Then I see her.
The room does something weird. Maybe it tilts. Maybe the volume drops. Maybe I just forget how to breathe for a beat. I can't say for certain, because Lark is standing across the room in a sundress and nothing else matters.
It's yellow…or cream with little yellow flowers on it. I can't tell from here and it doesn’t make a lick of difference. It’s short, the straps are thin, and her shoulders arebare.
Her shoulders. I’ve never given a woman's shoulders any serious thought, but I can’t look away from their slope, and the sun-kissed skin that covers them.
Her hair is loose down her back, longer than I realized, the copper in it glinting in the lights. She's in her same beat-up boots.
She walked out of her cabin knowing exactly what she was doing. Shehadto have known how tempting she’d be to any hot-blooded cowboy.
She's laughing at something her friend said, one hand playing with her shoulder strap.
I take a long pull of my beer and tell myself to look somewhere else…the band, the brisket line. Anywhere but her.
But I can’t make myself do it.
And then her eyes come up.
Straight across the room, they find mine as if she was scanning for them and finally hit the right coordinates.
Then she smiles.
The same slow smile from the forge. The one that tells me sheknowswhat I’m thinking.
A surge goes through me like a wire pulled tight—down the back of my neck, down my spine, all the way down to my groin. I feel the blood rush down to my dick, my grip on the beer bottle a little worrisome.
She says something to her friends without breaking eye contact with me. The tall one with the braid laughs and gives her a shove. Lark laughs and pushes her hair back, then heads to the bar.
Jed hands her two bottles of beer, and she’s walking straight toward me.
Oh, son.
When she reaches me, she just plops the drink on the the nearest high-top, and then stands next to me, shoulder brushing my arm.
Flowers and fruit forward shampoo hit me and now I’m imagining her washing her hair…the suds sliding down her wet, naked body…
"You clean up nice, cowboy."
Her sultry voice snaps me out of my daydream.
"Thanks." My own voice sounds like it's been run through a grinder. I clear my throat. "You too."
She grins.
"Didn't peg you for a mixer guy."
"I'm not."
"But here you are."
"It’s mandatory for staff."
“Ah, I see.” I watch her mouth. I can’t seem tonotwatch her mouth. "That's a shame. I was starting to think you came ‘cause you wanted to."
"Didn't say I didn't."
Her eyes cut sideways up at me. The light blue goes a shade darker. She takes a slow pull off her beer, her lush lips sliding over the neck of the bottle, and I nearly groan. I have no business feeling this way in the middle of a public building with hoards of people.