Page 114 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

I watched as Max stood up from the bay window, crossing over to the other side of the bedroom, suddenly acting like he was a caged animal, crazed, like he had nowhere else to go.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I demanded. Knowing what he was thinking. Wanting to hear it from his lips.

“Better if I don’t.”

I felt myself darkening. “That’s very unlikely to be true.”

“You can whisk me away, bite me, touch any part of my body you please, but you can’t kiss me, can you?”

His words spilled out like rabid animals, finally off leash.

No.

Just fucking stop, Max.

Now, more than ever, I would do anything to keep him from being pulled deeper into my world. Intome.

It was like I had to hold two universes in each of the palms of my hands, carefully keeping them separate.

My world that I didn’t want Max to eventouch, here in Montana. Where I’d stupidly brought him, on a whim, because I wanted to keep him safe.

And the new world I knew in Tennessee.

One where Max was my top priority, without any close second.

“Sometimes I still feel like I shouldn’t be with you at all,” I said, my voice coming out cold and detached. “You just got done telling me all the reasons your life is worse, lately, and I’m half of them. The more you get involved with me, the worse that would get. But Iamwith you. I keep coming back. I’m invested?—”

“Because you want to baby me, like I’m a little project for you to protect.”

“No, because with you, everything actually feelsreal,” he said.

He hadn’t been watching me, instead staring at a far wall with my built-in fireplace. I came up to his side now, touching his arm, turning to look him in the eye.

I’d never felt so out of control.

I wasalwaysin control. The only thing that had come close was when I’d arrived to the crime scene with a burning hatred in my heart and a possessive rage I couldn’t contain.

But this was nothing like that.

“Well, since I’ve met you,nothingfeels real,” he told me, his voice low.

“Tennessee wasn’t supposed to be my life. Being with my ex-girlfriend’s brother isn’t supposed to be my life.”

“Beingwith?” Max balked. “You’re notwithme at all. You act above me.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“It’s the only thing that’s true,” he said, the hurt so evident in his eyes. “I don’t know how you even had the fucking balls to do that. Flirting with me, days after breaking up with my sister.”

“It wasn’t days,” I said.

The words hung in the air, suspended in time.

Max furrowed his brow, cocking his head to one side.

The moonlight from outside came in at an angle, painting his face in grey-blue.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

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