His knee touches mine again. This time, neither of us moves away.
The conversation continues, but it’s become a secondary track. The primary one runs underneath… in the way he leans towardme when I speak, the way I angle my body toward his without deciding to, the way every accidental contact sends a line of heat up my thigh that’s getting harder to ignore.
He reaches past me for a napkin, and his forearm crosses the space in front of me. I catch his scent: soap, warm skin, and something animal that my wolf locks onto with a fixation that borders on obsession. She’s pushing forward, trying to get closer to the source. I keep pulling her back. She keeps returning.
“You- You said your family ranches,” I say, fumbling for something to take my mind off my body’s reaction to this man. “Cattle?”
“Beef, mostly. Some commercial cross. We run about two thousand head on the main spread.” He pauses. Takes a drink. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Had two thousand minus one, briefly.”
“Briefly?”
“Last Easter. One of the bulls—big son of a bitch named Hank—decided the east fence was a suggestion. Walked right through it. Took himself on a two-mile stroll down the county road and ended up in the parking lot of Cedar Falls Baptist Church right about the time the congregation was letting out.”
“No.” I shake my head in disbelief.
“Hand to God. Reverend Mullen came out the front door in his Easter vestments and found a fourteen-hundred-pound beast standing between his truck and the flower display. Hank had eaten most of the lilies by the time I got there.”
“What did the reverend do?”
“Stood on his truck bed and read scripture at him until I showed up with a rope.” His eyes are bright now, warm and open. “Hank didn’t care for Leviticus. Took out two folding tables and an egg hunt before I got the rope on him.”
I laugh. Not the polite kind. Not the strategic kind. The real kind. The one that comes up from somewhere I forgot existed,that makes my shoulders drop and my eyes close for a second. It surprises me. It’s been months since I laughed like that. Probably longer.
When I open my eyes, he’s watching me. And his expression has shifted into something I’m not ready for: warm, unguarded,interestedin a way that goes past the physical. His eyes are dark in the bar light, with a depth to them that makes me feel seen in a way I’m not comfortable with.
His hand finds the bar near mine. His little finger touches the side of my thumb. That’s all. One finger. The smallest possible contact.
The effect is not small. A pulse of heat travels from my hand straight to between my legs and settles there with an insistence that makes me shift on the stool. My skin is too warm. The dress is too thin. I can feel every thread of it against my breasts, and I’m very aware that my body is advertising what I’m feeling in ways the dim light only partially hides.
“I need to use the restroom,” I say abruptly.
“Down the hall on the left.”
I slide off the stool. His eyes follow me, and I feel them on my back the whole way across the room.
The restroom is small. Two stalls, a sink, a mirror with a crack across one corner. I run the cold water and press my wet hands to my face. The chill helps for about three seconds before the heat returns.
I’m breathing hard. I don’t need to look in the mirror to know what I’ll see. Flushed cheeks. Eyes too bright. The dress showing every line of a body that’s decided what it wants and is tired of waiting for my brain to agree.
Get it together. You’re on a mission. He’s a local. This is the last thing you need.
My wolf disagrees. Vocally. She’s frantic inside me, straining toward the door, toward the bar, towardhimwith a single-mindedness I’ve never experienced. This isn’t attraction. Attraction is manageable. This is a magnet in my chest pulling me back to a man I’ve barely known a few hours.
I dry my face. Straighten the dress. Breathe.
I open the door.
He’s standing in the hallway.
Two feet away. So close I could reach out and touch him. AndGod, do I want to touch him. The noise of the bar is behind him, music and voices muffled by the corridor, and in this narrow space, his presence fills everything. The width of his shoulders. The way he’s looking at me: direct, focused, his breathing not quite even.
“Somebody was heading back this way after you,” he says. His voice is husky. “Wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Oh. Um… thanks.” I’m not sure how to respond because my body wants to do the talking for me.
We stare at each other. One second. Two. The air between us is so dense I can taste it.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe both of us. Maybe neither. Maybe the space just collapses, and his mouth is on mine, and my back is against the doorframe, and the kiss is nothing like a first kiss should be. It’s graceless and frantic, teeth and lips and the raw collision of two people who’ve stopped thinking. His hands grip my waist. My fingers twist into the front of his shirt.