Page 30 of Untaming the Cowboy
Luc’s fingers lingered at her hip, his eyes darker than she’d ever seen them.
He was losing that battle, and Dahlia knew it.
She smiled faintly, pulse racing.Good.
13
LUCAS
He layon his back and counted his breaths until the numbers blurred. The house had gone still, but stillness never promised sleep. A mug she’d pressed into his palm cooled untouched on the nightstand, steam gone, vanilla ghosting the room. He’d told himself he didn’t need it. Didn’t need anything.
The ceiling held no answers. He swung his legs out, pulled on jeans and a long-sleeve, and let the old habit take over: door, hall, porch, yard. Wynn watched from his pillow and thumped his tail once in sleepy protest; Luc crooked two fingers in a quiet stay and took the path alone.
The barn met him with night smells—hay, leather oil, warm animal. A low shuffle from Blaze’s stall told him the stallion had already marked his footfall. Luc ran a palm along the top rail as he walked, counting by muscle memory: latch, slat, hinge, gate. The work of his hands lived in each sound.
He meant to saddle up and ride the ridge until his head emptied.
He didn’t make it that far.
Cookie’s stall washed in lamplight. The door stood ajar. Dahlia’s back filled the frame, shoulders loose beneath one of hisflannels, sleeves rolled to her forearms. Her brush moved slow through the mare’s spotted coat; each stroke laid the world down flatter than the one before it. The horse—his feral girl who’d bitten air for years—dozed under her hand, lip slack, ear flicking whenever Dahlia murmured something he couldn’t hear.
He should’ve turned around. He didn’t.
Dahlia glanced up, sensing him without looking. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Didn’t try,” he said. His voice came rough. He cleared it and nodded toward the stallion two doors down. “Was gonna take Blaze out. Burn the edges off.”
“Blaze will be ready when you are.” She set the brush aside and smoothed Cookie’s mane. “She wouldn’t settle. Thought I’d give her a proper grooming instead of pacing a strange house.”
“House ain’t strange,” he muttered.
“For me it is.” A hint of a smile. “Less so when you’re not glarin’ at my sage bundles.”
He almost smiled back and didn’t. It left his mouth unsure what to do.
Dahlia stepped out, slid the latch, and draped the lead over the door. Close now, she smelled of cherry gloss and clean cotton. Her hat sat on a peg by the tack trunk, curls spilling everywhere the bun couldn’t tame. The lamplight warmed her skin to honey.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he said.
“Then why does it feel like the only one that makes sense?” Her answer landed soft and sure, not a dare so much as a truth.
He stood there longer than a man should, cataloging exits as if the night were a firefight and not a barn with a woman who had already walked through storms with him. Blaze snorted; Wynn’s absence made the quiet larger. Somewhere in the rafters, a swallow shifted.
He moved first. Not with hunger—at least, that’s what he told himself—but with the same care he used around colts. He stepped into her space and stopped. Her breath lifted his shirt once, twice. The corner of her mouth tipped, amused and patient both.
“You keep staring like you’re starving. Why don’t you just take a bite?”
His jaw tightened. “If I touch you, Dahlia, I won’t stop. You sure you’re ready for that?”
She didn’t blink. “Finally, a right question.”
Cookie blew a long, satisfied breath behind them, as if casting a vote. Dahlia’s hand found the hem of his shirt and tugged. He went.
The first kiss wasn’t fire. It was relief. Mouths meeting after too many almosts, the kind that quieted an argument he’d been having with himself for weeks. He braced one palm to the stall door beside her head; the other slid to her waist and memorized the warmth there. Her lips tasted faintly of sugar from some late-night stash she’d hidden in his kitchen. She smiled against him when he chased it.
Everything narrowed—the lamplight, the dust motes turning slow, the rise of her throat under his mouth when he trailed lower. The old discipline he wore like armor unlatched itself, piece by piece, and fell to the straw without ceremony.
“Luc,” she breathed, a plea and a permission.
