Smooth-Talking Cowboy

“All right,” he said. “We are going to do a little experiment. And then you’re going to throw the dart, and try to hit the bull’s-eye.”

“Fine.”

He held up the shot of whiskey, extending it to her. “You want me to throw the dart after I take a shot?” She laughed. “First of all, are we in high school? Are you peer pressuring me to drink? And second of all, that’s not even a challenge.”

“Oh, kiddo.” He lifted his glass and pressed it to his lips, tilting it back, taking the whiskey down in one swallow.

She gaped at him, confused.

His mouth turned up at the sides in a smile she was sure was meant to be an answer, but only raised more questions inside of her.

“You’re a lightweight, I assume,” he continued, “since you claim you don’t drink often. It wouldn’t be very sporting of me to expect you to throw a dart after you take a whole big bad shot of whiskey. But I do think you should have a taste.”

And before she could protest, before she knew what was happening, Luke had wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his body, where she was staring at those lips again. And then, he was closing the distance between them.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ube8ed8cf-5a66-59c6-af4d-1af7ec78b06c)

LUKE HOLLISTER WAS kissing her.

He was only the second man to kiss her. The second man to ever put his mouth against hers. But at the moment, she couldn’t even compare the two experiences. She was frozen, and Luke was still, too, but he was... Him.

He tasted like Luke. Like sunshine and hard work. Like whiskey that lingered on his lips. And like a whole lot of trouble.

It was more than just taste, more than just the strange sensation of a mouth that was an unfamiliar shape pressed against hers. It transcended those physical things.

And it went somewhere deeper.

She was on fire. Melting. Her legs were weak, her stomach trembling. It was as if she had never been kissed before at all. That’s how different it was.

His hand was so big, and it was pressed against her lower back, like he owned her. His other hand came up to cup her face—rough, callused—skimming over her cheekbone. He didn’t take the kiss deeper. Didn’t part her lips.

It was over in less than a second.

A chaste kiss. A simple kiss.

That left nothing chaste or simple remaining in her entire body.

There was a pulse pounding insistently between her legs, a slick wetness that had built up in defiance of everything she knew about herself. Her heart was pounding, her breasts heavy, her nipples tightened into painful points.

It was over. Over long before she was able to move or think or react at all. Over long before she realized they were still standing in the middle of the Gold Valley saloon, rather than in some moment that existed outside of space and time.

Luke Hollister had just kissed her in front of everyone.

Bennett was there. She remembered that too late. She remembered everything too late. Including why they were doing this. Of course. He was making a show, as he had promised he would do. And he was definitely trying to get a rise out of her, which she expected, because he was Luke.

All of that made sense. Except none of it made sense. Not inside of her anyway.

“Throw the dart,” he said, his mouth so close to hers it would take nothing for her lips to touch his again. Nothing at all.

Then he withdrew, taking a step back and leaning against the table again, all cocky arrogance and that kind of masculine swagger she hated. She did. She hated it. And right now she was pretty sure she might hate him, too.

She turned away from him, drew her arm back and threw the dart. And it missed.

She hadn’t missed a bull’s-eye without meaning to in more than ten years.

Hot, angry tears pricked her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Because that was just stupid. This was a game. That was all. It was supposed to be a game where they made Bennett jealous. Where they made him think that he was in danger of losing her.

It was supposed to make Bennett feel wild and unpleasant things; it was not supposed to make her feel wild and unpleasant things.

Too late she remembered to look over at Bennett. And when she did, she had to force herself. He was facing away from them. For all she knew, he hadn’t even seen the kiss.

“He saw.”

She blinked, feeling numb. “What?”

Luke was looking at her, his expression grave. “Bennett saw the kiss,” he said.

And just like that, she felt about two feet tall. Because not only had he read her mind just now, it confirmed to her that Bennett was all he had been thinking about during the kiss. She hadn’t thought of Bennett until after. Much, much after. But Luke had been aware the entire time. And then, when she had been standing there feeling vulnerable and reduced, desperately trying to remember the purpose behind this entire interaction, he had read her. Unerringly.

Meanwhile, she couldn’t read him or Bennett or anything. She couldn’t even read herself.

“Good,” she said, as if it was all she cared about. As if there was nothing more conflicting inside of her than whether or not they had managed to affect Bennett.

To say nothing about how she had been affected.

Except, she had missed the target. And there was no pretending that hadn’t happened. She bit the inside of her cheek. “He’s never seen me miss a bull’s-eye,” she said. “At least, kissing him certainly never made me miss a bull’s-eye. That will give him something to think about.”

She could tell by the particular curve of his smile that Luke didn’t believe her. But he didn’t say that. This, quite possibly, was the first time he had ever been a gentleman to her in any way that counted.

“You sure you don’t want another drink?” he asked, taking a step backward, toward the bar.

She sniffed. “I don’t like whiskey.”

His smile widened. Why was his confidence so impenetrable? Why was he so... So much? “Really?”

“Really,” she confirmed.

“I’ll get you a refill on that Coke,” he said, turning away from her and heading back toward the bar, leaving her to ruminate by the dartboard.

She chanced another look at Bennett’s table. And he still wasn’t looking at her. But she caught Kaylee’s eye again. The other woman was clearly unamused with Olivia. Well, at the moment, that made two of them. Olivia felt like she had taken a step into a river, only to find that there was a drop-off sooner than she had anticipated. And that she had scrambled to find her footing, finding instead only algae. Now she was being swept downstream. As analogies went, it was both unpleasant and apt.

She wanted to run. She wanted to run right out the door of the saloon, down the main street, all the way back home. She wanted to abandon this mission, wave a little white flag of defeat, start over tomorrow morning and pretend that nothing had happened.

The only thing that kept her there was that sheer goal-oriented, stubborn nature of hers. She had started down this path, and she had to see it through.

Well, more accurately at the moment, she had started swimming in this river, and at this point she just needed to see where the current would carry her. She couldn’t undo what everyone had just seen. Couldn’t pretend she hadn’t just kissed Luke in front of God and everybody in the bar.

There was no taking that back. Sure, she could offer up handwritten notes to everyone in attendance explaining what she had tried to do, that she was very sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again. Sure, she could stand up on a chair and make an announcement, that she and Luke had been engaged in a little bit of improv, and hadn’t that been a great scene? But it definitely hadn’t been real.