Page 12 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

“Caleb’ll drive it.” He rearranges himself so he can help me into the front passenger seat.

It’s help I don’t strictly need—I hope— but I can’t find the words to tell him that when his big, hulking body is leaning over me and somehow, despite his hugeness, being so gentle with me, so tender, as he makes sure I’m sitting in properly then fastens the belt across my middle.

I hold my breath, my eyes locked to his face, those long, dark lashes fanning his cheekbones, a hint of freckles across the bridge of his nose that I haven’t noticed before because we’ve never been this close.

I feel like I’m right in the heart of an electrical storm, with lightning sizzling all around us.

He shuts the door, and I jump a little at the suddenness of the sound and the way it bursts through my thoughts.

A second later, he’s folding his bulky frame into the driver side—a hatchback Prius isn’t exactly built for a guy like Cole, and I stifle a laugh at the sight of him: a bit like a clown in a clown car—as he starts the engine and throws me a look.

It's a look that immediately turns my tummy into knots and flattens the smile.

A look that’s unimpressed.

Angry?

I straighten, my heart lurching into my throat, and all thoughts of safety fly out the window. “Are you mad at me?” I ask, hands clasped in my lap to hide the way they’re trembling.

Midway through reversing out of the park, he stops and turns back to me. “What?”

“I’m sorry. About tonight. The wine just went…”

He shakes his head. “I’m not mad at you, Beth.”

He doesn’t sound mad, but he sounds something. “But you’re…what? What are you?”

He starts backing the car out again, focused on driving. It’s about ten minutes to the ranch. I keep looking at him as he points the car in the right direction and begins to accelerate.

“Cole?”

He throws me another glance, eyes on my face. “I liked seeing you relax. You don’t do it enough.”

“I’ve only been here a week. How do you know that?”

“Cause I’ve seen you,” he says unapologetically. “You’re wound tighter than a banjo string.”

I smile at the expression, but then sigh, because he’s right. “I know.”

“Is it the work?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Anything you’re finding too hard?”

“No,” I almost laugh. “It’s fine. I could do this stuff in my sleep.” But even then, after too much wine, I realize that might seem offensive to Reagan. “I mean, I don’t mean, that’s not to say?—,”

“It’s okay,” he says, gently. “She said you were overqualified.”

My cheeks flush. “I didn’t mean to sound?—,”

“You didn’t sound anything.”

I bite into my lip and focus out of the window, hands fidgeting before I hear Christopher’s voice and smooth them out on my thighs.

“I make you nervous, don’t I?” he asks, after a few minutes of silence have stretched between us.

I swallow past a thickness in my throat. I mean, I’m nervous around him, but that’s not the same thing as him making me nervous. “Not exactly,” I say, after a beat.

“What’s that mean?”

I turn to face him, thoughtfully. “I’ve never known anyone like you before,” I admit.

“A cowboy?” he turns to me and flashes a tight smile. My stomach flips.

“Not just a cowboy,” I murmur thoughtfully. “Like some kind of AI generated, hot, kind, too-good-to-be-true cowboy.”

He approaches a stop sign but the expression on his face makes me think he might have stopped the car anyway, sign or not. Shock shifts his features.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re just way too…everything. It’s a little unnerving.”

He laughs then. Tilts his head back, and laughs. “You mean Beau, right?”

I wrinkle my nose as I shake my head.

“Well, gee, Beth.” His voice is deep though, despite the humor in his tone. “That I did not see coming.”

He starts to drive again, a tension in his frame I can’t help but notice as we approach the ranch and he turns the car off the road, then begins heading up the long, winding drive to the ranch house.

The car smells like him, even though he’s only been in it since we left The Silver Spur. It’s a nice smell. Heavenly, in fact. Woody and masculine, addictive.

He pulls the car up and cuts the engine, then quickly gets out and comes around to my side, opening the door before I even realize what’s happening.

My brain is sluggish, the alcohol really hitting me hard now.

As if he realizes that, he reaches in and undoes my seatbelt, then puts a hand around my waist to help me out.

Except, when my feet connect with the ground, I wobble and he curses under his breath before scooping down and lifting me right up, clean off the gravel, and into his arms.

His strong, powerful arms. Holding me against his broad, rugged chest. I inhale because I can’t help it, tasting that masculine scent at the back of my throat, craving more. My hands curl around his neck and I stare at him like he has the magnetic force of a black hole. I can’t look away.

“Beth,” he growls, as we near the door. “You need to quit lookin’ at me like that.”

I blink, but don’t look away. “Like what?”

He throws me a look of impatience as he shoulders in the door and keeps striding through the house. My heart is racing.

Outside my room, he eases me to my feet. “You right now?”

“How was I looking at you, Cowboy?” I ask, knowing the wine is making me act in a way I never usually would, but totally unable to stop.

“Like you’re wanting to start something with me. Something we both know is about as dumb as it gets.”

I press my back against the closed bedroom door, eyes hooked up to his. Way up. Because even in heels, he’s inches taller than me.

“Why’s it dumb?” I ask, but the sober version of me, buried waaaay down beneath the Chardonnay, is shouting a laundry list of reasons I choose not to hear.

Suddenly, the fact that the last man to kiss me was Christopher makes it hard to breathe.

I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be kissed by Cole.

Would he taste as good as he looks? Would he be gentle or rough, slow or fast?

“For about a million reasons,” he says.

But I don’t want him to listen to his reasons any more than I’m listening to mine. I lift up onto the tips of my toes and wrap my arms around his neck—something I would never even think of doing, if it weren’t for the wine.

“Name one, I’ll wait,” I offer, but before he can speak, I brush my lips over his in an invitation.

A desperate plea. I want Christopher’s place in my life to be erased, starting now.

Starting with Cole. I want to move on, to throw Christopher where he belongs, in the rear-view mirror.

I want to reclaim my power, my autonomy, to be the boss of my life, starting with this moment, right here.

“Beth,” his voice holds a warning, but I don’t heed it.

I brush his lips again and feel his body tighten, like he’s bracing for something.

His big, strong body. He pushes forward a little, so my back’s against the door and he’s sort of supporting me there, and I hold my breath, waiting, desperately needing for him to kiss me back.

He jerks his head from mine and stares into my eyes, as though he’s fighting a battle within himself or something, and then, he lifts a hand to caress my cheek, so I shiver at the strange intimacy of that. Such a simple gesture only it feels anything but.

“Go to sleep, Beth.” And he leans down to press a single, swift kiss to my forehead before turning and stalking away, all sexy, cowboy, ‘can’t touch this’ swagger.