Chapter 14 #2
He shrugs into the pink shirt, and my brain short-circuits completely.
The color should look ridiculous on him.
Clash with everything he is, all that hardness and danger and barely leashed violence.
Instead it makes his skin look darker, his eyes more intense, and the western cut transforms him into something that makes my mouth achingly dry.
“Well?” he asks, and I realize I’ve been staring.
“It’s fine.” The words come out strangled, and I have to cover my mouth to keep anything else from escaping.
Dee Dee produces a black Stetson and sets it on his head, and whatever oxygen was left in this warehouse evaporates entirely.
“River.” Her voice cuts through the fog in my brain. “Your turn. Changing room’s in the back corner.”
I take the items she hands me. Designer western jeans, the pink rhinestone top, a silver belt that screams expensive. I walk toward the curtained area in the back, hyperaware of Diesel’s gaze burning into my shoulder blades with every step.
The changing room is just a curtained-off section with a mirror propped against the wall, but it’s enough privacy to let me breathe.
Get it together. Focus on work. Ignore the hormone magnet standing out there.
I strip quickly and pull on the outfit, the jeans hugging my curves like they were tailored specifically for my body. I drop into a half-squat automatically, checking range of motion the way I do with any new gear. Can I ride in these?
Unfortunately I catch sight of the price tag on the jeans and my breakfast drops to my toes. Holy, what the hell?
Caleb is going to be footing the bill for all of this.
“Diesel!”
His footfalls are immediate and sure, crossing the warehouse floor in seconds. “You okay?”
I poke my head out from behind the curtain, holding the fabric closed so only my face shows. He’s right there, Mr. Protector himself, and I do a double blink when I realize he’s still wearing that ridiculously attractive pink shirt.
“I can’t take this stuff.” I shake my head, trying to find the words that will make him understand. “It’s nice… I mean really, really nice, but my brother is a SEAL. You know what kind of income he makes. He makes decent money, but he’s already paying for security I don’t want, and now this...”
The tightness in my throat gets worse, and I have to stop and swallow before I can continue. “He’s not paying to dress me. That’s where I draw the line.”
Diesel’s expression, already tight, cranks down further into something hard and immovable. “You’re taking the clothes.”
“You can’t make me take clothes I don’t want.”
“Those clothes are going with us whether you like them or not.” He pauses, and the narrowing of his eyes sends a clear warning. “We clear on that? Or do I need to spell out why you’re not going naked?”
He’s got a point, but stubbornness runs deep in my family.
“Diesel, I do have clothing at home. Just not the special outfits I had made for the riding competitions—those were in my truck. I was planning to wear things I already own for the parties and meetings.”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. “Are you dressed?”
“Yes, but—”
Before I can finish the sentence, he reaches past the curtain, wraps his fingers around my wrist, and pulls me out of the changing room in one smooth motion. I sputter a protest, but he’s not dragging me across the warehouse like I expected.
Instead he goes completely still, his entire body locking up as his eyes track over me with an intensity that makes heat prickle across my skin.
“What?”
“Nothing.” His hand finds the small of my back, heat blasting me through the thin fabric of the shirt. “Not a damn thing.”
He guides me toward the mirror where Dee Dee is waiting, and she positions us with efficient hands on our shoulders, angling us toward each other.
It looks like we’re about to dance.
Can he dance?
She tugs me away, moving me like a mannequin to stand in front of Diesel so we’re both facing our reflection.
Oof. I’m a little winded.
Diesel, tall and untamed-looking in that pink shirt. Together we look like something out of a western take on a Disney fairytale with a dark twist.
“When you walk into that event Friday night,” Dee Dee says, studying us with a critical eye, “every person in that room is going to believe you’re madly in love.”
I glance at Diesel’s face in the reflection and immediately regret it. Why is he looking at me like that?
“River.” Dee Dee whispers.
“Yes?” I startle.
“Take the burgundy dress now. I need to see both looks before I make final adjustments for the parties. Then we’ll do boots and outfits for riding.”
The cocktail dress is gorgeous, all crystals and clean body-hugging lines. I’ve never owned anything so beautiful in my life. .
When I emerge from the changing room, Diesel has switched into the barbed wire hearts shirt with black tuxedo pants, the black Stetson shadowing his face in a way that makes him look like a sexy villain.
Dee Dee appears with an armful of boot boxes and holds up a pair of gigantic men’s boots with pink stitching on the toe and along the shaft. “These are for the first outfit.”
“No.” Diesel’s voice is flat as pavement. “I have my own dress boots.”
“But yours won’t have pink stitching,” I point out, fighting to keep from grinning.
“That’s the point.” His eyes cut to mine, challenge flickering in their depths. “You think this is funny?”
“I do.”
“I’m supposed to be protecting you. Not playing dress-up like some kind of cowboy Ken doll.”
“You can do both. I have faith in your multitasking abilities.”
With a loud grunt, he drops onto a nearby bench and shoves his feet into them with the kind of controlled violence usually reserved for hand-to-hand combat.
They fit perfectly. Dee Dee has done her homework.
He stands and looks down at his feet with an expression of such profound betrayal that something cracks open in my chest, and I can’t hold it back anymore.
I laugh.
It starts as a snort I try to swallow, builds into a giggle I can’t contain, and explodes into a full-body shake that has me pressing my hand over my mouth trying to muffle the sound.
Despite everything. The fire, the stolen truck, my belongings destroyed, losing my freedom and a grumpy bodyguard who apparently looks devastating in pink. This moment is genuinely, ridiculously funny.
Diesel stalks toward me and gets right in my personal space, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.