Page 60 of Head Over Spurs

“Jules, can I borrow you for a second?” he asked, trying his damndest to keep his voice relaxed. It seemed calm enough that Maddie continued on to sit with Cooper, undisturbed by his sudden request. Jules wasn’t as convinced. She raised her eyebrows at him, studying his expression.

“Of course,” she replied after a moment, curiosity flashing across her expression.

Reaching out, she took his hand in hers and pulled him along as she weaved through the crowd. Where she was leading him, he didn’t care. He was just happy to be the one walking away with her.

Crossing in front of the bar, they ducked into the alcove that led to a set ofstaff onlydoors. Reaching her intended destination, she leaned back against the wall and blinked up at him innocently. “You needed something?”

“What made you think we needed a dark corner for this?” he challenged, stepping into her space and planting a palm on the wall beside her head. His other hand dropped to her waist, his thumb dragging along her hip bone.

“You have that look in your eyes, one you don’t get often,” she admitted. “But when you do, it usually leads to us needing privacy.”

Heat crept through him, like a spider web with each strand slowly igniting. He wasn’t sure what look she had come to recognize. Hunger for her touch, maybe.

Desire.

But mostly it was possessiveness grating on him tonight. After three days apart she easily put space between them then drifted off to flirt with another man. He wasn’t finding it easy to ignore like most things.

“I was under the impression that you weren’t planning on having any private moments with me tonight. Although, you did seem okay being seen cozied up to Knox.”

A wicked grin split across her face. It wasn’t at all the response he expected, and it was dangerously taunting. “Why, Sundance, are you telling me you’re jealous?” she purred, dancing her fingers up his abdomen before laying her hands to rest on his chest.

He pressed in closer, his hips pining her in place. “Talk to me in a dark corner, say you need it to be a secret, that you need time—that’s fine. Just don’t turn around and flirt with someone else out there.” He jutted his chin back towards the lively dance floor. “And if you leave this bar with a guy tonight, it’ll be me.”

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t aroused by sneaking away like this. But he was tired of sneaking around in general. Tired of lying to their friends, but also tired of lying to themselves. This secret was simply an excuse to not admit what was happening between them.

“That didn’t answer my question,” she challenged.

She was always challenging him, bringing his spirit back from where it was stamped into the dirt under the hooves of a bronco.

“Yes, wild thing. I am jealous. And I didn’t come here tonight to watch you flirt with my friends and play games. Maybe if you stopped looking for things to put between us, you’d see that you don’t need the games. Because I know how good I make you feel. No one here could make you feel better. No one anywhere could.”

A softohescaped her lips. Her eyes were wide and brimming with desire. She couldn’t hide her true feelings from him, not even that first night.

She slid her hands higher until one grasped at the back of his neck and the other tangled in the chain that hung beneath his collar. “You’re that sure?” she whispered, her voice now lacking her familiar fire.

He dropped his mouth to her neck. His teeth grazing silken skin as he murmured, “There’s not a night that goes by where I don’t remember the way you moaned my name—over, and over,and overagain in that hotel room. The way you begged me for more until you were so thoroughly fucked you couldn’t form a coherent word.”

As he recounted her enthusiastic responses, the memory persisted in his mind—Jules lying on her back, her fingers tangled in his hair as he feasted between her legs.

Jules riding him, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

Jules on her knees, hands clinging to the headboard as he thrusted into her from behind.

“Then why don’t you remind me?”

Just like that, he was back in the present. Her head was tipped back, extending the line of her neck for him, her eyes staring down to where his mouth moved over her. “If you’re that good, you could get the job done in a bathroom stall.”

At her suggestion, he nipped on the sensitive space below her ear, Jules shuttering as a whimper of desire escaped her.

He worked his mouth, sucking and biting in just the right spot—proving further that he knew her.

Pulling back, he replied, “You’re not the only one that had the best night of their life in that Texas hotel room. Not the only one feeling these things now. If we’re doing this, it’ll be because you’ve decided to stop the games and the secrets and retire your rule. Specifically, for me.”

Then he brushed a delicate kiss over the fresh bite mark already blossoming on her soft skin and released his hand from her waist. “I’m crazy about you, Juliette. I just want to make you happy.”

Without allowing himself to linger in her intoxicating presence, he turned and walked back out of the alcove. Headingstraight for the bar. He’d need something stronger than beer tonight.

“Hey, how’s life?” Knox appeared at his side as Riley leaned his elbows onto the bar. The rodeo cowboy was the last person he wanted to see right now. The guy wasn’t to blame, not really. Riley couldn’t fault him for approaching an attractive woman that gave no appearance of being taken. Yet he still couldn’t find himself to be overly sunny with his old friend.

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