Page 144 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

He squeezed my arm.

“You think Veil and Jasper will like it here?”

“They’ll get used to it. Just like I did,” he said. “Going to get bigger stalls put in on the property as soon as humanly possible, too. Kiss me again.”

I moved in to kiss him and he held me close, pressing his lips to mine softly.

After the night when he’d finally kissed me—when he’d told me that he was falling in love with me, which I still couldn’t even fathom—Draven had been different.

He always seemed to want to hold hands. He wasn’t just affectionate. It was like a switch had flipped inside him and nowhe was desperate for my touch, anytime he could get it. Needy, almost, like a dam had broken inside him and he wasn’t holding anything back.

“I would say that Bestens doesn’t know what’s about to hit it, but… Bestens is already plenty acquainted with you,” I said.

“They know me, and they love me,” Draven said with a smile. “You were the only one who wanted to kill me.”

“I didn’t know you yet.”

“And I liked every last bit of your attitude,” he said. “You know I’m still going to demand you choke me sometimes. Still going to ask you to smack me, to bruise me, to give me that feisty look you’re giving me right about now.”

“I’m not doing any of that ‘til you’re fully healed,” I told him.

“True love.”

I pulled in a long breath, looking all around my barn. “The first night I met you, if you’d told me that I would fall in love with you, I would have laughed you out of the room.”

He hummed, squeezing my hand. “I always liked you.”

“You thought I was naive.”

“Still do, kind of,” he said. “And I like that, too.”

“I’m not so naive anymore. I’ve been on a plane. I’ve been to Montana. I’ve watched a person I love getfucking stabbed, because he’s stubborn and won’t just call the police like a normal person.”

“You already knew the important stuff.”

“And what’s that?”

He ran his fingertips along my arm, and I watched the rose tattoo on his forearm as he moved up and down slowly.

“You knew how to love,” he said. “How to behuman. How to talk, how to be true to yourself. How to fuck.”

I groaned. “You’re the one teaching me how togetfucked.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a natural.”

He brought my hand up to his lips, kissing the back of it. “You’re mine now. If you want to be.”

I swallowed, focused on his eyelashes, thick and dark.

How gorgeous he was.

How masculine, and handsome, andperfecthe was, scars and all.

“Ireallywant to be, Draven,” I whispered. “I couldn’t stop being yours if I tried.”

Epilogue

DRAVEN, THREE MONTHS LATER

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