His Cowboy Heart (Love in Eden #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

FLYNN

Even if I’d been at my sharpest, which I currently wasn’t thanks to yet another endless night of trying to coerce my restless mind to take a break for once and shut the hell up, I never would have heard the sound on my own.

Thankfully, my horse didn’t suffer from the same malady. When the stallion’s ears flicked forward and his pace quickened, it was enough to snap me out of the haze I’d been lost in from the moment I’d left my beloved stirrup leathers at the saddlery.

Unlike most riders, I didn’t need the stirrups to support my feet as I rode because it wasn’t my boots that were doing the communicating with my mount anyway. I let my horse take the lead because his senses were sharper than mine. The second I made out the muffled moan followed by raucous laughter, I let out the smallest of clicking sounds that sent my horse into a smooth, quiet canter. I gave the animal his head so he could figure out exactly where the sounds were coming from.

We’d only gone a few dozen feet when my horse slowed his stride enough that he could slip between two buildings. There was no more moaning or whimpering, but it was clear the tormenters weren’t done based on their laughter and the way they were prodding each other on.

“Dude, do it,” one guy said.

“Yeah?” another voice asked.

I heard what sounded like someone spitting.

I already had my leg swung over my horse’s back before he even came to a complete stop. It took just seconds to process what I was seeing as my booted feet hit the alley’s hard dirt. Three grown men were in the process of kicking dust all over what appeared to be some kind of large animal—a dog, maybe.

“You want some help gettin’ some of that dust off those pretty nails of yours?”

I couldn’t hear anything after that because the inferno of rage that had already been building inside of me took over every part of my body. The fuckers weren’t mistreating a dog. No, the body lying in the dirt at the men’s feet was that of a person who’d tucked themself into a tight ball and covered their head in an effort to protect themself from the random kicks to the ribs, the dust being kicked into their face, and the spit raining down on their small body.

As I got closer, my body switched from hot and out of control to ice cold and lethal.

Exactly the way I needed it to be.

Since I was once again in control of my senses, I heard the man standing closest to the figure on the ground continue with, “Maybe you should try a little meadow yellow first.”

The guy’s words made no sense to me until I heard the sound of a zipper being drawn down. His two buddies were too busy to even notice my silent approach because they were egging their friend on. Even if the other two hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have changed the way I delivered my message to the man who was obviously their leader.

I had no idea if the guy had managed to pull his dick free from his pants before I reached him, but I was kind of hoping he had because it would make what I was about to do all the more satisfying.

After slamming my boot into the back of the man’s right knee, I stepped around him just long enough to let my fist slam into his face. The man’s moans of pain told me he was clearly finished, but the sight of his flaccid dick had me seeing red all over again. I yanked him to his feet long enough to knee him in the balls. The whoosh of air that left his lungs as he grabbed his nuts before falling flat on his face still wasn’t enough to satisfy my bloodlust, but I had something, or rather someone, far more important on my mind. I had no qualms about putting my back to the guy’s two wide-eyed buddies because I knew they were no threat now that their leader was out of commission.

“Get him out of here,” I ordered them, my voice dripping with ice. If it hadn’t been for the person huddled tightly in a ball at my feet, I would have happily taken what remained of my rage out on the two cowards who’d yet to move. I ignored the muffled moans and groans as the three men made their escape. There was a brief ruckus and several very un-muffled swear words a few seconds later, but I didn’t need to look to know what was going on. My loyal mount was making sure the assholes didn’t dawdle as they left the alley.

“Hey,” I said softly to the person still huddled in the fetal position before me. I couldn’t make out whether it was a man or woman because of all the dust covering their clothing, but I knew better than to touch the traumatized individual. My chest grew tight for some inexplicable reason, but I ignored the sensation. “Are you hurt?”

The soft, muffled crying was the only response I got.

“Do you want me to call the sheriff or the paramedics?” I asked. I didn’t particularly want to call the sheriff because I’d already had a brief run-in with the cocky man only a few minutes earlier when I’d entered town for the first time. He hadn’t done anything overtly threatening when he’d literally pulled me and my horse over with his police car as I’d arrived in the small town of Eden. The older man had puffed out his chest and made a show of putting his hat on, followed by placing his hand on his holstered gun. The whole thing had been so humorous that I’d nearly laughed out loud when I thought about what I’d do if he expected to see my license, registration, and insurance. Luckily, he’d merely interrogated me as to what I was doing in his town, eyeing me and my patient horse up and down with distaste before warning me to stay out of trouble as he’d strutted back to his vehicle.

“No,” the person squeaked. “I’m fine,” they choked out between coughs. I couldn’t tell by the voice whether the individual was a man or woman, but the strange tension in my chest grew stronger and an overwhelming need to put my hands on them took over. Before I even realized it, I was doing just that.

I got a muffled response to my touch, but it at least got them moving. They scrambled away from me until their back hit the brick wall behind them. I would have expected to be able to identify the person’s gender as some of the dust fell away, but all I could make out was dark hair, a flash of bright purple, and something that looked a lot like the shag carpeting that had covered the common areas of the place I’d once called home. Beneath the layer of dust, I could tell the shag wasn’t really shag at all, but the long fibers were similar. Only this particular person was wearing the once white material around their shoulders like some kind of mantle.

“I’m fine,” the stranger repeated. “You can go now,” he or she added.

Their voice had a lighter pitch to it, so I still couldn’t make out their gender, but every time the individual shifted their weight, more dust fell away, revealing an array of colors and textures. Glittery gold pants. Shimmering white pearls that seemed to be everywhere, and to top it off, high-soled platform boots with purple tassels hanging from where the heel met the sole.

Okay, so definitely a woman.

A strangely dressed woman for a small town like Eden.

Or for anywhere, as far as I was concerned. The closest image I could conjure up that matched even one element of the bizarre outfit was the tassels because they looked like the ones the ladies who did barrel racing in rodeos often wore.

The lady let out a shriek when my horse’s lips came into contact with her hair.

“He’s just checking’ to make sure you’re alright,” I said before I reached for one of the reins from the stallion’s bridle and gave it a soft tug. He immediately lifted his head and backed up a couple of steps. I took advantage of the horse’s proximity and quickly stood so I could grab my canteen and a towel from my saddlebag. The towel wasn’t exactly the cleanest since I used it to wipe dust and sweat from my brow, but it would have to do.

By the time I turned back around, I was surprised to see that the cowering woman was now on her feet. She was trying to shake out her weird fur shoulder thing. That mere movement told me she wasn’t seriously hurt. It should have taken away some of the weird tension in my chest, but instead, butterflies began dancing in my stomach.

What the hell, Flynn?

I quashed the silent, self-directed question and focused on getting some of the water from my canteen onto the towel. My hands were trembling.

“Uh, here,” I said as I stepped back toward the woman, stupidly holding out the canteen and towel at the same time. When her tear-stained, makeup-smeared eyes turned to meet mine, I wasn’t expecting the punch to the gut—the metaphorical kind, not a literal one—that nearly had me staggering backwards.

I didn’t see the smeared mascara or eyeliner.

The stain of tears didn’t hold my attention.

As far as I was concerned, every speck of dust was gone.

The only thing I saw was the striking green eyes looking back at me. They were the color of the long, tall, endless waves of new grass hidden away in the few untouched mountain valleys that I’d probably been one of very few people to ever see. I’d always felt like I’d stumbled upon the most precious of secrets when I’d let my eyes roam across that grass. I’d never touched it, though; I’d never robbed it of its strength and beauty, but I’d always wondered what it would feel like as I ran my fingers through it.

There was something I wanted to touch even more now. Something I knew in my gut would feel a thousand times better than any unspoiled blade of grass.

Warning bells were going off in every part of my brain as I reached my hand up, but I ignored every one of them. My eyes stayed on my finger as I ran it along the woman’s cheek, smearing some of the mascara. I didn’t care, though, because the moisture helped me wipe some of the dust away, revealing slivers of pale skin. It felt like silk slipping between my fingers.

A soft whimper snatched me from the haze my now quiet brain had been lost in.

My first reaction should have been to pull my hand away, but instead, I shifted my eyes back to mossy green ones that had started this whole thing. I told myself to say something… to apologize for my uninvited touch, but I couldn’t find the words because I wasn’t sorry.

How was I supposed to be sorry for something finally coming to life inside me?

Slim, delicate fingers wrapped around my wrist. The grip was stronger than I would have expected, but instead of my hand being shoved away as it rightfully should have, the small hand merely held on to me.

Like a lifeline.

I never once broke eye contact as I dared to move my finger lower. Neither of us blinked. We didn’t seem to breathe. It felt like we were both on some kind of precipice of something greater than ourselves.

Everything changed as my finger skimmed the corner of the stranger’s mouth, though. Our eye contact was broken the second the rough pad of my finger continued its exploration of a soft, plump lower lip. I dropped my eyes to watch as my thumb’s movement caused dust to fall away, leaving a light shade of pink behind. Short, hot puffs of air escaped as I fully uncovered the lips that were drawing me in like a moth to a flame.

I forgot where we were, I forgot the time of day; I forgot everything but my own name and that was only because I wanted to hear it come from those pretty lips. I was about to beg the owner’s mouth to utter my name when the hand that was locked around mine hesitantly took control. I was powerless to stop what happened next

My dick was already straining the confines of my jeans and my nuts felt like they could blow at any moment, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t hyperaware of what was happening to me. I fully expected the long fingers to either push my hand away or, if someone one upstairs was truly watching out for me, encourage my fingers to trace the soft lips again.

What I got was the sight of my thumb being drawn between now parted lips.

“Jesus,” I whispered as a harsh tremor of need hit my body. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the sight of my thumb disappearing into what turned out to be a hot, lush mouth. Those soft as silk lips closed around my digit and that was all it took.

Every speck of sanity disintegrated, and the voice in my brain trying to whisper that what I was doing was wrong was immediately silenced.

In one smooth move, I dropped my head and covered those gorgeous lips with mine. My tongue replaced my thumb. I tasted, I licked, I touched; all in the space of a few seconds. I knew what I was doing was beyond irrational, but when I tried to rein the kiss in so I could stop it, I found that I no longer really had a say in it because the mouth beneath mine hungrily took over the kiss. At some point, the hand that had been gripping my wrist had latched on to the lapels of my sheepskin-lined jacket and, along with the other hand, was pulling me forward.

The silent permission had me leaning into the small body that had already been pressed back against the wall. At that point it was everyone for themselves. We dueled for control of the kiss; we moaned and grunted in pleasure as our tongues clashed and danced at the same time. My hat ended up on the ground when those somehow already familiar fingers slid through my hair and gripped hard, making sure I couldn’t duck out of the kiss.

I had absolutely no interest in being anywhere else. I would have said so, but neither of us could stop kissing long enough for words. Those moments when we actually had to stop to catch our breaths still found us trading gentle, teasing kisses.

I’d had plenty of sex before, and I’d done some kissing with a few partners here and there, but what I was doing now wasn’t kissing. It was so much more than that.

And to think it was with a?—

I chose that moment to press my hips forward, expecting to feel one thing but getting something else entirely. Instead of my painfully hard dick being greeted by the cradle of a woman’s hips, it was brushing up against a mirror image of itself.

“Wait—” I said as I grabbed the young man’s shoulders and stepped back from him. “You’re a?—”

My eyes raked over the man’s body. He was slim and petite. The dust that clung to him couldn’t hide all the things I’d felt. Delicate hands with dark nail polish on them, his now even fuller pink lips, the paleness of his skin, and those eyes.

Those beautiful but now horrified eyes. I could practically see the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to process what had happened, both during the assault and after.

The after.

The after when I should have been helping him get cleaned up and caring for his injuries, including the shiner that was already starting to turn the cheek that I hadn’t been molesting black and blue.

“Jesus,” I muttered as I realized what I’d done. I might as well have been one of the men kicking dust over his body while he was curled up in a ball on the ground. “Hey, look?—”

“Don’t,” the man said softly. His uninjured cheek was flaming red, along with what little of his neck I could see. There was no missing the humiliation that had finally caught up to him before it had been misrouted by the kiss we’d shared.

That breath-stealing, earth-shattering, impossibly perfect kiss.

It might as well have never happened, based on the young man’s demeanor as he carefully pushed off the wall and, despite clearly being in pain, quickly brushed the worst of the dust from his upper body. All I could do was stupidly stand there. It actually took a nudge from my horse to realize how unbelievably rude I was being. I quickly searched the ground for the towel and canteen that I’d dropped right before I’d touched the young man’s cheek.

By the time I found the items and stood, the man was gone. Or at least on the way to being gone. He still had a good deal of dust on him, but his head was held high as he walked away from me and back toward the alley’s entrance. It would have been easy to catch up to him, to beg forgiveness for my behavior, to ask him to let me take him somewhere so he could get his injuries looked at, but I didn’t move.

I didn’t deserve to go after him.

Yeah, maybe I’d stopped the assault, but instead of focusing on the young man’s injuries, the dust covering his entire body, the globs of spit clinging to his clothes and the emotional trauma from being beaten and nearly pissed on by three bigots, I’d gotten caught up in a maelstrom of lust, need, and confusion, and I’d taken advantage of his vulnerable state.

I watched the man until he was gone before taking stock of what I’d just done.

I’d hurt him.

I’d humiliated him.

And I’d let him walk away.

Just like I always did.

“Par for the course,” I said softly as I reached for my horse’s reins. The big animal nuzzled my neck, leaving a trail of slimy saliva behind. Normally, the move left me smiling, but not today. I rewarded the horse with a pat and told him, “Sorry, buddy, I think you just officially became the second-best kisser in my life, and I don’t think you’re going to reclaim your title anytime soon.”

I bent over to grab my hat off the ground and immediately thought of how it had ended up there. God, those fingers running through my hair. Grabbing it. Controlling it.

A sharp nudge to the ass brought me back to reality. “Asshole,” I muttered even as my horse pressed his face against my chest. “You want to know the worst part, buddy?” I asked the stallion. “I never got to ask him his name.”