Page 34 of Live, Ranch, Love

Wrists held above my head, Wyatt presses me up against the fence. All the breath whooshes out of my lungs—not from the impact, which he surprisingly manages to keep gentle, but from the way his body is now inches from mine, head dipped, dark lashes lowered as he stares down at me.

His gaze has darkened to a point that all I can see is two pools of molten and wild midnight. It lingers over my face, touching my lips once, making me swallow.

There’s not enough space to avoid my chest from rocking against his with our racing breaths. I try to wiggle in his grip, but it just brushes my breasts against him, and his eyes drop down, noticing exactly that. I’m encompassed by the scent of leather and pinewood radiating off him.

Why do we keep getting ourselves in these positions? And why is my stomach fluttering like a thousand beating butterfly wings?

“Yoo hoo!” Josh whistles from behind.

Wyatt turns to see him waving the phone about. He curses and tears back to me, confliction painting his face as he rakes his eyes up my body to where he’s still clasping my hands.

“You are a pain in my ass, Aurora Jones. You know that?” Wyatt rips himself from me, though he’s not looking quite as repelled by the idea of us touching as he did the other day.

“At your service, sir,” I giggle and pretend curtsy.

“You better delete that photo,” he says, crossing his arms.

Josh jogs over, a toothy grin meeting me when he winks and hands me back my phone. Wyatt’s already started walking off, throwing a vulgar gesture at the other two ranchers laughing at him.

“And what if I don’t?” I call out to him, still riled up by the challenge in his eyes.

He halts, broad shoulders tensing. Lazily, Wyatt glances over his shoulder, making my insides melt with the darkened gaze that still lingers in his eyes, daring me. “Oh, I’ll find a way to ruin you, Princess.”

Ruin me.

My whole body tightens at the words, breath catching.

Then he announces, voice booming, “Right, the ranch needs us, boys. Let’s go.”

“Same time tomorrow?” I shout after them, biting down on my lip as they all give me a hell yes in response, except for Wyatt, who just shakes his head.

fourteen

Wyatt

“Pinch my cheek one more time, Aurora, and I’ll take back my offer to help with the retreat,” I grumble, freezing just inside the door frame to try and cool down my irritation.

I don’t know whether to put Aurora’s frantic energy this afternoon down to her being excited that the meeting we just had with the council went well or nervous that it didn’t. Although we’d sorted out most of the legalities with shifting the ranch into a partial retreat, the Willow Ridge council had to sign off on the change—nothing happens in this town without going past them. Luckily, Wolfman’s mom is on the council, so she was already singing our praises in advance to soften the famously tough crowd. But honestly, Aurora smashed it. We’d spent the last few nights prepping for every possible question or concern they might have had, and even talked about ways local businesses could get involved once the retreat is fully up and running.

Assuming it all works out and that’s even what she wants.

Either way, whatever has got Aurora in this mood where she enjoys annoying me too much, I need to make her snap out of it because she’s pushing me into a corner of irritation that makes me want to touch her so badly. Especially after that day in the lake. I don’t know why but I just can’t get the way she felt against me off my mind. I’m itching to grab her perfect little body and make her shut up with my mouth.

I was seconds away from caving the other day when I had her pressed up against the deck after I chased her because she took that stupid selfie with me in the background doing yoga. When her breasts were heaving against me, lips parted and inviting—

Quit getting carried away, Wyatt.

“But then you wouldn’t get to work with me every day, and I know how much you’d miss that,” Aurora counters with a daring grin, and flicks her sneakers off. They land lopsided, so once I’ve taken my boots off I nudge our shoes around making them sit side by side, nice and neatly. I look up to catch her perking a brow at me, hands on her hips.

I frown. “That’s debatable.”

She waves me off with a giggle—the kind that seems so at odds with the crying girl I found on her deck the other week. “You just looked like you enjoyed it so much when Mrs Wolfe pinched your cheek, I thought you’d want to experience it again.”

Aurora skips off into the open-plan living room. She begins filtering through some folders on the coffee table, humming and checking up at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

I let my eyes flutter closed as I take in a breath, begging for patience before my sigh rumbles out. “Firstly, I clearly did not enjoy it when she pinched my cheek in front of the whole council—I literally told you that. And secondly,” I find my way to the coffee table, her breath hitching when she spins around, inches away, “even if I did enjoy it, you then continuing to pinch my cheeks seven more times in the span of the twenty minute journey home ruined that.”

She snorts, too amused by herself.

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