Page 41 of The Love Lie
“No, it doesn’t,” he agrees as a new thought enters his mind, a loophole in the plan. “But just because something’s fleeting doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Forever isn’t in the cards for us, but we still have right now. And I, for one, have never let worries about the rest of a cake keep me from enjoying my slice.”
“There’s just one problem with your analogy, cowboy.”
“What’s that?”
“This attraction between us doesn’t feel like a cake. It feels like a drug.” Her gaze drops to his shoulders, his arms, his legs. She looks at him the way he imagines a drunk at a bar looks at a beer growing warm on the counter, the mere act of being this close a battle of wills. “One hit might be all it takes.”
“Is that what you’re really afraid of, Cuj?” Is that how she sees love, like an all-consuming spiral to the bottom, a death trap? “Getting addicted?”
Her gaze flies back to meet his, lust and panic a heady mix. “Is that your question, Coop?”
“No.”
She sucks in a breath and lurches away, breaking the spell. “Then I guess we’ll never know.”
But he doesn’t need to hear it.
The answer is obvious. It’s thewhythat’s bugging him—and thewhat, and thewho, and thehow come. She’s too strong, too beautiful, and too young to be so jaded.
Slow and steady, he reminds himself as he watches her gather up the rest of her dinner.Slow and steady.
That’s how it goes with horses, and that’s how it goes with women too. Don’t push past their comfort levels. Don’t force it. Just take what they offer when they offer it and keep plowing ahead one little step at a time.
When she retreats back inside, he returns to his camera. The sun has almost disappeared beneath the horizon but it’s not gone yet, so he tests the light and snaps a couple of photographs. His mom would have loved it here, the vast, unimpeded sky so similar to the one at home, but the never-ending stretch of water reflecting it back so different from the silhouetted plains he’s used to.
She would have loved Sam, too.
The thought hits him like a punch, sucking the breath from his lungs. As soon as it lands, he knows it’s true. She would’ve loved Sam’s strength…would’ve especially loved her ability to get him by the balls. If there was one thing his mother always bemoaned, it was the sweet, eager-to-please girls he used to bring home.
This ranch will eat you alive if you let it, she used to tell him.Find someone who’ll give you a kick in the ass when you need it, not a cavity.
Remembering the way she gave his dad a good ass-kicking whenever he needed it brings a small smile to his lips. There were days when the man would rather face a bucking bronco than his own wife, but at the end of the night, they always found their way back to each other. He took it for granted as a boy. But now? Now he’d give anything for just one more day, one more hour, one more moment of rolling his eyes at their antics.
Maybe that’s why he’s still smiling when he wakes up the next day, why he keeps his boxers on for his morning swim, why he’s so eager to push Sam’s buttons.
He knows, without a doubt, she’ll push back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
sam
She should be usedto it by now, but waking up to the sight of Cooper’s gorgeous, wet body gleaming in the soft morning sun isn’t the sort of thing one simplygets used to. It’s the sort of thing that causes mild heart attacks. The sort of thing that leaves her grumbling under her breath as she scrounges around for the tiniest sports bra she can find among her sister’s clothes. The sort of thing that prompts one desire and one desire alone—the need to punch something.
Okay, well,twodesires.
But the second one can go to hell. She is NOT having sexual relations with that man—not even imagined ones. Well, not anymore.
New day.
New Sam.
And yes, she could work out inside. But this is her deck too, dammit. She deserves the fresh air. She deserves the view. She deserves to have that cowboy salivating at the sight of her heaving bosom.
I have got to stop reading those historical romances Winnie keeps giving me.
Sam holds her fists in the air and ignores the man treading water twenty feet away. A punching bag would be ideal right about now, but alas, she’ll have to make do. Instead, she draws up the image of Cooper’s smiling face, complete with those drawn-by-the-Devil dimples, and starts swinging. It doesn’t take long to lose herself in the familiar movements.
Jab. Cross. Body shot. Head shot. Rear elbow strike. Front kick. Back kick. Uppercut. Double strike roundhouse. Jump kick. Heel click. Switch.
