Page 27 of Sexting the Cowboy

What question?

The one about the picture.

You’re unbelievable.

I prefer relentless. Show me that you miss me, doc. Something scandalous.

I pause at the edge of the midway, thumb hovering over the keyboard. He can’t be serious. He’s totally serious. My pulse thrums, half nerves, half something I shouldn’t name. I type back,You don’t quit, do you?

Never learned how.

You barely know me.

That’s why we’re talking.

You shouldn’t be this distracting.

You should see me in person.

I already did,I send.That’s the problem.

Then consider me flattered.

I stare at his last message until my reflection fades from the glass. The thought hits me hard and fast—how long it’s been since anyone made me feel wanted, not in some abstract way but right now, right here. It’s stupid, reckless, exactly the kind of mistake I promised myself I wouldn’t make again.

And yet.

I shower when I get back to my room, let the water pound the sweat and dust from my skin. The mirror fogs over, and for a minute I just stand there, staring at the blur of myself. My phone sits on the counter, screen lighting up once. Twice.

Still thinking about that scandalous picture I never got,he writes.

I laugh under my breath.You’re incorrigible.

That’s three strikes, Doc. You owe me.

What do you want, Wyatt?

You already know. But I’ll settle for that picture. For now.

I dry my hands, grab the phone, sit on the bed with my hair dripping down my back. I shouldn’t. But I scroll to the camera anyway. The image that stares back at me isn’t scandalous—it’s quiet. The curve of my shoulder, the slope of my spine, my hair falling like a curtain. A trace of skin and nothing more. Enough to say what words won’t.

I send it before I can overthink.For your imagination only.

The reply takes all of twenty seconds.

Hell, Doc. You trying to kill me?

I laugh, tension unraveling like thread.Too much?

Not enough.

I shake my head, smiling at the phone.You’re trouble.

You like trouble.

Go to sleep, Wyatt.

Can’t. Too wired.