Chapter 4 #2
The deep, gruff voice behind me leaves goose bumps on my skin. Just enough rasp to be sexy, just enough depth to warm the back of my neck. Just enough volume to be commanding without sounding arrogant.
Well, maybe a little arrogant.
I turn to find the cowboy leaning against the wall outside the bathroom with his arms crossed.
He’s in my space, but it feels intimate, not intimidating.
His shoulders look even broader up close, and he’s easily a foot taller than me.
Brooding. Intense. Almost too good looking, if that’s even a thing. My lips go dry.
I want to roll my eyes at the cliché of him, looking like he could melt all the snow from the Arctic Circle with the sound of his voice.
I also want to lick the side of his neck and see how it tastes. I’m betting on delectably sweet with a side of sexy, hard-earned sweat.
His bold stare makes me wonder if he’s waiting for me to say something.
“Um…what?” My stammer should break the seal on this fantasy. I expect him to move right through me to someplace better, someplace where cowboys belong.
“You blew out your birthday candle, but you didn’t make a wish.” There’s a syrupy lilt to his voice like he has all the time in the world. I look him over from head to toe. Cowboy boots, dark jeans, but he left the hat at the bar.
“Oh.” I lick my lips, now desperately in need of lip balm. If a server walked by with a dish of butter, I’d swipe a finger through it and apply it to my lips. “How do you know I didn’t?”
“I watched.” My heart takes off at a gallop at the two sexiest words I’ve heard in my entire life. I swallow hard and hope he can’t tell how much I want to grind against him to relieve the ache between my thighs.
He shakes his head. “You barely waited until the last chorus of ‘Happy Birthday.’ I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person extinguish a fire so quickly, and I’m a trained firefighter.”
I file that little tidbit of information away. No wonder he has the build of a lumberjack jock. And is it some kind of law of nature that all firefighters have chiseled jawlines?
I take a step away from the locked bathroom door and look around for the jealous woman waiting nearby to deck me and pull him from my claws. Isn’t that how it usually goes in a movie or bad TV show?
I really need to get out of the office and stop letting Netflix tell me how the world works.
His gaze bears down on me, and his eyes make a slow trip to my lips, lingering there until my mouth feels so parched that I may need his firefighting skills.
I nod, letting out the sigh that took up residence in my chest about halfway through dinner. For the first time in an hour, I feel my stress about the ranch ebb away.
“It’s a silly tradition.”
A tiny twitch in his cheek reveals a dimple. “What tradition?”
“Birthdays.”
The dimple leads the way to a smirk, and he barks a laugh. “Not really what I’d call a tradition. They come around every year, whether you want them or not.”
“I mean the whole ‘blowing out candles and making a wish’ part. It seems…unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary? Too old for a wish?” He crosses his arms, emphasizing the bulge of his biceps under his denim shirt. I knit my hands together to keep from caressing his arm to see if it’s as firm as it looks.
“I live too much in reality for a wish.”
Says the woman who dreams about court cases.
His dark eyes flash with something like recognition.
“Can’t a person live in reality and still wish for something else?
” His defiant tone brings my gaze back, and I’m surprised to find him regarding me with the kind of easy smile that says my wish is plastered across my flushed face.
I hate that he seems to know something about me that I don’t fully understand.
I also love the feeling of bantering with a stranger about nothing important. About everything important.
He also knows how charming he is. Like he’s used to getting what he wants. Am I flattering myself to think he wants me?
He takes a step closer. I feel the heat of his body, and I want more of it. He makes me feel tipsier than those lemon drops ever did. More impulsive.
Every nerve center in my body urges him closer. He’s easily a foot taller than me, framing my face with one forearm on the wall above my head. This is the last place my sisters would expect to find me, caged in by the hottest guy in the room, my lips inches from his.
And it’s right where I want to be. The idea of not knowing what will happen next offers a thrill I haven’t experienced since…
Well…until now.
It’s a small area, just a dark wood paneled hallway between the restaurant and the kitchen, where servers bustle in and out and squeeze past us.
I tip my face up to his, boldly daring him to do what I think he plans to do anyway. My tongue slips out and wets my bottom lip. His eyes go hazy beneath dark brows. When he swallows, his Adam’s apple lurches in his throat. So. Smoking. Hot.
I flinch when his hand touches my cheek. My eyes flutter at the anticipation of his fingers tangling in my hair, but that’s not what I feel. Instead, he tugs at the tiara, which I’d pushed up into more of a headband to keep my hair out of my face. It’s warm in here. Maybe it’s the drinks.
Maybe it’s the cowboy.
“Something tells me this wasn’t your idea, Duchess.”
“Duchess?”
“Yes.”
“Feels like a demotion from princess, but I’ll go with it.”
“No demotion, just factual. Princesses wear crowns, not tiaras. You are most definitely a runaway duchess if I ever saw one.”
How does he know about the headwear of duchesses?
“Noted.”
His face is still mere inches from mine. He smells like fresh pine needles mixed with something deeply masculine. I inhale the scent of him like a long, slow mantra.
Give yourself this. Just once.
I never hook up with guys at bars. Or anywhere else for that matter. Not with old crushes at weddings, never with old boyfriends, and absolutely not with strangers whose names I don’t even know.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Fitz.”
“Fitz?”
“Are you going to question everything I say?”
“No.” I feel light, unsteady on my feet. I shrug. “Maybe?”
He nods slowly, not removing his arm from over my head. I like my personal space, but I don’t want it right now. I want him closer, so I push myself away from the wall. My breasts graze the fabric of his shirt. I feel the groan deep in his chest, and it ignites a fire between down in my core.
I could kiss him, but I freeze, anchored by an invisible line that makes me feel in control. He’s going to have to walk the last mile to get here.
I’m in control, but also out of my depth.
His face is a breath from mine, but he doesn’t come closer. He’s toying with me. Probably done this a hundred times. A spider reeling an unsuspecting fly into his web. The cocky grin says he has all the patience in the world to wait until I’m exactly where he wants me.
I flinch as more heat floods my veins. If it feels this good not to kiss him, doing it would surely blow my mind.
His hooded gaze says he knows my resistance is barely tethered by a filament, ready to shred if he breathes on me. I love it and hate it at the same time.
“And you are?” His voice is a deep rumble. I feel it before I hear it.
My words get caught in my throat, and I shake my head.
He drags a fingertip down my cheek. “Your name?”
“Tessa,” I choke out, trembling from the white-hot burn where he touched me.
“You make that up?” Our faces are still so close that I can almost inhale him.
“Sorry?”
“Is it a nickname? For something else?”
“Nope. Just Tessa. Always has been.”
“It’s pretty,” he says, leaning a half an inch closer.
A server moves by him with a tray, and he closes the last bit of space between us, pressing against me so I feel him.
Rock hard and unmistakable. My back is plastered against the wall, and my softer curves absorb the harder planes of his abs and chest, but my body screams for him to center himself and press right where I need him.
The bathroom door opens abruptly next to me, and a man shoves out, the smell of lemon air freshener following him. “’Scuse me,” he says, pushing past.
The sudden intrusion breaks the spell. I catch my breath, and my brain goes into overdrive, talking myself down, expecting him to back away. Waiting for us to come to our senses. But he doesn’t. I don’t.
We look at each other, and I awkwardly point at the bathroom door. “After you?”
He laughs. “Yeah, no. C’mere. I know another place.”
He grabs my hand and ushers me down the hall to the back door. He pushes it open, revealing a small, dark parking lot devoid of life.
“Another place?” I stammer, trying to fortify my nerves.
“Another bathroom. Come on. It’s just next door. I’ll show you a shortcut.”
“So said the serial killer.” I force a laugh, slowing my pace and unintentionally clenching my hands.
He lets the door fall shut and turns, brow furrowed in confusion, but I see the faded evidence of a smile. His eyes track over my stiff frame. “You’re different, I’ll give you that much.”
“Different from what?”
He tilts his head and studies me. “Where’s your phone?”
“Why do you want it?” I’ve dug it from my bag before finishing the question.
He pulls his wallet from his pocket and opens it to his driver’s license. “Here. Send this to a close friend or family member. Let ’em know you’re in capable hands.”
“Am I?”
His eyes lock on mine. “Yes.”
That one word snakes through my veins like fire.
My hands shake as I snap the photo in the dark hallway and decide who to send it to. I text Callie, fumbling so awkwardly that I shove the phone back into my pocket before he notices how shaky I am around him. “Thank you. For that.”
“Come on.” He walks out into the night, holding the door open behind him for me to follow.
My stomach flutters with nerves and excitement, overriding my instinct not to follow a stranger in a small town to some dark, mysterious place.
The smart thing would be to thank him all the same and go out the front door of the Hitching Post, call a rideshare, and rejoin my sisters at their hotel.
I normally do the smart thing.
But tonight, I want to do him.