Slow Burn Cowboy(32)

“Is that it? The Lane Jensen system?”

She crossed her arms, cocking her hip out to the side. “Yes. My system.”

“So, is that the problem? You don’t like me enough?”

That landed hard, and it almost made her take a step back. Almost made her call a truce. Defuse the bomb. But only almost. “Usually?” She lifted her brow. “I like you a little too much to take you to bed, but that’s another story. But right now, I don’t like you enough, no.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But since we’re sharing, let’s have a little talk about my sex life. I have wanted you since you were eighteen and your fingers brushed against my thigh, and you lit me on fire. You were so clearly off-limits. I was too old for you. But then, over the years that gap has shrunk. But I still knew that I couldn’t give you what you deserved. But you know what? None of the other men that you’ve dated have given you what you deserved either. What I think you deserve is something you don’t seem to want. I think you deserve all that white picket fence stuff. A dream wedding and a guy who will make vows to you and keep them. In a perfect world that’s what you’d have. But the world isn’t perfect. Whatever you want later... Right now, I think we want the same thing, and if you’re really honest we both want each other.”

Her mouth dried as she looked into his face—that angry, beautiful face that could never just be her friend’s face ever again. Because she’d kissed his lips. Had felt the slow, luxurious slide of his tongue against hers. Had felt his arousal, hard and insistent and a mirror of her own.

But she couldn’t let him know that.

“You’re pretty confident in your appeal,” she said, “but my entire point in bringing up my sexual history is that you should know I’m selective. I don’t get led around by the lady downstairs. My brain does the leading. And maybe I kissed you back, but that was momentary insanity. Once I was able to think and rationalize I realized it was crazy. And that it was the last thing on earth I wanted.”

She knew that it was going to happen. She had known it, probably from the moment she had demanded he wait when he had decided to walk away. And, if she was honest, part of her had been gunning for it. There was no other reason she would have stopped him from leaving, when she damn well should’ve just let him go.

No reason she should have kept poking and pushing and saying the meanest, most pointed things she could think of.

Still, when Finn wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her against his chest it was a shock to her system. A shock of heat. A shock of desire.

And most of all, a shock of relief.

She wanted this. This was what she had wanted from the moment she had stormed out of the bar, and that was what had really disturbed her.

That what she wanted was to be as close as possible to the one person who knew about her past. The one person who knew exactly why she felt like every image of Cord that flashed across the news was another strip taken off of her soul.

She waited. Waited for him to close the distance between them. Waited for him to give her what she wanted more than her next breath.

What she feared more than anything else.

But he didn’t kiss her. She wished he would. Wished he would crush her mouth with his and drown out all the uncertainty. Do something to fix the restlessness that was eating away at her, that was all his fault.

He should have the decency to do something about this—this horrific desire that he had created inside her. It was his monster. The least he could do was slay it for her.

He didn’t.

Instead, he just held her. And looked at her, those blue eyes glittering with an intensity that burned away all of the anger that had been simmering inside of her. And without that, it left nothing but the truth. Nothing but the base reality of the situation.

She wanted him. God help her, she wanted her best friend.

He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, pinching it firmly, his hold tight. Too tight for her to move. To look away. “I am damned confident,” he said, his voice rough. “There’s nothing logical about this. There’s no decision to be made. You want me. I want you.” He moved his thumb up, just a bit. Until the rough, calloused pad brushed the edge of her lip. She shivered. All the way down. “The only question right now is when. Not if.”

She shivered, and she would have liked to pretend that it was a jolt of anger, that it was good sense and common decency coming to her rescue. But she knew that instead it was anticipation. A little thrill at the promise he had just made.

He tilted his head upward, and for a moment, with the way the light above them cast his face into stark shadows, the planes and hollows of his angular features made even sharper, he was a stranger. This man who was holding her against that hard body wasn’t the Finn Donnelly she had always known.

But how could it be? The Finn she knew was easy to talk to. Quick to smile. Easy to smooth over any perceived insult. He protected her.

This man didn’t look like he could smile. And he certainly didn’t look like he wanted to protect her.

He looked like he wanted to eat her alive. Heaven help her, she might let him.

This rough, masculine side of him was new to her. This wicked, cocky, sexy cowboy who made her tremble all over wasn’t her comfort zone at all. Far from it.

And it made her wonder if this was what Rebecca had felt when she had nearly hooked up with him a few months ago. If this was what every woman felt when he turned that blue gaze onto them, and she had just been so committed to keeping up that facade that she had been blind until this moment.

It was like a switch had been flipped inside of her and now she couldn’t put it back.

If she was honest, she couldn’t even blame the kiss. It wasn’t the kiss, not really. It had started before that. That moment she had brushed her fingertips against his arm on his porch at the ranch that night his brothers had first come.

That moment she had touched him and felt something other than skin beneath her fingers. That moment she had felt possibility, excitement, a crackle of electricity and a need that hit her low and dragged her down even lower until she ached.

He was right. That was the worst part. It was too late. There was nothing she could do to not feel this. It was between them. Part of them. Right in the middle of their friendship. In the middle of what was usually easy conversation. And then she had gone and heaped her past on top of it. There was no safe space here. Not with him. Not anymore.

And she had to wonder if the only way back was to go forward first.

So that was exactly what she did.

She stretched up on her toes and closed the distance between them, pressing her lips against his.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WAS FIRE. It was insanity. It was obsession and temptation, satisfaction and a need that ran so deep he thought it just might kill him.

She was the one who’d started this. She was the one who had pressed her lips to his. She was the one who was now pushing her fingers through his hair, angling her head so that she could taste him deeply.

The slow slide of her tongue against his was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced in his life. The flavor of her. The scent. It was a strange thing, having such a new and unique experience as tasting her go hand in hand with the way that she smelled.

The way she smelled was so familiar. So very unique to her. So specific to this woman who had been his best friend for the past decade.

He didn’t take the time to get to know the women he slept with. There was no point. Not when he was going to satisfy himself with them a few times, and then move on. Not when he knew there was no future in the cards. He did the very best he could to prowl on the periphery of town. To conduct his hookups within reasonable proximity.

And if that failed, he tried to make sure that he chose women who were more than up for the kind of thing he had on offer. Women with well-worn reputations who weren’t going to surprise him and start hinting around about diamond rings and futures, or even space in his medicine cabinet.

No, familiarity had never been on the menu. So he had vastly underestimated just how erotic that might be.

To know the woman he was kissing. To know the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way her nose turned red when she cried during sad movies.

When all of that knowledge collided with everything he didn’t know, it about lit him on fire. About made him embarrass himself then and there. And when she slid her fingertips down his face, traced the line of his jaw, he thought his cock might bust through the front of his jeans.

He knew so much about Lane. He probably knew her better than he knew anyone. But he hadn’t known how it would feel to be with her like this. Not until this moment. Hadn’t known that she would sound like a little unsatisfied kitten when he slid his tongue along her bottom lip. Hadn’t known that she would arch into him and roll her hips forward like a needy, greedy thing when he slid his hand down her back and farther still to cup her ass.

He didn’t know what she looked like naked. He’d only seen tantalizing glimpses of pale skin over the years as she wore a bikini, as she wandered around her house in cutoff shorts and ratty T-shirts. He had wondered. The mysteries of her body had kept him up at night. What color her nipples were, how soft that thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs might be.