Page 25 of Burning Skies
“He didn’t want my virginity. Trust me, I tried.” I laugh and stuff my face with a nacho. That’s something I’d only ever admit to my best friend. “You’re like a little devil on my shoulder.”
“You need to have some fun. If it was up to your father, you’d still be hermetically sealed in your bedroom waiting for some rich asshole to unwrap you.”
We both eat quietly for a moment. “Cyn, do you believe in love?”
“Not sure. I like love in movies. Like when Patrick Swayze tells the dad, ‘No one puts Baby in a corner.’ Or when some guy races down the concourse at the airport to tell the girl that he loves her. Grand gestures are swoony. But I can’t say I’ve experienced anything more than lust and maybe a little unhealthy obsession.”
I swirl the ice in my drink. “I see my friends pairing off andfalling in love, and they seem so happy. My friend Baylee is engaged to this guy Maverick, and all she has to do is snap her fingers and he’s there. Like, he has her back. Doesn’t matter what it is.”
“Must be nice. I could really use someone muscular and sexy to change my oil.”
Laughing, I nod. “That does sound nice.”
After I finish my drink, I ask the question that’s been racing in my mind since that conversation with my father. “What if Ian doesn’t have my back? What if I do everything my family wants, and he’s not someone I can love?”
She gives me a sad smile. “I guess it depends on how much you want that trust fund.”
8
BEAU
It’s been a long fuckingweek. For the first time in months, I decided to join some of my co-workers out for drinks. We picked the Laughing Pony because their food is great. Plus, Loving is hoping to live up to his name tonight and find a woman, and the social scene here is decent, I suppose.
I wanted to have a drink or two and then take off, because I know Rhett has a list a mile long of shit that needs to be done on the ranch.
Instead, I sit here, watching my co-workers at the bar hitting on women, while I listen to the last person I need to be eavesdropping on. Honey McAllister and her friend are in a booth behind me, talking quietly, but since the band hasn’t started playing yet, I can hear their conversation just fine.
Each confession pisses me off more than the last.
Her father wants her to marry some douchebag she’s never met before.
In a few months.
She wants to please her family, who obviously don’t give a rat’s ass about her happiness.
The confessions keep coming. None of the men she’s been with could make her come.
Except me. I made her come.
But the revelation that fucking kills me is finding out she had planned to give me her virginity that night at the Devil’s Den.
I’m not sure whose ass I want to kick right now. My own for turning her down or hers for being so flip about it.
I hold up my hand to wave down Coop. I was saving our table, but I’m not sure he wants it anymore. “I’m gonna take off in a sec.”
“You sure?” He glances back at the bar, where some pretty little thing twiddles her fingers at us.
“Yeah. Got an early morning tomorrow.”
“Well, thanks for coming out tonight. Glad you could make it.”
“See ya next week.” I slide out of the booth, drop some money on the table, and head for the bathrooms, which are down a dark hallway. After I’ve taken a piss and washed my hands, I stare at myself.
Am I the kind of guy who would’ve fucked an eighteen-year-old girl at a sex party? I don’t know the answer anymore. I like to think if faced with the same situation, I’d still act honorably. Because if a man doesn’t have his honor, what’s left?
I slap water on my face, dry it with paper towels, and stare at my black eye that’s gone from purple to green to brown.
Why is this shit twisting me up? Honey and I are never gonna happen. One, the girl hates me. Two, her brothers really fucking hate me. And three, her family has done nothing but shit on me and mine.
