Page 31 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

All right. Maybe he was too old for this. Maybe he didn’t know anything about anything anymore.

Weirdly, it felt good. Walking out of the bar by himself, with a setdown like that. Reminded him that he wasn’t actually irresistible.

Turning her down actually had been the right thing to do. Because that was the problem. He’d only been thinking about himself. But then, he had a lot of practice with that. Pretty much other than family, he only ever thought about himself.

He was kind of a sad asshole.

He got into his truck and started the engine, pulled out of the driveway, and began the drive back to his cabin. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out with the intent of bringing someone back home, and wound up alone.

It was still Elizabeth he saw in his mind’s eye as he made the drive.

She was back at the ranch. So for some reason, it didn’t actually feel like going home alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE HAD TAKEN a bath, and now her skin was overheated. She slipped into a very soft, very sedate pair of pajamas, and climbed beneath the covers. The bed here was so soft. And it was just so quiet. It was nothing like staying in that apartment complex, where she could hear people walking around above her head until all hours. Where people often shouted in the parking lot over trivial matters that were apparently worthy of level-eleven volumes of shouting, no matter what time of day it was.

It was silent here. Sometimes, so quiet it scared her. Then, when it wasn’t silent, it was crickets. And coyotes. Which was a little bit unsettling.

Listening to a whole pack of yodeling dogs made goose bumps break out across her skin.

And the reason she was currently examining all of this was that she was trying to avoid thinking of that moment in the hallway with Brody.

She closed her eyes, and she could see him. So close. Worse, she could smell him. That woodsy scent. Masculine and enticing. The way he had put his hand on the wall behind her. She hadn’t felt trapped, not in a scary way. She had felt cocooned.

And then apparently he had gone out to hook up. At least, that was what his siblings had been talking about when she had come down the stairs from checking on Benny. There was a whole raucous conversation happening about Lachlan and Brody, and the fact that they had renowned “luck” with women. That they were the biggest playboys in all of Pyrite Falls, at least now that Tag and Hunter had hung up their belt buckles.

It had made her stomach curdle.

She wondered if he was with a woman right now.

And what it must be like.

To be the focus of all that attention. She’d felt just a sliver of it in the hallway. And she had run away from it. Because she hadn’t been able to handle it. Because the promise in his eyes... That was a promise that she was not able to keep.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do with this. The fact that there was something between them seemed mutual. At least, it had been in that moment. But maybe that was just how he reacted when a woman was so obviously melting over him. It wasn’t like she was subtle. She didn’t have any experience with this.

She punched her pillow and growled. Thankful for the fact that she was exhausted.

Because sleep started to descend over her, and it came pretty easily.

But she dreamed. And not lightly. Vividly.

In her dreams, she could feel his hands on her skin. His mouth. The whiskers on his jaw scraping over her neck as he kissed down her body. In her sleep, she gasped. Arched her back up off the mattress. And in that dream, he put his hand between her legs.

And when she woke, it was with a jolt, her internal muscles pulsing, her orgasm screaming through her like a wild thing.

She had just... She had just come from a dream.

Her heart was thundering so hard, she thought she might be sick.

She looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:00 a.m., and she was going to have to get up in less than an hour anyway, to get Benny ready for school, and to get ready for the day, so she really might as well just get going.

Her legs were shaky. She got into the shower, because she was sweaty, and tried to rinse the memory of the dream off her skin.

She chose her clothing carefully. A pair of black breeches, a white tank top, and a navy blue jacket with gold buttons. The kind of thing she would often wear if she was showing. But it seemed appropriate for today, when she would actually be meeting with clients.

Not that she had any idea what appropriate was. Not at this point.

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