Slow Burn Cowboy

She didn’t know why it was suddenly so obvious. Except for that damn pulled thread. It was the only thing she could think of. That everything felt like it was a little bit off balance, and this was just one of the many symptoms of that.

She felt breathless. Like she had been hollowed out from her chest to her stomach. She was about to look away when Finn turned, opening his eyes.

That electric blue hit her hard. All the way down. To where she felt hollow and for some inexplicable reason it made her feel full again. But not in a good way. In some kind of strange, restless way that made it seem as though her skin was too tight for her body.

She wasn’t an idiot. It might’ve been a while since she’d had a relationship—physical or otherwise—but she knew what attraction felt like.

It wasn’t this. It couldn’t be this. Because this was Finn. And they weren’t that way. She didn’t see him that way.

He didn’t say anything. But he shifted slightly, his tongue dragging briefly over his lower lip before he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with the motion.

And just as the strange pang hit her stomach, in response she levered herself upward, pushing herself to her feet. “I’m cold,” she said, moving quickly off the dock and over to that patch of grass where she’d flung her dress down.

He was still looking at her, and for some reason putting the dress on didn’t make her feel any more covered up than she had just a moment ago. Maybe because he had already seen her in her bathing suit, so she knew that he could still see it in his mind.

Not that there was any reason for him to want to. Just because she was having a great unraveling didn’t mean he was.

But she thought of the way he had looked when he walked up to the house today. There was a slight, unraveled edge to it, she couldn’t deny.

“Feel free to stay down here as long as you want,” she said, turning on her heel and cursing when a piece of gravel dug into her skin. “Ouch,” she muttered, lifting her foot and brushing her hand over the bottom, making sure there were no rocks lingering behind. “See you at the house,” she said, flinging her hand in an approximation of a wave.

It took a minute to realize she was literally running away from her best friend. She slowed for a moment, her heart thundering sickly in her throat.

She swept her hand over her forehead and tried to catch her breath. She turned, facing a knotty pine that was just off the side of the trail that led to the lake. She braced herself against it, pressing her hands firmly against the bark. Then she leaned forward, resting her forehead against it too.

For a moment, she just stood there, conscious of the way her heart was beating in her head. She stood there until it slowed. Until her breathing slowed. Until the quivering sensation in her stomach stilled.

“Are you okay?”

She turned and saw Finn coming up the path, dragging his towel over his damp chest. Her mouth dropped open as she watched the motion of the terry cloth over his muscles, as she watched him wick away the drops of water.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, then opened them again, forcing herself to look away from his chest.

He was carrying her towel in his other hand, and right then she realized that she had left it sitting down there on the dock. And also, that her dress was wet and clinging to her skin because she hadn’t thought to dry herself off before she had run away.

Her mouth went dry as he continued to advance on her. And the quivering sensation was back.

“Fine,” she said.

His gaze was hot on her, and far too assessing. She didn’t know what he was seeing. How could he be seeing anything? She couldn’t untangle what was happening inside her, so there was no way he could. And yet, she felt something. Thought she might see something a lot like understanding in his eyes.

That wasn’t fair. Not at all. Because there was nothing to understand. Not only that, if there was, she deserved to understand it first. So she could deal with it. Crumple it up in a little ball and throw it away. Or at least stuff it back down deep inside of herself where she didn’t have to acknowledge it.

“Then why did you just run away from the lake like there was a rabid varmint after you?”

“I told you, I got cold,” she said, gripping her elbows with opposite hands. “It’s cold. And you dragged me into the water.”

He took a step toward her, and she didn’t move. She just kind of stayed there, rooted to the spot, watching him take another step toward her. Then another.

“That’s what happened?”

She was mad that he was asking, because she had a feeling that he knew. That he knew this terrible, strange thing that was happening inside of her that she didn’t want to put a name to. That he knew exactly why she had jumped up and run in the opposite direction like her very life depended on it.

Or, at the very least, her life as she knew it.

She didn’t know why she was still standing there. She should turn around and walk back toward the house. They looked like idiots, her standing there with her dress clinging to her damp skin, and him shirtless in wet swimming shorts, just staring at each other.

He tilted his head back, swallowing, a motion that she was somehow hyperconscious of now. This everyday thing that he did as easily as breathing. Breathing. What the hell was wrong with her that she was noticing his breathing?

He took another step forward. He was close enough that if she raised her arm and reached out, even with her elbow bent, she would be able to plant her hand on his chest. Not that she would. That would be inappropriate.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe if she really saw him as just a friend it wouldn’t be strange or wrong at all.

She gritted her teeth, rebelling against that thought.

Of course he was a friend.

A friend who was a man. Something she knew, and always had, but was a little bit more aware of right now. That was it.

He lowered his head then, leveling his gaze with hers. He looked at her. Really looked at her. His eyes searching hers, wandering over the planes and angles of her face. She could feel him looking for the answers that she didn’t have.

She balled her hands into fists, keeping them resolutely at her sides.

Tension stretched between them, long and tight. Then, heat rose in his eyes. So blatant and obvious, making such a mockery of all the vague I don’t even know what’s happening assertions that were jumbling around inside of her that she had to turn away.

She walked in front of him, toward the house, taking a deep breath, then letting it out. Doing her best to keep it rhythmic. To keep her pace slow.

So that she didn’t look like she was running.

Even though she was. She absolutely was.

He didn’t say anything, but she could hear the weight of his footsteps behind her, crunching on the gravel. More than that, she could sense his presence, and that just weirded her out even more.

When they came up to the house, she stopped on the bottom step, flinging her arms to the side and turning to face him, grabbing hold of the railing, forming something of a human blockade. “Thanks for coming by,” she said.

He blinked. “Okay.”

“It’s late,” she said. “And I have some work to go over. Things for tomorrow.” She was lying. “Because, you know, the subscription boxes.”

“Right,” he said.

“And I’m going to go to bed early. And probably, I’m going to wash my hair. I have to do some cuticle thing, with my fingernails. And scrub the dry skin off my feet. I have a pumice stone.” She wanted to grab all those words and stuff them back into her mouth. A pumice stone? She had no idea what was wrong with her. Except, if what had just happened down by the tree was actually sexual tension she had probably killed it forever.

She had just mentioned dead foot skin. She had a feeling that was in the handbook for how to turn a man off permanently.

Not that Finn had been turned on. Absolutely not.

“Okay. Well, I guess I will leave you to your...pumice stone.”