Smooth-Talking Cowboy

But that would be silly, and she wasn’t going to do that.

Which meant she had no other choice but to allow the current to continue to sweep her along. And hope there wasn’t a waterfall waiting for her at the end.

She beat Luke soundly at darts, which was the only expected thing to come out of the evening. Thankfully, she managed to get herself solid again, and didn’t miss another shot for the rest of the night. Luke, on the other hand, was actually fairly terrible.

“Don’t you know how to shoot a gun?” she asked when they had finished tallying the score, which had been more of a formality than anything else, because she had so obviously beaten him.

“Yes. With a scope. That’s a little bit different.”

“Pretty pitiful, Hollister,” she said, feeling bolstered by the win and momentarily forgetting what had happened a half hour earlier.

“I know my talents. I’m okay with the fact that they don’t lie at the dartboard.”

“Really. Where do they lie exactly?”

“The back of a horse, out on the ranch and in the bedroom.

Heat flared through her body, bleeding out toward her cheeks, down her neck, lower. To all those places that had been affected by the kiss.

“If a man has to boast,” she said, knowing her tone sounded clipped and stiff, “then it sounds a little like just that. Boastfulness with nothing behind it.”

“I don’t boast,” he said. “I’m terrible at darts, and I never claimed any different. One thing you should know about me, Liv. What you see is what you get. I don’t lie.”

“Except now. What Bennett’s seeing isn’t real. Don’t go claiming perfect honesty when you’re in the middle of treachery.”

“I’m being honest where it counts,” he said. “You know what I want.”

Something about the way the heat shimmered in his green eyes when he said that made her stomach tighten. Made her question if she actually did know what he wanted. If this really was all about Bennett and some property her father owned, or if there might be something else. But that was ridiculous. A man like Luke wouldn’t want anything from a woman like her. A woman who barely knew how to kiss, much less anything else.

And if he did, it wouldn’t be about her specifically, but about the fact that he was a man, and they had needs, and all of that. Particularly men like him, who didn’t practice any kind of restraint.

At least, she had never witnessed him practicing restraint of any kind. He was about as different from Bennett as a man could be.

“I have to get up early,” she said. “We should probably go.”

But first, she really needed to use the restroom, because ultimately she had ended up having three Diet Cokes to keep her focus on something—anything—other than Luke.

“All right,” he said, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair.

“Just a second,” she said.

She scurried across the bar, the sound of her footsteps swallowed up by the noise of the people around them and the music playing over the speakers.

She grimaced when she saw that there was a line outside the little single-use room. Strangely, she didn’t want to talk to anyone. Strange, since what she and Luke had been doing had definitely been designed to draw attention. But she didn’t want to actually contend with that attention in real time. She wanted to deal with it on her terms. When she was good and ready to deal with it. And that would be when she had been given a lot more time to process everything herself.

She looked up at the scarred, wooden wall and frowned when she saw a list of names carved into it.

Second to last was Luke Hollister. She put her fingertips against his name, a strange kind of energy zipping through her as she did.

“Found me,” he said.

She looked up, startled. Luke was standing right next to her, his hands shoved into his pockets, his black cowboy hat positioned firmly on his head.

She jerked her hand back as though the wall was on fire and in danger of scalding her skin. “What is it?”

They were all men’s names. She recognized a couple of them, but no one she knew very well. And she couldn’t figure out what they might have in common.

Luke lifted a shoulder. “Dumb shit.”

“What dumb... Stuff?” Now her curiosity was getting the best of her.

“They don’t do it much anymore. This,” he said, tapping his hand against his own name, “is from a long time ago.”

“What? Did you... Drink the most beers or something?”

“When a guy hooked up in the bathroom they used to carve his name on the wall.”

Her stomach plummeted down to her toes. “What?”

“Yeah, Laz put a stop to that. He didn’t much care for people carving into the side of his wall when he bought the place.”

“You... You...”

Just then, the bathroom door opened and a woman walked out, barely glancing at her and Luke as she breezed past.

“Looks like it’s vacant.” He gestured toward the bathroom.

“You’re not going to wait outside for me, are you?” That was all she needed. Luke timing her bathroom break. While she was in there it would also probably be unavoidable to imagine him in there with that woman...

“Yes,” he said. “Because I’m waiting for you.”

“You’re awful,” she said, rushing into the bathroom and shutting the door firmly, locking it behind her. She pressed her palms against her face and realized that it was hot.

She looked around the small room and tried to imagine how on earth a person would... Do that. With everybody outside fully aware of what was going on.

She took care of her necessities, her heart thundering hard the entire time. Then, when she washed her hands, she went ahead and splashed some cool water on her face and her neck.

When she exited the bathroom, he was standing there, leaning against the wall, his head down, his black hat concealing his face. Then he looked up, revealing all that stunning masculine glory. Strong chin, square jaw, those lips that she had kissed. Lips that had kissed another woman and more in the bathroom she had just exited.

That thought was even more effective than the cold water she had literally just splashed on herself.

She walked past him without saying anything and he followed behind her.

“Hang on,” he said when they got to the bar. “I have to settle my tab.”

“You couldn’t have done that instead of loitering outside the bathroom door like a pervert?” she muttered.

“I waited for you,” he said. “You can wait for me.”