Page 25 of All Night with the Cowboy
“Tell me again that you don’t want anything to happen between us,” he said. “Because I’m not sure I believe you.”
She pulled her arm away and crossed it over her stomach. He watched as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.
“We need to keep things professional between us,” she said, her voice low and husky. “That’s it, Tanner, no more contact.”
He lay back down and shut his eyes. “Until my next massage, that is.”
He bet she would have slapped him if she could have. But when she lay back down, her book back in her hand, he forced himself to man the hell up and stop joking around.
“Lauren, look, I know I’m not the easiest guy to be around, and I shouldn’t have been such a jerk to you before we came here.”
She was holding her book steady and she didn’t turn, but he knew she was listening.
“Whatever your reason was back then, you made it. I’ve made you out to be the villain all these years, but it wasyourdecision, and the past is the past.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not quite me forgiving you, but it’s probably the best my ego can deal with.”
She smiled—he could just make out the way her mouth curved at the side. “Right now, I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Tanner lay back, wishing that Lauren would take that pretty mouth and find her way to him. Or even better,climb aboard and show him exactly why he’d missed her so much.
***
Later that day, Lauren was watching Tanner from her bed. She was stretched out, still in her bikini from sunbathing earlier, lying on the crisp white sheets. She’d advised him to take a nice long, slow walk along the beach, barefoot, to help his muscles and build up strength, and she’d decided not to go with him. Strolling with him, listening to the waves, the sun on their skin, and the temptation of his body so close to hers… she knew right from wrong, but the moment he was up in her space, she didn’t exactly trust herself.
Her phone vibrated and she reached for it, smiling when she saw it was her sister. She’d been texting back and forth earlier with Casey, but now her sister had probably found out and would be demanding her own updates about what was happening. She could just imagine the two of them gossiping on the phone or firing off text messages about her. Lauren grinned when she read the message:So how’s beauty and the beast?
Instead of messaging her back, Lauren decided to FaceTime Hannah as she stared out the glass, still focused on Tanner. He’d already walked past twice, but he’d stopped and was stretching now, just like she’d told him too.
“He’s hardly the beast,” she said when her sister picked up, her face appearing on the screen as she grinned back at her.
“Oh my god, you’ve already slept with him, haven’t you?” Hannah sighed. “I knew you two wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off each other. How long did it take? Two seconds or two minutes?”
“Definitely longer than two minutes,” she teased, lying back on the bed.
Lauren laughed. Maybe hewasa bit of a beast. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, and she watched as he moved to the edge of the pool. His golden skin was tinged darker, especially over his shoulders, but she knew that he’d just turn a darker shade of tanned and would never even look burnt throughout the entire vacation.
His back was muscled, same as his chest, and she longed to explore that chiseled skin with her fingers. She guessed his abs had been even more defined before the accident, but for a guy who’d had the better part of two months in a hospital bed or in a cast, he looked damn fine. She turned the screen so Hannah could get a glimpse of him.
“He’s a gorgeous specimen of man, I’ll give you that,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. Definitely no beast here, except for his attitude sometimes.”
“That’s what Mom used to call him, you know,” Hannah said. “She’d watch the two of you roar off on his motorcycle, you clinging to him as he gunned it down the road, and she’d mutterbeauty and the goddamn beast.”
“How have I never heard this?” she asked, standing and moving closer to the glass when Tanner slid into the pool and disappeared into the water, her screen facing her again. She touched her palm to the cool surface and tracked him with her eyes for a second before turning her focus back to her sister.
“Don’t know why I didn’t tell you back then, but after it ended you made us all promise to never mention hisname again. What’s it like over there? Is the island amazing?”
“It’s incredible,” Lauren said, giving Hannah a tour of the room as she spoke, then pushing the door open and holding the screen outside. “The house we have is incredible, it even has a private pool that faces the beach, and once I have Tan back up and moving properly again, we’ll be able to explore the island better.”
“‘Tan’?” Hannah repeated. “We’re back to calling himTannow?”
Lauren quickly retreated back into her bedroom, not wanting Tanner to hear. “It’s just a name. Old habits die hard.”
“All old habits or just the name?”
