Page 40 of The Cowboy's Best Friend

“Possibly,” she replied, not sure if she wanted to laugh or stay very, very serious. “But maybe in a good way?”

He nodded. “So here’s how I see it going. We’re going to date.”

“Date?” she echoed. That was… Not what she thought he was going to say at all.

“You said a million times that you never actually dated,” Boone reminded her. For a moment she wondered how he knew that she been talking about that only last night, but then realized. He just knew. Because he knew her and she’d been talking about that lack in her life forever. Maybe the fact he knew her so well was another one of the signs she should have been looking for all along.

“What do you mean by date?” she asked.

“We’re going to do stuff,” he told her, with all that bright laughter in his gaze. It took her breath away. “I’m going to pick you up and drive you somewhere. There might be an activity. There will probably be a meal. Then I’m going to take you home, where I’m probably going to want to get my mouth on you. After that, we’ll see where we end up.” She started to say something, but he lifted up his Coke as a silencer—making her remember his fingers over her mouth last night. “I don’t mean sex.”

She frowned at him, despite the heat from her memories storming through her. “Why not?”

“Because, Sierra,” he said, sounding both patient and sorely-tested at the same time, which was quite a feat, “I get the distinct impression after last night that you think rushing to have sex is what it’s all about.”

“It’s not…notwhat it’s all about, though,” she said. “Right?”

He put his Coke can down on the table between them, though he kept his gaze trained on her.

“Trust and believe that I intend to have sex with you,” he said, and she didn’t understand how he could do that. How one minute it could seem like they were laughing the way they always did and then the next minute he could say something like that—with that gleam in his eyes that made him like a stranger to her.

But a stranger that her body already knew so well. That she trusted inherently.

No wonder all she could do was shudder.

“Okay,” Sierra said, though it was harder to breathe than it had been a moment ago. “You can take me on dates. I’ll take you on dates, too, and we can go back and forth—”

“Absolutely not.”

“That’s what we always do,” she protested. “In fact, it’s my turn.”

“That’s what friends do, Sierra.” Boone leaned in, and she didn’t realize how deeply she was longing for him to touch her again until he did. He picked up her hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world and threaded their fingers together, so she was even more breathless, suddenly. “I don’t want to be friends. I want to date you. With everything that entails. Which means no, you’re not picking up a check. All you have to do is be ready when I pick you up. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she replied. Then she scowled at him. “I didn’t realize that nuclear Boone was so bossy.”

But when he grinned, it seemed to melt her all the way through.

“You have no idea,” he told her, in a low voice that made her more aware than she’d ever been in her entire life that she was a woman. Soft and hot and perfectly happy to see exactly what it was he meant by that.

It turned out, he meant exactly what he said.

Every night, he picked her up. Formally. At her door. During the day, he would tell her what to wear—though never in the way Matty had. He never made demands for specific looks or pieces. It was more,you might want to wear a pretty dress. Or,jeans are fine.

Maybe it wasn’t a surprise that Boone Carey was in no way fussy and overdone.

Every night, he took her out. One night he drove her into Bozeman, so they could see a play. They went mini golfing. Bowling. They tried all the restaurants from Marietta to Livingston and no, he made no attempt to pretend they weren’t on a date.

There was always a meal either before or after the activity. And at no point did he police what she ordered, what she was eating, or make faces if she actually made it clear that she was enjoying herself.

He always ordered dessert and expected her to, also. He always picked up the check.

That wasn’t all. Boone pulled out her chair when she sat down. He always got her car door. He liked to walk with his hand on her back.

And when the evening was over, he would take her back to her apartment. He would wait for her to invite him inside. She always did. Once there, he would proceed to teach her one lesson after another.

The most important one was that she not only could come, but that he considered it a requirement. At first, he insisted that only she got there—but as the days bled into each other, and the nights got hotter between them, he gradually relented.

And then, hotter still, he taught her exactly how to please him.

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