Page 39 of The Cowboy Complication

What if you don’t like it?

What if it changed everything and he didn’t want to be her friend anymore?

I like all kinds of things.

Just show me.

There was no graceful way to get out of what she’d started. Not unless she wanted to send him a random photo and claim that was what she wanted to show him.

No. She was proud of herself, and he would feel the same way. Cooper appreciated her. Understood her. Cheered her on and supported her.

Before she could come up with more reasons not to, she picked the best of the frames, screenshot it, and dropped it into the window, leg bouncing as she waited to see what he’d say.

The window popped up with three dots.

Then it disappeared.

Then it came back again.

Then it disappeared.

Isla flopped back onto the mattress, throwing one arm over her eyes. “Shit.”

Yep. She might have screwed up.

14

Cooper

HE STARED AT the photo Isla sent, brain struggling to come up with something to reply back because every bit of the blood in his body had dropped south of the equator.

He’d dated a handful of women in his life, and he’d gotten his fair share of sexy pictures, but not a single one of them came close to the one taunting him now. Isla was stretched across her bed, the length of her dark hair spread around her. A lacy black bodysuit thing hugged her curves, standing out against her fair skin as it clung to her tits and hips. It wasn’t completely see-through, but there was enough transparency he could make out the tight pucker of her nipples and the dark shadow of hair covering her…

“Fuck.” He scrubbed one hand over his face. He couldn’t be thinking about her like that.

Could he?

No. That would be… Wrong?

Right?

Cooper’s eyes drifted back to the photo and he shifted in his seat, trying to ease the pressure on his fully hard dick. He’d been expecting her to show him a picture of what she had for dinner. Maybe a photo of her hair, or possibly a list of names she’d come up with for their chicks. Not a single cell in his body had been expecting what he was still staring at, but every one of them appreciated it. Way too fucking much.

And now he had to say something back. Had to respond in some sort of appropriate way. A way that wasn’t creepy and also left Isla feeling good about herself.

He typed out the word ‘wow’ then deleted it. Then he tried ‘beautiful,’ but that wasn’t right either. He slammed his thumb against the backspace button in frustration then let his head fall against the rest, repeating the only word that fully encompassed how he was feeling. “Fuck.”

The sound of a message sending had his eyes flying open and jumping to the screen of his phone as the little bubble of a voice recording popped up.

On his side of the thread.

“Shit.” He tapped the recording, praying it hadn’t caught anything and was just dead air. Instead he heard his own voice repeating ‘fuck’ back at him. It sounded strained. Rough. Deep and a little desperate.

Almost like he was…

“Fuck.” One hand went to his hair, raking through it as a call came through the radio, forcing him to abandon the nightmare of a mess he’d just accidentally made to flip on his lights and siren.

It was two hours before he could get back to his phone. Back to Isla in that fucking bodysuit. And when he opened their chat, his heart stopped beating in his chest at what was there.

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