Brokedown Cowboy

He dropped the panties back into the basket and stood up, taking a step back as if there was a rattlesnake in there amid the clothes. Since when did he imagine Liss in her underwear? More important, since when had he noticed that her ass was shapely?

He never had, not consciously. It must be something his subconscious had absorbed. Some kind of male instinct he had thought long destroyed busily cataloging desirable feminine attributes even while his conscious mind was shutting it out.

He reached into the basket next to the one containing Liss’s clothes, stripped off his old underwear and quickly pulled on a new pair, before jerking the laundry room door open and walking out into the kitchen.

Unfortunately, just as he walked in, so did Liss.

Her eyes flew wide, and she took two steps backward, her cheeks turning bright pink. “Sorry.” She turned and walked out of the room as quickly as she had just walked in.

“Dammit,” he growled, stalking back to the staircase and heading back to his room as quickly as possible.

He put on a pair of tan Carhartt pants and a black T-shirt, before going back downstairs to do some damage control. Although, really, there should be no damage to control. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him in various states of undress over the years. It just felt more inappropriate, because he had just been handling her panties.

“Liss?”

“In here,” she said, her voice sounding muffled.

He walked toward the living room and into the room, just in time to see Liss scrambling up from the couch, throwing one of the decorative pillows back onto the cushion. She looked at him, her lower lip sucked between her teeth.

They just sort of stood there, frozen, staring at each other.

Then a gust of air tried to escape Liss’s mouth, turning into a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a snort.

He frowned. “Are you laughing at me?”

Her shoulders shook, her face turning redder. She shook her head, still biting her lower lip.

“I’m serious, Liss. You just saw me in my underwear, and you’re laughing? I have to figure out if I’m insulted by this or not.”

She shook her head again, sitting down on the couch, her face getting redder, the shaking in her shoulders getting increasingly violent.

“Either you’re having a stroke, or you are laughing at the sight of me in my undies.”

She released her lower lip and heaved in a deep breath, a guffaw escaping a second later. “No! No.”

“You’re not laughing.”

“No,” she hooted, “I’m not laughing.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Not at the sight of you in your underwear. I mean, not like you think,” she said, breathless. “It was just so absurd. You were looking at me. I was just looking at you. I happened to walk in and you were in the kitchen, and you were pretty much naked.” She was rambling now, but it was a whole lot better than the alternative.

Because things were kind of jumbled up in his head. And for some reason, he was still picturing her in her underwear, even though he was the one who had been caught in his.

“I thought you were at work.”

“I forgot my cell phone, so I came back because I didn’t have any important appointments this morning. I guess this is a part of negotiating the living situation.”

“I guess.”

She cleared her throat. “Really, though, it’s nothing I’ve never seen before.”

He tried not to be offended by that comment. As though any man in his underwear was exactly the same as him. Really, he had no place to be offended by that comment. Because the sight of him mostly naked should not be remarkable to his best friend. And yet, his masculine ego—which along with his nice-ass radar, was not as dormant as he had believed—was slightly dented.

“True. But then, I’ve seen plenty of women in their underwear—” only one, now two, in person and others in pictures, but Liss didn’t need to know that “—and that does not mean that you’re going to be prancing around in here in a state of undress.” He regretted saying that the moment he did, because it brought to mind those images he was working so hard to banish. “Are you?”

“No. Would you rather I act completely scandalized? Should I have had you fetch the smelling salts?”

“I don’t have smelling salts. All I have is barbecue steak rub. I don’t think it’s the same.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, so here’s the deal. I won’t assume that you’re not in the house anymore. And I won’t come walking downstairs in my underwear.”

“Deal.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a step away from her, rubbing the back of his neck. “I suppose you need to get back to work. I know I do.”

“Yeah, I should.”

He nodded, a thread of tension stretching between them, and he wanted to banish it. Wanted to do something to get rid of it, because this wasn’t normal. “Great, I’ll see you for dinner.”

“I might go out with Jeanette,” she said quickly.

“Okay. I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yeah, later.”

Connor turned and walked out of the room. It was probably a good thing Liss was going out tonight. After only a couple of days of cohabitation, he felt as though they could maybe use a little space.

But this was normal, this adjustment period. Connor hadn’t lived with anyone in a few years, and he’d lived with Jessie for a long time. Even then, they had a lot of miscommunications and a lot of ups and downs. There was no reason to believe it would be any different with a roommate.

He opened the door and took a deep breath, banishing all the weirdness that lingered inside him. There was no time to worry about any of that. He had a ranch to work on.

* * *

SHE’D HAD FANTASIES about Connor before. Here, in the darkness of her room, she was woman enough to admit that. And yes, she had seen him without his shirt on. They spent a lot of time on the lake, down by the river and on the beach. Copper Ridge was surrounded by water and they, like most of the other residents, made the most of it.

But somehow, seeing him in his underwear was different. Because it wasn’t just his perfectly muscular chest, with a very perfect amount of chest hair sprinkled over it. Or his washboard flat abs and the tattoo that was starting to drive her crazy. No, it was combined with the full scope of his very muscular thighs, compliments of years in the saddle, and, it just...well, and...the very prominent bulge at the apex of said muscular thighs. There. She’d admitted it.

It was burned into her brain now. The image of him standing in his kitchen nearly naked, looking as if he’d just been slapped upside the head with a two-by-four.

She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her head beneath her pillow. She had to be adult about this.

She snorted and rolled back over, uncovering her face. That was the problem. She was being adult about this. Very adult. With lots of adult thoughts and desires and needs.

What were you supposed to do when your adult needs were for your best friend and roommate? Where was her handbook?