Chapter 11
Logan
Macey disappears out the door of The Cowherd in a cloud of dust.
I drop the mic onto the bar and make for the door. But Macey’s father grabs me and tries to get me to stay.
By the time I politely tell him goodnight, George is offering the crowd a round of free half-shots.
Getting around everyone pushing up to the bar is like trying to step through a moving herd of cows. It takes forever. When I reach the outdoor porch of the saloon, Macey’s disappeared.
I take off my jacket and sling it over my shoulder. Macey’s on foot, and I know exactly where she’s going.
I turn around and head for Wild Ranch to get my truck.
I find Macey walking down Main. She looks like she had some sort of shoe mishap because she’s carrying her heels in one hand, and her feet are bare.
My breath catches in my throat as I watch her traipse down the dirt path next to the road.
Her dress is so unruly she’s going twice as slowly as she normally would.
I cut the truck engine and roll along quietly until I’m alongside her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you’re looking for sex, you went the wrong way.”
Macey screams. “Shit, Logan, you freaking scared me!”
I laugh and lean across the front seat to open the passenger door. “Slide in.”
She climbs up into the truck and drops her shoes on the floor. “God, these fucking heels. This is why I never dress up. And I can’t breathe in this damn corset.”
I put the truck in park. “I can help you with that, you know.”
My gaze locks with hers, and she inhales sharply.
And I know in that moment—Macey’s back. I lost her for a little bit at the bar, but she’s here now.
She’s with me, and nobody else is around, and I’m not letting her go again tonight.
Not until dawn when we’ll go our separate ways.
But that means I’ve got about—I glance over at the clock on the dash—seven hours to make good on my promise to her. My pulse quickens, and I swallow hard.
“Logan…” she begins in a halting tone. “Do you think we’re hard to handle?”
“Yep. But if we were easy, we wouldn’t be us.” I touch her warm cheek with my hand. “And I want you exactly how you are.”
“Difficult and moody and unable to give you more than this?” She gestures to her wrinkled dress, dirty feet, and hair that’s now half undone from its previous perfection. “Because I’m so far from flawless it’s not funny.”
I lean forward until my lips graze her jaw. “You’re flawless to me, Henwood. And we want the same things, remember?”
She turns her head until her lips find mine. Then she kisses the hell out of me.
It’s a perfectly imperfect Macey Henwood kiss—urgent and frantic and needy, and her tongue winds into mine with abandon. Macey kisses recklessly with zero self-consciousness and no hesitation or slow lead-in. She just goes for it.
I match her pace and give her everything I’ve been feeling since I promised her I’d win the Wild Darcy Derby. I lick and nibble her lips and wrap my fingers in the loose strands of her hair. When she finally pulls away, her lips are swollen and pink. Just the way I like to see them.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Her voice comes out raw and needy. “Take me to the lake.”
“How about we start right here?” I turn the wheel to the left, and we bump along a dirt road with no streetlights, no traffic, and no people.
The only sounds are the symphony of cicadas and the distant melody of geese by the water.
“Here’s good,” she murmurs.
I bring the truck forward until it’s off to the side of the road and half-hidden by a stand of trees. Then, I turn off the engine and turn to Macey.
“Mrs. Darcy—”
Macey starts laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“Don’t Darcy and Elizabeth never even kiss in Pride & Prejudice?”
“True. But we’re going to live out the modern-day fantasy. Which includes lots of hot sex.”
The moonlight casts a bright beam into the car, and I can see Macey’s eyes darken with lust. I’m so overwhelmed with need for her that I can’t speak right away.
Yes, we made a promise when we were teenagers that we would sleep with other people, date whomever we wanted, and that we wouldn’t tie ourselves down with a relationship or anything at all, really.
And we both kept up our end of the bargain.
But whenever we’re together, I feel a pang in the recesses of my heart of what has always been true—Macey Henwood is the only woman who turns my world upside down.
She licks her lips and waits, watching me.
“So?” she says finally when I say nothing. “What are the new ideas you have for us?”
“Get in the back,” I say gruffly.
The windows are open, and the steamy Texas air is still well over ninety degrees, probably hitting close to a hundred. But the woman next to me is the reason I’m an inferno inside.
I follow her into the back seat of the truck and take her face in my hands.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day long,” I tell her. “Being alone with my best friend.”
She bites her lip. “Logan.”
When I put my mouth over hers, she moans.
Her hands go to my jacket, and she pulls it off of me.
She tugs at my tie until it’s loose enough for me to drag it over my head.
Next comes my dress shirt, and Macey immediately starts working on the buttons.
As soon as my shirt opens, she pulls it off, and then her hands are all over me.
“Baby, shit.” I slide my tongue inside her mouth.
She runs her fingers over my ribcage and across the bruise I got from wrangling the steer the other morning, and I jump.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Macey sucks in a breath as she looks at my bare torso. “That’s a nasty bruise, Logan.”
I shush her and ghost kisses along her neck. “It’s fine. Keep touching me.”
She returns her hands to my stomach, taking care to avoid the bruised area. When she unbuckles my belt, I let out a low groan.
Then, I remember her attire.
“I should start undressing you now.” I pull back reluctantly. “It could take us all night just to do that.”
She turns around and shows me the buttons of her corset. “One at a time, and don’t you dare get impatient and pop any of them or Eloise will fucking kill me,” she warns me. “Seriously, Logan. Don’t do it.”
“I won’t pop a single freaking button,” I mutter as I start unhooking the first one and work my way down. “I want to. I want to tear this damn thing off of you in two seconds flat. But I won’t.”
Macey lets out a big exhale as I get past the buttons around her ribcage.
“Why in the hell did women wear these things?” I say. “You can’t fucking breathe.”
“It’s symbolic of how women were imprisoned,” Macey says darkly. “They couldn’t work. They couldn’t vote. Their dresses bound them up, too. Just like the rules of society did.”
I lean my chin on her shoulder and blow warm air onto her neck from behind. She shivers.
“You know I would never hold you back, right?” I say quietly.
“Yes,” she says immediately. “I know you wouldn’t do that, Logan.”
Her affirmation sounds surprisingly vulnerable, and I wrap my arms around her gently. “But we’re not caught up in all of that relationship stuff anyway,” I say. “We do what works for us.”
“We do,” she says softly. “It takes all the pressure off. Tonight felt weird, though, didn’t it? For a moment up at the altar, it almost felt like we were…”
Married for real.
We both go still, and an awkward deadly silence hits the truck.
I finish undoing Macey’s dress quietly and help her slide it off her shoulders.
When she turns back around, her creamy breasts shine beneath the light of the moon. Her red raindrop tattoo that matches mine is outlined on her left breast.
“Macey…”
“Shh.” She raises her eyes to meet mine. Hers have a determined gleam to them. “Let’s do what we promised. Let’s enjoy tonight. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect.” I dip my head and take one of her pale pink nipples into my mouth.