Page 88 of My Cowboy Trouble
My hands tighten on her waist, and I start to lean down, drawn to her like a moth to flame?—
"Well, well, well."
Gavin's voicecuts through the moment like a blade, and I jerk back from Kenzie so fast, I nearly knock over a saddle stand. He's leaning in the doorway with that infuriating grin, looking like Christmas came early and he's about to unwrap his favorite present.
"Don't mind me," he says, but doesn't move. Just stands there filling the doorway, blocking our exit. "Just came to check on that bridle situation. How's it coming?"
"Fine," I growl, putting distance between myself and Kenzie before I do something stupid. Like finish what we started. Like kiss her senseless and remind both of them how badly I want her.
"Looks like it's coming along real well," Asher's voice adds from behind Gavin, and now they're both standing in the doorway like some kind of tag team. "Very... hands-on approach to bridle repair."
Great. Now the whole gang's here.
"Shut up," Kenzie mutters, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and something else. Frustration, maybe. Or arousal. It's hard to tell with the way she's looking at me, like she wants to finish what we started as much as I do.
"We weren't doing anything," I say, but even to my own ears it sounds unconvincing. Especially with the way my voice comes out rough, with the way I can't quite meet their eyes.
"'Course not," Gavin says, his grin widening as he takes in the scene. "Just two people standing real close together in a tack room, breathing heavy for no reason at all."
"The bridle's fixed," I snap, grabbing it and shoving it at him. "Take it."
"Don't think that bridle was broken to begin with," Asher observes, taking it from Gavin and examining it with exaggerated interest. "Looks perfectly fine to me. Almost like it was just an excuse to get someone alone in here."
"It wasn't?—"
"Relax, boss," Gavin says, stepping into the tack room proper, making the small space feel impossibly crowded. "We're not judging. Hell, if I wanted to get Kenzie alone, I'd probably use the same excuse."
"Would you now?" Asher follows him in, and suddenly we're all packed into this tiny space like sardines. "And what would you do once you got her alone?"
The question hangs in the air, loaded with implications. Gavin's eyes meet mine, then slide to Kenzie, then back to me. There's challenge there, and heat, and something that looks dangerously like invitation.
"Same thing Trent was about to do, I'm guessing," hesays, his voice dropping to something rougher, more intimate. "Same thing we're all thinking about."
The air in the room shifts, becomes electric. Charged with possibility and want and everything we've been dancing around for days. I can feel it crackling between all of us, this tension that's been building and building until it's ready to explode.
"Guys," Kenzie says, but her voice is breathless, and she's looking between the three of us like she's trying to solve a puzzle. Like she's finally seeing something she's been missing. "What exactly is happening here?"
Good question. Because the air in the tack room has gone electric, charged with the kind of tension that usually ends with someone's clothes on the floor. All three of us are looking at her like she's water and we've been dying of thirst, and she's looking back like she's seeing us clearly for the first time.
"What's happening," Asher says slowly, his voice low and hypnotic, "is that we're all tired of pretending."
"Pretending what?" she asks, but she already knows. I can see it in her eyes, the way they're dilated, the way her tongue darts to wet her lips.
"That we don't care," Gavin answers, taking a step closer to her. "That this tension between all of us isn't driving us crazy. That we haven't all been thinking about that night after the rodeo and wishing it would happen again."
My jaw clenches, because he's right. I have been thinking about it. About all of us together, aboutsharing her, about the way she looked and sounded when she was surrounded by us. About how right it felt, even though it should have felt wrong.
"That night was..." Kenzie starts, then trails off, her cheeks flushing.
"Incredible," Asher finishes, moving to her other side. "The best night of my life, if I'm being honest."
"Mine too," Gavin adds, reaching out to trace a finger along her jaw. "And from the way Trent's been acting today, I'm guessing he feels the same way."
They both look at me, waiting. Kenzie's looking at me too, her eyes wide and questioning. And I realize this is it—the moment where I either keep pretending that I can handle this rationally, or I admit that I want her so badly, it's destroying me.
That I want all of this and the complicated, messy, impossible thing we're dancing around.
"Trent?" Kenzie's voice is soft, uncertain. "What do you want?"
