Page 11 of The First Day of Breeding Season (Wildfire Ranch #4)

brYNN

I don’t sleep well.

When I saw that tattoo around Drew’s wrist, I knew that he must have known my father, and I didn’t tell him that. I kept that secret to myself, and now I’m paying for that choice.

“He was my mentor…the best of men…I can’t…”

I can’t.

He didn’t need to finish that thought.

My dad was his mentor.

He can’t be anything more to me than the same in turn.

I shouldn’t have let him kiss me.

But the way he took care of me, and then the way he looked at me, like I was water and he’d been walking in the desert for months and months and months….

I shiver and force myself out of bed.

It’s going to be hard to forget that look, and the way his hands felt holding my face so he could kiss me deeper and deeper. Hard, but necessary.

There’s a note beside the coffee maker telling me that Drew is already down at the horse barn.

I fill the Thermos he left for me, nervous butterflies panicking in my belly.

Then I race back to my room and finish packing what I need for a week on horseback.

I’ve done trips like this before, so my battery bank, my voice recorder, my notebooks and pens—that’s all neatly tucked away in one saddlebag.

And Drew’s email instructions were very clear on what else I need, but suddenly I’m second guessing if I have enough sunscreen, toothpaste, and what about the condoms I got from student health? Should I bring them just in case?

I think about how furious Drew looked as he squeezed my ankle, our tattoos brushing together.

How shattered he looked when he climbed off me.

No condoms. Not even just in case.

Maybe if there’s no option for sex, I’ll be extra good. Extra professional.

Even if I don’t want to. Even if all I want to do is soothe Drew’s hurt with the softest kisses.

At the barn, Raul is leading Ace into the trailer.

“Where’s Drew?” I ask.

He nods at the glow of red tail lights already bouncing down the lane.

Oh.

I guess Drew had a plan to avoid any awkward morning-after encounters, and there was no need for nervous butterflies.

Raul doesn’t notice my disappointment. “He’s got the bulls. We’ll follow him.”

I take a deep breath before tossing my saddle bags into his truck bed.

All right, then.

On the drive up, I pepper the ranch manager with questions, because I can, and it’s better than letting my brain spin into more and more second guessing of this plan.

And I think I have my feelings on lock when we pull up at the end of the access road, right behind the truck Drew drove up.

But all it takes is one look at the man standing beside the trailer, and my body betrays me completely.

From what I can see beneath the hat tugged low over his brow, Drew’s jaw is granite hard. Resolutely off-limits, and that only makes me want him all the more, with the same kind of soft, desperate yearning that rioted through me last night when he took me in his arms.

How can he look so untouchable and still affect me this way?

Everything inside me wants to float away on this current pulling between us. I want to get lost in the fantasy of being his, and that’s not going to happen, so I need to be jarred a little.

I push the truck door open and drop to the ground with deliberate heaviness.

His gaze immediately sweeps down my body, looking to where my rope tattoo is hidden behind boots and jeans.

Does he need a reminder, too?

Are we both trapped in this impossible space of desire and guilty complications?

“Good morning,” I manage to say.

“Morning, Brynn.” His nod is curt, but his eyes linger, telling a different story. There’s hurt there, and confusion, but something else too, something molten that makes my thighs clench involuntarily.

Leaving the condoms behind might have been a mistake, if my mentor can’t stop the hungry way his eyes gobble me up.

I busy myself with getting the horses out of the trailer and tethered to a nearby tree, while Raul and Drew use some temporary gates to create a chute into the fenced summer grazing land for the bulls—because when their trailer opens, they’re going to come out with a full head of steam.

As we all work, I find myself stealing glances whenever his back is turned.

The broad expanse of his shoulders pulls his shirt taut in a way that makes my mouth go dry.

The long strides he takes—his thick, muscular legs eating up the ground—send pulses of longing straight through my core.

And the way his ass fills out the faded denim…a girl could get used to that view.

This girl is already addicted to it, in fact.

For the umpteenth time, I quickly look away, heat blooming across my chest and up my neck. This is going to be the longest week of my life.