Page 11 of Duke
Wheeler
That’snotmy cowboy.
It’s my one thought as I look up into Duke’s blue eyes, alive with all the things: curiosity and lust and hope and disappointment.
The fact that he picks right up on the sudden change in my mood shows how emotionally intelligent this guy is.
Danger.
Run.
Duke is flirting with me, sure. Definitely wants to take me home. The way his fingers knead my side, a steady, warm pressure that makes the ache between my legs throb, tells me that.
He smells so good, woodsy, like juniper and pine.
The kicker: he also quite clearly wants to get to know me.Knowme. And my knee-jerk reaction is to push him away. I’ve learned it’s better to cut and run than risk letting someone know the real me.
My family and friends have said some…er, not so great things to me in the past. For instance, when I told Dad that I was starting a boot company with my best friend, he said I was crazy. Mom’s feedback was slightly kinder, but at the end of the day, she still told me to do something else. Preston, my older brother, called me an idiot and said to call him for a job when Bellamy Brooks inevitably went under. So-called friends made fun of me behind my back.
I’ve been the butt of jokes, the laughingstock of my graduating class, the shame of my family.She’s really making pink and purple cowboy boots? And she thinks she can make a living doing that?
Never mind the times I overhead Preston making fun of me with his friends while I was in the throes of my pubescent awkward stage, complete with pimples, braces, and a deluge of emotions I couldn’t handle and didn’t understand.Pizza face, he’d call me. One time, I heard him say to Mom,What’s her deal? Why is she so freaking moody and weird?
I feel shaky as I disentangle myself from Duke’s grasp. I take a step back, putting enough distance between us that his hands fall from my waist. He knits his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, Wheeler. If you really wanna dance—”
“Don’t worry about it.” I wave him away and sip my beer, grateful for the excuse to break eye contact.
“Wait. Did I—”
“You’re fine.” I shake the bangs out of my eyes. Why did I ever think bangs were a good idea? “I’m tired anyway. Lots going on at work right now, and the traffic on the way down here was awful. I’m gonna call it a night.”
He tilts his head. “Want a ride back to the house, then? I don’t need to stay—”
“Stay. Please don’t leave on my account.”
Because even if he did want to leave with me, as in take me home and get me naked, that’s not something I’m interested in anymore.
Yeah, Duke is asking all the right questions. Saying all the right things. I enjoyed talking to him in a way I haven’t enjoyed talking to a guy in forever.
But that’s exactly why I need to pump the brakes. I don’t want to form any kind of real, serious connection with anyone at the moment. And it’s obvious this cowboy is serious.
Most people would bask in his attention. His intelligence. But most people aren’t wired to believe the second someone gets close, they’ll realize that I’m too sensitive, that I’m justtoo much, period, and run for the hills.
I’m not easy to love. My family has made that abundantly clear.
So I’m the one who runs. I’ve learned in therapy it’s a self-defense mechanism, my way of rejecting people before they inevitably reject me. Butknowingthat about myself isn’t the same asfixingit.
I’m trying. But turns out rewiring your brain is a really difficult task.
“I’ll find a ride.” I set down my longneck. “Thanks for the beers.”
“We don’t have any kind of rideshare stuff here in Hartsville. Just so you know. You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?”
I put a hand on his chest. He’s solid, hard in a way that makes my brain short-circuit. I’m flattened by the fact that I don’t get to hook up with this fine specimen of a man. I have a feeling he’d be good—excellent—in bed. It’s his confidence. The way he’s at ease in his big, broad body.
I mean, we’ve barely touched, and I could wring out my underwear for how turned on I am.
