been... different today."

Different. That's one way to put it. I've been going slowly insane watching other men touch what I can't have. What I gave up. What I walked away from like an idiot because I was too scared to believe in something good.

"I'm fine."

"Liar." She steps closer, close enough that I can count her eyelashes. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Isn't there?" Her free hand comes up to rest on my chest, right over my heart, and I wonder if she can feel how fast it's beating. "Because yesterday?—"

"Yesterday was a mistake." The words taste like ash in my mouth, but I force them out anyway. Because they have to be true. Because the alternative is too terrifying to consider.

I see her flinch, see the way my words hit her like a physical blow. But she doesn't pull away, doesn't retreat. If anything, she steps closer.

"Was it?" she asks quietly. "Because it didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like?—"

"Like what?"

"Like coming home."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Coming home. That's exactly what it felt like, having her in my arms, inside her, claiming her in every way that mattered. Like every broken piece of me suddenly fit together again. Like I'd been holding my breath for eight years and could finally breathe.

But that's the problem, isn't it? She's not home. She's temporary. A beautiful distraction that's going to rip my heart out when she leaves.

"It can't happen again," I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I'm moving closer. Crowding her against the workbench where I had her yesterday, where I made her mine.

"Why not?"

"Because you're leaving. Because this is temporary. Because I can't—" I stop, unable to finish the sentence. Unable to admit how much power she has over me, how thoroughly she's destroyed every wall I've spent eight years building.

"Can't what?"

"Can't watch you go." The admission feels like it's being torn out of me, like I'm bleeding words. "Can't pretend I don't want you when I see other men's hands on you. Can't be smart about this when all I want to do is lock you in this room and make you forget everyone exists but me."

Her breath catches, and I realize how close we are now. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to lose myself in her again. Close enough to forget every reason why this is a bad idea.

"Trent," she whispers, and my name on her lips soothes me.

"I know. I know it's fucked up. I know I'm the one who pushed you away. But seeing Gavin with you today, watching Asher make you laugh—" My hands find her waist without conscious thought, and she doesn't pull away. "It's making me crazy."

"Then do something about it."

"What?"

"Kiss me. Touch me. Stop pretending you don't want me and just take what you want."

For a moment, I'm tempted. God, I'm so tempted. She's looking at me like I'm everything she wants, and it would be so easy to lean in, to close the distance between us, to take her mouth and remind her how good we are together .

My hands tighten on her waist, and I start to lean down, drawn to her like a moth to flame?—

"Well, well, well."

Gavin's voice cuts through the moment like a blade, and I jerk back from Kenzie so fast, I nearly knock over a saddle stand. He's leaning in the doorway with that infuriating grin, looking like Christmas came early and he's about to unwrap his favorite present.

"Don't mind me," he says, but doesn't move. Just stands there filling the doorway, blocking our exit. "Just came to check on that bridle situation. How's it coming?"

"Fine," I growl, putting distance between myself and Kenzie before I do something stupid. Like finish what we started. Like kiss her senseless and remind both of them how badly I want her.

"Looks like it's coming along real well," Asher's voice adds from behind Gavin, and now they're both standing in the doorway like some kind of tag team. "Very... hands-on approach to bridle repair."

Great. Now the whole gang's here.

"Shut up," Kenzie mutters, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and something else. Frustration, maybe. Or arousal. It's hard to tell with the way she's looking at me, like she wants to finish what we started as much as I do .

"We weren't doing anything," I say, but even to my own ears it sounds unconvincing. Especially with the way my voice comes out rough, with the way I can't quite meet their eyes.

"'Course not," Gavin says, his grin widening as he takes in the scene. "Just two people standing real close together in a tack room, breathing heavy for no reason at all."

"The bridle's fixed," I snap, grabbing it and shoving it at him. "Take it."

"Don't think that bridle was broken to begin with," Asher observes, taking it from Gavin and examining it with exaggerated interest. "Looks perfectly fine to me. Almost like it was just an excuse to get someone alone in here."

"It wasn't?—"

"Relax, boss," Gavin says, stepping into the tack room proper, making the small space feel impossibly crowded. "We're not judging. Hell, if I wanted to get Kenzie alone, I'd probably use the same excuse."

"Would you now?" Asher follows him in, and suddenly we're all packed into this tiny space like sardines. "And what would you do once you got her alone?"

The question hangs in the air, loaded with implications. Gavin's eyes meet mine, then slide to Kenzie, then back to me. There's challenge there, and heat, and something that looks dangerously like invitation.

"Same thing Trent was about to do, I'm guessing," he says, his voice dropping to something rougher, more intimate. "Same thing we're all thinking about."

The air in the room shifts, becomes electric. Charged with possibility and want and everything we've been dancing around for days. I can feel it crackling between all of us, this tension that's been building and building until it's ready to explode.

"Guys," Kenzie says, but her voice is breathless, and she's looking between the three of us like she's trying to solve a puzzle. Like she's finally seeing something she's been missing. "What exactly is happening here?"

Good question. Because the air in the tack room has gone electric, charged with the kind of tension that usually ends with someone's clothes on the floor.

All three of us are looking at her like she's water and we've been dying of thirst, and she's looking back like she's seeing us clearly for the first time.

"What's happening," Asher says slowly, his voice low and hypnotic, "is that we're all tired of pretending."

"Pretending what?" she asks, but she already knows. I can see it in her eyes, the way they're dilated, the way her tongue darts to wet her lips.

"That we don't care," Gavin answers, taking a step closer to her. "That this tension between all of us isn't driving us crazy. That we haven't all been thinking about that night after the rodeo and wishing it would happen again."

My jaw clenches, because he's right. I have been thinking about it. About all of us together, about sharing her, about the way she looked and sounded when she was surrounded by us. About how right it felt, even though it should have felt wrong.

"That night was..." Kenzie starts, then trails off, her cheeks flushing.

"Incredible," Asher finishes, moving to her other side. "The best night of my life, if I'm being honest."

"Mine too," Gavin adds, reaching out to trace a finger along her jaw. "And from the way Trent's been acting today, I'm guessing he feels the same way."

They both look at me, waiting. Kenzie's looking at me too, her eyes wide and questioning. And I realize this is it—the moment where I either keep pretending that I can handle this rationally, or I admit that I want her so badly, it's destroying me.

That I want all of this and the complicated, messy, impossible thing we're dancing around.

"Trent?" Kenzie's voice is soft, uncertain. "What do you want?"

What do I want? I want to stop being the responsible one for five minutes. I want to stop thinking about consequences and tomorrow and all the reasons this is a bad idea. I want to take what's being offered and deal with the aftermath later.

I want her. All of her. Every way I can have her.

"I want," I say slowly, my voice rough with honesty, "to stop fighting this."

The words hang in the air between us, and for a moment, nobody moves. Then Gavin grins, that slow, dangerous smile that usually means trouble.

"Well," he says, his hands finding Kenzie's waist, "Trent’s finally making sense."

Asher moves to her other side, and suddenly she's bracketed between them, and they're all looking at me like I'm the final piece of a puzzle.

"Trent," Kenzie says, extending her hand toward me. "Come here."

And for the first time in twenty-four hours, I stop thinking and start feeling.

I cross the small space between us, taking her hand, letting her pull me closer until we're all standing together in the middle of the tack room, the air heavy with possibility and want and everything we've been pretending we don't need.

"Now what?" I ask, surprised by how rough my voice sounds.

"Now," Gavin says, his hand sliding up Kenzie's side, "we stop pretending and start taking what we want."

"What we all want," Asher corrects, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw.

"What do you want, Kenzie?" I ask, because even in this, even when I'm losing control, I need to know she's sure. Need to know this isn't just me being selfish again.

She looks at each of us in turn, her eyes dark with want.

"I want all of you," she says simply. "I want this. I want us. "

"Then you've got us," I tell her, meaning it more than I've ever meant anything. "All of us. Whatever this is, wherever it goes."

"Even if it's complicated?" she asks.

"Especially because it's complicated," Gavin says with a grin. "The best things always are."

Maybe, for once in my life, I can stop being afraid of wanting something and just let myself have it.

Even if it destroys me.

Even if it saves me.

Even if it changes everything.